The declaration was adopted during the
collapse of the USSR. Interethnic tensions in the Asian and Caucasian republics had spilled over into bloody inter-ethnic clashes. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared its independence from the USSR, and Latvia and Estonia were actively preparing for the restoration of independence. On the streets of Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainian Interparty Assembly had already registered citizens of the Ukrainian People's Republic. During the only referendum in the history of the USSR (
All-Union Referendum on the Preservation of the USSR), which took place on March 17, 1991, with the assistance of the
Government of the Ukrainian SSR, a republican consultative poll was held in Ukraine at the insistence of the People's Movement for Perestroika as part of the Union of Sovereign Republics on the basis of the Declaration of Sovereignty of Ukraine." More than 80% of respondents answered positively. Secondly, the question sounded like a completely different union state - not the Union of Soviet Socialists, but the Union of Sovereign, Republics. Thus, the consequence of the ideological struggle of the
People's Movement of Ukraine for
perestroika was that the referendum and poll in Ukraine legitimized at least two (and with
Gorbachev's wish - three) completely different forms of union state and took a step towards independence - commitment to the republican government, develop and adopt the Declaration of Sovereignty of Ukraine. Under pressure from public sentiment, the XXVIII Congress of the Communist Party adopted a resolution "On the State Sovereignty of the Ukrainian SSR" (June 1990). As the majority in the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR were Communists, the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the Declaration in pursuance of the resolution of the Congress. ==See also==