Soviet People Vote to Preserve Union - March 1991

During another turbulent month in the Soviet Union, the people voted to keep their federal union. On March 1, nearly 200,000 coal miners went on strike in the Ukarine, Kazakhstan, Russia, demanding higher pay. The strike spread and soon included a demand by the miners that Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev resign. In nonbinding plebiscites, March 3, voters in Estonia and Latvia backed independence from the Soviet Union. The final draft of the union treaty, published March 9, proposed to transform the nation into a "democratic state, formed as a result of a voluntary union equal republics," from which any republic could secede. Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia, March 9, urged democratic forces to "declare war on the leadership…which has led us into a quagmire." Hundreds of thousands of Yeltsin's supporters demostrated in Moscow and other cities, March 10. Mayor Gavril Popov of Moscow urged citizens not to support the treaty. With only 9 of 15 republics officially participating, the treaty was approved, March 17, with 77 percent of some 105M voters reportedly saying yes. In an apparent boost for Yeltsin, Russian voters approved direct election of their president. Gorbachev, March 25, banned demostrations for 3 weeks in Moscow, but on March 28, more than 100,000 Yeltsin supporters turned out anyway.