17/03/2011: 20 years ago

Twenty years ago, 70% of the Soviet citizens freely - with no physical coercion, no vote rigging (although with psychological pre-conditioning/anchoring), in a virtually spontaneous referendum voted to keep a reformed USSR. Ten months later, the USSR was no more. However, the vote only counted in 9 out of 15 republics as a number of republics have decided not to take part in the referendum.