in the campaign “Manipulative Referendum on the Preservation of the USSR (March 1991)”
A referendum with a vague formulation to legitimize union control: the ballot of the 17 March 1991 referendum asked voters to endorse "the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics"[1] – even though the content of the "renewed federation" was nowhere defined, while the result was then used as a mandate for a new union treaty.