So much for that point. But yes the economy did grow pretty well until the late 70s. A good part of that was the recovery from WW2 and the Soviets gaining a lot of resources from countries further west. The other big part was that the Soviets profited from the oil crisis due to the OPEC oil embargo.
As for the 70% referendum to keep the Soviet Union. That was for the New Union Treaty, which would have given the Republics a lot more power, but a common foreign policy and military. Everything else would be handled by the individual republics. The bloody coupe was done by hardline Communists, which wanted to prevent that new treaty.
However the Russian and most former USSR economies really did have a bad time. A lot of companies collapsed and trade barriers were created. It was really a bad time for Russia.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/divergence-of-gdp-per-capita-among-latecomers-to-the-capitalist-revolution-18002016?country=~Former+USSR
So much for that point. But yes the economy did grow pretty well until the late 70s. A good part of that was the recovery from WW2 and the Soviets gaining a lot of resources from countries further west. The other big part was that the Soviets profited from the oil crisis due to the OPEC oil embargo.
As for the 70% referendum to keep the Soviet Union. That was for the New Union Treaty, which would have given the Republics a lot more power, but a common foreign policy and military. Everything else would be handled by the individual republics. The bloody coupe was done by hardline Communists, which wanted to prevent that new treaty.
However the Russian and most former USSR economies really did have a bad time. A lot of companies collapsed and trade barriers were created. It was really a bad time for Russia.