February 1991. “…Every Word Matters in Such a Statement…”: from the History of Preparing the Leningrad City Council Deputies’ Statement in Support of Boris Yeltsin, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

This article, using archival materials, memoirs, and transcripts of Leningrad City Council meetings, examines one of the key episodes of the 1991 political crisis in the USSR: Boris Yeltsins televised address on February 19 demanding the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev. The focus is on the reaction to this address by the Leningrad City Council of Peoples Deputies (Lensovet). The authors analyze in detail the debates and the process of preparing the Lensoviets statement in support of Yeltsins position, demonstrating the deep rift within society and the government. They show how the democratic majority of the Lensoviet, overcoming the resistance of the communist faction, adopted a document condemning the policies of the Union center and calling for the transfer of power to the Federation Council. They conclude that these events became an important indicator of the gradual loss of legitimacy of the Union government and a harbinger of the subsequent collapse of the USSR.