In February 1992, instead of the main favorite, the USSR national team, a team arrived at the Olympics in French Albertville, under the name of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), incomprehensible to most rivals and fans, and without a national flag with an anthem. More than 20 years later, what the CIS is and why it was created has been practically forgotten in the former Soviet Union itself, which long ago turned into 15 states not always friendly with each other with a common history and different present and future.
On the ruins of the USSR
The history of the emergence of the CIS on the ruins of the almost overnight destroyed Soviet Union resembles a banal scene of parting of two lovers who said goodbye to each other: “Let's disperse and remain only friends!”. It reminds me in the sense that, having ceased to be a single country, the former Soviet republics, more precisely, some of their politicians, made an attempt to preserve at least the semblance of former truly friendly relations. And they created a supranational and, in fact, not too legitimate public organization without clear goals and objectives. Only a passionate fighter with windmills from Cervantes' novel could recognize which legal or even simply having life prospects.
Having declared during the creation of the CIS their seemingly sincere desire to develop further union relations based on the principles of voluntariness, mutual respect and recognition of state sovereignty, eleven republics of the Commonwealth almost immediately fled to their new sovereign "homes" - countries. As a result, quickly turning a good idea on paper into a profanation. However, you can also understand them: is it to the CIS here, when there are many things to do at home. After all, everyone has more than just a past …
From Moscow to Brest
On December 8, 1991, it was officially announced that a de facto international organization called the CIS was created on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the purpose of which was to continue cooperation between the republics in matters of politics, economy, culture and even defense. This decision was the result of an informal meeting of six leaders and chairmen of the Councils of Ministers of three still Soviet republics at that time. It took place in the hunting estate of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "Viskuli", located in the Belarusian reserve Belovezhskaya Pushcha, familiar to many from the famous song. Russians Boris Yeltsin and Gennady Burbulis, Ukrainians Leonid Kravchuk and Vitold Fokin, Belarusians Stanislav Shushkevich and Vyacheslav Kebich took part in it.
It is curious that even Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, which continued to exist, was not informed about the place and time of the secret meeting. He learned about her only from the KGB officers, but he did not give the order to arrest the actual conspirators. And soon he lost his post. It is precisely from the name of the Pushcha, located near the Polish border, that the agreement was named "Belovezhskoe". By the way, five of the six main participants, besides Yeltsin, are still alive to this day. But in active politics there is only one - the Belarusian oppositionist and pensioner Shushkevich.
Observers from Afghanistan
The document, which, in addition to the preamble, included 14 more articles, recorded the end of the existence of the USSR and the formation of the CIS on its basis. Where could voluntarily enter not only the founding Commonwealth of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR, but also all the other union republics. Subsequently, this right was exercised by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. In 1993, Georgia also joined the organization, which left it six years later, after the military conflict with Russia in South Ossetia.
In addition to Georgia, there were other losses: in 2005, Turkmenistan changed its full-fledged status to an "observer" (Afghanistan and Mongolia also have it), and in 2014, belligerent Ukraine announced its withdrawal. On December 30, 1991, all CIS members signed an agreement in Minsk on the Council of Heads of State and on its leader. The first was elected President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, and the current one is his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. The creation of the Commonwealth was finally completed on January 22, 1993. And also in Minsk, where the main document was approved - the Charter.
And Tretyakov is against it
In June 2014, the Constitutional Court of Russia received a complaint from a resident of Togliatti, Dmitry Tretyakov, that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to consider his claim on the illegality of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the CIS on its basis.
Based on the legal documents of those years, Tretyakov argued, not without reason, that the “Declaration on the end of the existence of the USSR” was illegal in the first place. After all, it was adopted on December 26, 1991 by the so-called Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which is not provided for by the country's Constitution. To the chagrin of the applicant, and probably not only him, the court did not consider the complaint. Thus, having recognized the decision of the Supreme Court as completely constitutional, and the creation of the CIS - legal.
