The reform of our enormous state indeed demanded decentralization and redistribution of powers between the centre and the regions. But the local elit… - Mikhail Gorbachev

You shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet, especially from sites that can be edited by anyone with a working email address.

The Supreme Soviets of the Republics rejected the Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States, drafted by the USSR State Council under the guidance of the country's President, and swallowed the poisoned fruit of the Belovezh scheme instead. The intelligentsia remained silent. The media were thrown into disarray. My appeals to the deputies of the Supreme Soviet and to the people, my warning that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was fraught with dire consequences, went unheeded - society was bewildered and unable to appraise the crisis. Destructive forces in the country exploited the confusion, usurping the people's right to decide their own future. It was what I had feared most of all.

Ideological and political intolerance, even with the best and most sincere intentions, produces results that are the direct opposite of those intended.