You mean the vote that was boycotted by 6 of the 15 soviet occupied countries due to how it was phrased among other things? There was no independence option in the referendum, just how should the USSR be preserved.
Also most of the Easter European countries voted to declare independence shortly after.
I was around 20 at the time and in one of the boycotting countries. We later had a vote for independence, I think the support was around 80% or 90%.
Yea, the first link was just how people felt like a while ago when a lot of ex soviet countries were still struggling over a decade ago. That would make sense too, if an economic union collapses your country is fucked for a while. Like if the EU collapsed it would have even more severe consequences and any poll would give similar results for decades to come.
I don’t know why they would vote for socialism suddenly during the votes for independence. If Russia couldn’t do that with 60 years of killing, imprisoning, slaving and deporting political dissidents, artists, scientists, gays, jews and people not ethnically russian than a referendum for independence ain’t gonna make socialism happen either. I guess giving people the ability to vote was rather new but yea, it didn’t make socialism happen either.