Explanation:
"Dear compatriots! Fellow citizens! Due to the situation that has taken shape as a result of the
formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I am ceasing my activity in the post of
President of the USSR. I am making this decision out of considerations of principle.
I have fi rmly advocated the independence of peoples and the sovereignty of [Soviet] republics. But
at the same time I have favored the preservation of the Union state and the integrity of the country.
Events have taken a different path. A policy line aimed at dismembering the country and disuniting
the state has prevailed, something that I cannot agree with . . .
Speaking to you for the last time as President of the USSR, I consider it necessary to express my
assessment of the path traversed [traveled] since 1985. Especially since there are a good many
contradictory, superfi cial and unobjective opinions on this score [state of affairs].
Fate ordained that when I became head of state it was already clear that things were not going
well in the country. We have a great deal of everything — land, petroleum, gas and other natural
resources — and God has endowed us with intelligence and talent, too, but we live much worse
than people in the developed countries do, and we are lagging further and further behind them. . . .
I realized that to begin reforms on such a scale and in such a society as ours was an extremely
diffi cult and even riskier endeavor. But even today I am convinced of the historical correctness of
the democratic reforms that were begun in the spring of 1985 . . .
The totalitarian system, which for a long time deprived the country of the opportunity to become
prosperous and fl ourishing, has been eliminated.
–A breakthrough has been achieved in the area of democratic transformations. Free elections,
freedom of the press, religious freedoms, representative bodies of power and a multiparty system
have become a reality. Human rights have been recognized as the highest principle.
–Movement toward a mixed economy has begun, and the equality of all forms of ownership is
being established. Within the framework of a land reform, the peasantry has begun to revive,
private farming has appeared, and millions of hectares of land are being given to rural and urban
people. The economic freedom of the producer has been legalized, and entrepreneurship, the
formation of joint-stock companies and privatization have begun to gather momentum".
