30 years of the collapse of the USSR: ambition and betrayal

December 8, 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the notorious Belovezh collusion, officially called the "Belovezh Accords on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States", which stated the termination of the existence of the USSR as a subject of international law.

Three teams met. From Russia, President Boris Yeltsin, First Deputy Prime Minister G. Burbulis, Russian Foreign Minister A. Kozyrev, state councillor S. Shakhray. From Ukraine - President L. Kravchuk, Prime Minister V. Fokin, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine A. Zlenko. From Belarus - the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic V. Kebich, Chairman of the Supreme Council S. Shushkevich and Foreign Minister of Belarus P. Kravchenko. There was no President in Belarus at that time.

No press was taken with them this time, which was noticed in Moscow. The signing was secret. The President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev knew nothing about the meeting or the signing of the Accord. Already this fact alone not only speaks of the illegality of the dissolution of the USSR, but also that what was happening was a real conspiracy, a coup d'etat.

And already the fact that Yeltsin, after signing the Accord, immediately called not Gorbachev, but US President George H.W. Bush and told him that the USSR was dissolved, but that Gorbachev does not know anything yet, does not require at all proof of the fact of a coup with foreign participation. This is a treason!

There is still no legal assessment of the actions of Burbulis, Shakhray and Kozyrev. A legal assessment is also necessary for all participants in the Belovezh collusion, including from the Belarusian and Ukrainian sides. And the very fact of the dissolution of the USSR has not been denounced and declared illegal. After that, any fight against traitors looks at least inconsistent.

In general, the meeting itself at the Belarusian hunting government dacha "Viskuli", located in the centre of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, was not presented as the dissolution of the USSR. They met ostensibly to discuss Russian oil and gas supplies to Belarus and Ukraine – this was a cover story. They gathered a day earlier – on December 7.

Kravchuk admitted that the meeting was secretly agreed upon in Moscow, in between meetings, when negotiations were underway with Gorbachev in Novо- Ogarevo on the conclusion of a new Union Treaty. Already back then, they decided to meet away from the eyes, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. And everyone understood why.

Shushkevich and Kravchuk later said that there was allegedly no plan to dissolve the USSR. That they gathered allegedly to discuss a way out of the Novo-Ogarevo negotiation impasse and wanted to write a declaration with new ideas, but in the process the current outcome had been reached in the way it had – they dissolved the USSR and created the CIS.

Their explanations are false – it was possible to agree on a declaration of a negotiation impasse in the next room. No one would have said a word. It is for this, in fact, that everyone was going to Novo-Ogarevo. For this there was no need to leave Moscow and hide in the partisan wilderness of Belarus.

In general, it's deus ex machina. It is possible to believe in this lie only when you have a very strong desire to do so. The agreement on the dissolution of the USSR was a general and pre-prepared decision. Only the text of the Accord should not have been prepared as a kitchen-table effort. Obviously, this was done by Burbulis and Shakhray. Kravchuk was afraid of arrest up to the last moment and therefore did not prepare anything himself. It suited him that the Russian side took over everything.

It is also known that Kebich was an opponent of the dissolution of the USSR and resisted it for as long as he could. Shushkevich did not object. But already such a lineup suggested that they could not prepare a draft agreement on the dissolution of the USSR. But Yeltsin had all the motives for this.

So all the impromptu performances were prepared in advance, and the shy poses of the bashful thieves Kravchuk and Shushkevich should not be misleading. This "Secret Alliance of a sword and a plowshare" was only hiding behind "helping children", but in fact was preparing a coup d'etat. Ilf and Petrov surprisingly accurately described the upcoming procedure for the dissolution of the USSR.

The question arises: why did the very idea of re-signing the Union Treaty suddenly appear on the agenda? What was wrong with the old one? Interfering with what?

Perestroika was underway. The sixth article was removed from the Constitution, regional profit-and-loss accountancy was introduced without delay. They carried out a price reform. The party was removed from the management of the political process, but the system of Supreme Soviets was preserved and did not require reconstruction. Why was a new Union Treaty needed, which immediately put Moscow in the weak position of a solicitor in relation to the Union republics?

After 30 years, it is clear that Gorbachev, who had lost his social support, was looking for a new legitimacy. The people already hated him, he destroyed the party, undermined the base of the security forces, surrendered Eastern Europe to NATO and betrayed the heads of all allied states. He needed a new ship to replace the almost drowned one, drowned by Gorbachev himself. Gorbachev wanted to move comfortably to this ship and settle there in a new capacity.

To do this, he started the sovereignty trade. He first handed it over to the West, and then he could not stop due to the momentum of the process. Having stuck in the air, Gorbachev began to seek support from regional elites. It was not Yeltsin, but Gorbachev who first promised them as much sovereignty as they could swallow. Only he called it in other words.

It all started with the development of the concept of regional self-financing for Estonia. In Estonia they received this task and tried to get out of it, believing that after its completing all of them would be put in prison. Outright separatism bulged like an awl out of a bag. But in Moscow they made it clear that everyone will be put in prison not for developing the concept, but for refusing to develop it. The genie was released from the bottle. The point of no return was passed.

The regional elites realised that Moscow had weakened so much that it was not even bargaining, but asking. It was impossible to miss such a chance. Gorbachev, in the fight against Yeltsin, was ready to turn not only the USSR, but also Russia into a confederation. A plan was developed to give the Russian autonomies the status of union republics. All this is in exchange for political support against Yeltsin.

In his turn, Yeltsin rushed to defend his power by any means. He saw how the heads of the autonomous regions were already crowding into Gorbachev's reception room, dictating their terms. It was a matter of hours. Literally a day before Gorbachev's planned announcement of a change in the status of Russian autonomies, the Russian Supreme Council decided on Russia's sovereignty on June 12. If Yeltsin had been late for one night, Russia would have collapsed, just like the USSR. The act of sovereignty knocked all the trump cards out of Gorbachev's hands. The territorial integrity of Russia was saved, but at the cost of sacrificing the USSR.

Yeltsin betrayed the USSR and saved Russia not out of patriotism, but out of a thirst for power. The parade of sovereignties began earlier, when Gorbachev made it clear to the republican party secretaries in Novo-Ogarevo that the USSR was over. And that a new form of it can be established only with their consent and on their terms.

Is it possible to imagine that ancient Rome suddenly decided to offer the provinces to conclude a treaty of alliance? Thereby putting the regions on the same level with the centre– and in fact even higher, since they could not agree to the conditions and demand their own ones.

Where, at what borders and for what reason could the retreat of the centre be stopped? Is it not clear in advance that until all provinces withdraw completely from the empire, and their governors, procurators and prefects acquire the status of local emperors, there will be no agreement? That there will be only one agreement - an act on the liquidation of the country?

The reason for what happened is that the CPSU has already turned into a castrated community so much that even understanding everything, it signed its own death sentence and went to put a rope around its neck. The historical negative selection gathered in the CPSU, for the most part, careerists who understood that outside the CPSU they had an alternative to exchanging power for property.

A huge number of party functionaries, the top of the Komsomol, directors were already engaged in business, having created cooperatives and joint ventures with foreign firms to import computers, consumer goods and believing that without the USSR and the CPSU they would gain a new status. Whereas party's groupies which were cowardly and selected so sterile that they were more afraid of not pleasing their superiors than of the death.

The murder of the USSR had almost no active opponents. Everyone was tired of the mess and shortage, of the prolonged stagnation and wanted anything to happen, but to happen. The popular bard Yuliy Kim sang back then: "Go away, your time is up, go behind the glass and under the glass, and we'll do mistakes and play dumb, but most importantly - without you, without you, without you." The people applauded and agreed to everything, if only without Gorbachev. The fact that the child was thrown out along with the bathtub, they realised later.

Now most of the Russian elite comes from perestroika. Its success arose on the collapse of the USSR. Not on creation, but on the looting from privatisation. It is not surprising that ravens do not peck out ravens’ eyes – there are no legal decisions on the illegality and criminality of the Belovezh collusion yet.

But generations are changing, and descendants will be able to do what contemporaries cannot. A trial for the Belovezh Accord is inevitable, like the Nuremberg Tribunal. It will take place, because the dissolution of the USSR in the form in which it occurred is a crime for which there is no statute of limitations.

Vladimir Putin in 2005 in a message to the Federal Assembly said: "The collapse of the USSR is the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." In terms of meaning, it turns out that it is worse than the Great Patriotic War with all its victims. And this is not a metaphor. This is the basis for making a legal assessment of the collapse of the USSR. As well as the verdict of all its participants. Regardless of whether they will be alive by that period or not. It's not important for history.

The USSR cannot be returned, and no one is going to do it. Like how no-one is going to question the actual sovereignty of the former Soviet republics - the current sovereign states. But the way in which this sovereignty was obtained, will always be on them as a mark. They and we have to live with it.

Let the diplomats get out of it as they can, that's their job. And lawyers should call a spade a spade. So that one day this will not happen again with Russia.

The precedent of the trial of the participants of the Belovezh Accord will forever close the possibilities of crimes against statehood committed by top statesmen according to the methods of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich. Their names, like the name of Herostratus, should be a warning to posterity. Until we have done this, Russia remains in danger.