Many respondents (40%) were hesitant to answer the question of who was to blame for the demise of the USSR

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. More than half of Russians (64%) would vote for keeping the Soviet Union if a referendum were held on this issue, according to the poll results posted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) on its website on Wednesday.

"Twenty-five years after the referendum on preserving the USSR was held [March 17, 1991], most citizens have again expressed their readiness to give a positive answer," the pollster said. "Thus, according to the data of the USSR referendum central commission, 76% of voters [71% in the Russian Federation] who came to the polls ticked off the box ‘yes’ on the ballot papers. Today as many as 64% of Russians say they would vote for preserving the Soviet Union," the pollster said. The maximum share of positive answers (81%) was registered among the supporters of Russia’s Communist Party (KPRF). This figure rises from 47% among people aged 18-24 to 76% among respondents aged 60 and more, VTsIOM said. Only 20% of Russian citizens would vote negatively for preserving the Soviet Union in its renewed format, according to the poll results.

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Citizens of contemporary Russia blame last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (27%) and his team for failure to carry through the people’s free will expressed at the referendum for preserving the Soviet Union, as well as the supreme authorities in general (17%), first Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his close associates (13%), the poll results show. Only 2% of the respondents pointed to the influence of the United States and other Western countries and only 1% of those polled said there was no one to blame for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, many respondents (40%) were hesitant to answer the question of who was to blame for the demise of the USSR, the pollster said.