New Union Treaty

Union of Sovereign States Союз Суверенных Государств  (Russian)
Flag State Emblem
The Soviet Republics which drafted the New Union Treaty (orange and dark red) and the non-participating republics (black).
Status	Non-existent
Capital and largest city	Moscow
Official languages	Russian
Religion	see Religion in the Soviet Union
Demonym	Russian Soviet
Republics	Russian SFSR  Ukraine  Byelorussia  Azerbaijan  Kazakhstan  Kirghizia  Tajikistan  Turkmenia  Uzbekistan
Government	Proposed confederation
• President	Mikhail Gorbachev
Confederation
• Proposed	23 November 1990
• Referendum	17 March 1991
• "9+1" Agreement	23 April 1991
• Commonwealth of Independent States	8 December 1991
Area
• Total	22,402,200 km2 (8,649,500 sq mi)
Population
• 1991 estimate	293,047,571
• Density	13.1/km2 (33.9/sq mi)
Currency	Soviet ruble (руб) (SUR) (SUR)
Time zone	(UTC+2 to +12)
Drives on the	right
Internet TLD	.su

The Union of Sovereign States (Russian: Сою́з Сувере́нных Госуда́рств [ССГ] Soyuz Suverennykh Gosudarstv [SSG]) was the proposed name of a reorganization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into a new confederal entity. Proposed by the then President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, the proposal was an attempt to avert the collapse of the Soviet Union. The proposal was never implemented in the wake of the August Coup and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The overall proposal was resurrected as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although as a regional organization, not a confederation.

The New Union Treaty (Russian: Новый союзный договор) was a draft treaty that would have replaced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and thus would have replaced the Soviet Union with a new entity named the Union of Sovereign States, an attempt of Mikhail Gorbachev to salvage and reform the Soviet state. A ceremony of the Russian SFSR signing the treaty was scheduled for 20 August 1991, but was prevented by the August Coup a day earlier. The preparation of this treaty was known as the Novo-Ogarevo process (новоогаревский процесс), named after Novo-Ogaryovo, a governmental estate where the work on the document was carried out and where Gorbachev talked with leaders of Union republics.