MOSCOW. Aug 15 (Interfax) - The Soviet Union was destroyed by opponents to perestroika contrary to public will, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has said.
"We started reforming the Soviet Union too late," he said in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel quoted by Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Monday.
Some republics wanted to see a union of states, while most republics wanted a unified state with elements of a confederation, Gorbachev said.
As a result, a referendum was held at the suggestion of the Soviet president in which 76% of the population supported Gorbachev.
Boris Yeltsin was opposed to the referendum. "The opponents to perestroika suffered a defeat. And then they decided to stage a coup," Gorbachev said.
"The [Soviet] Union was destroyed against the will of the people and that was done absolutely deliberately by the Russian leadership, on the one hand, and the coup leaders, on the other," he said.
Gorbachev added that in public opinion polls today most people regret the disintegration of the USSR, but only 9% answer 'yes' to the question whether they would want its revival.