Why did Crimea’s parliament agree to join Ukraine?

Question

I'm reading Medea Benjamin's War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, which mentions that:

Crimea was transferred administratively from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954 after Nikita Khrushchev, who was from Ukraine, succeeded the late Josef Stalin as Soviet leader.

After the Ukrainian parliament voted for independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Crimea held a referendum in January 1991; more than 94 percent of its people voted for independence from Ukraine, and Crimea briefly became an Autonomous Soviet Republic within the U.S.S.R. But when the Soviet Union finally broke up later that year, Crimea’s parliament agreed to join Ukraine, overriding the expressed will of the large majority of its people, until the issue came to the fore again in 2014.

What were the circumstances that made Crimea’s parliament agree to join Ukraine although it was against the will of the majority (questioning also if this was really the case) of the people?

Answer 1

The quoted text and the Wikipage page you linked to do not seem to agree on the meaning of the referendum, and the book (and your question) are definitely wrong on "Crimea joining Ukraine" in 1991.

Wikipedia tells us:

The Crimean ASSR was originally created in 1921, as part of the Russian SFSR in the Soviet Union. Crimea was invaded by Nazi Germany during World War II, and when the region was reclaimed by the USSR in 1944, the Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups were deported to Central Asia, and the ASSR was dissolved in 1945 with Crimea becoming an oblast of the Russian SSR. On 5 February 1954, it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. During the collapse of the Soviet Union at the start of the 1990s, the Russian SFSR declared itself sovereign on 12 June 1990 and the Ukrainian SSR declared itself sovereign on 16 July 1990.

In September 1990, the Soviet of People's Deputies of the Crimean Oblast called for the restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic together with the previous level of autonomy that the peninsula had enjoyed under the ASSR.

So they tell us:

• 1921 - WW II: Crimea was an ASSR within the Russian SFSR
• WW II: invaded by Nazi Germany
• 1945 - 1954: Crimea was an Oblast in the Russian SSR
• 1954 - 1990: Crimea was an Oblast in the Ukrainian SSR

So the question is not whether they wanted to be part of Russia or of the Ukraine or of any other SSR or altogether independent, but rather whether they wanted to remain an Oblast within an SSR, or become an ASSR within an SSR. Since they were already part of the Ukrainian SSR, that means switching from an Oblast in Ukraine to an ASSR within Ukraine. There's no mention of becoming independent from Ukraine, just gaining the "Autonomous" status within Ukraine (of course the ultimate goal could have been independence, but that was not what was explicitly expressed at this point).

And so that's what the Ukrainian (not Crimean) parliament (reluctantly, apparently) did after the referendum: exactly what the people voted for.

The Crimean Parliament later "declared the state sovereignty of Crimea as a constituent part of the Ukraine". But that's not "joining the Ukraine" (they were already part of the Ukraine for decades), that's just going one notch further in their autonomy (normally declaring state sovereignty would be a claim for independence, but they still decided to remain "a constituent part of the Ukraine).

The book makes it appear as a referendum on independence, when it definitely wasn't (it was a move in that direction, sure, why it wasn't independence). Autonomy and independence are quite different things (ask Catalonia or Scotland).

I hope the rest of the book is better, but given the synopsis...

Answer 2

Autonomous_Soviet_Socialist_Republics (ASSRs) belong to Soviet Republics (SSRs). There is no precedent that I know of that an ASSR would be a top-level entity within USSR. And indeed the historical Crimean ASSR was within the Ukrainian SSR.

So what they've voted in is becoming an ASSR within Ukrainian SSR, which turned into the Autonomous Republic of Crimea inside Ukraine.

I don't see any way there to treat Crimea as ASSR inside Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR, e.g. Russia). I also don't see any ASSRs becoming independent states, even though one of the USSR decrees would permit it.

Answer 3

The 1991 referendum was definitely an independence referendum. As the Wikipedia article on it says:

The referendum did not just call for the restoration for the ASSR, but further called for Crimea to be a participant in the New Union Treaty – an ultimately futile attempt by Mikhail Gorbachev to reconstitute the USSR. This would have meant that Crimea would have been a sovereign subject of the renewed USSR[10] and separate from the Ukrainian SSR (emphasis mine).

Crimeans plans were to establish themselves as an independent, sovereign state, and they chosed the path of least resistance they saw: becoming an ASSR, joining the New Union Treaty and establish their independence. The fall of the Soviet Union before the New Union Treaty could materialize left them in a limbo, caught in the step 1 of the process - becoming an ASSR - without a way to make it into step 2.

With the fall of the Soviet Union later that year, Ukraine accepted Crimea's new name, but not its status. So is, Crimea could call itself "autonomous", but it wasn't. Ukraine called a referendum to declare itself independent, but approval was low in Crimea. In May 1992, Crimea's parliament then declared independence from Ukraine, but Kiev's authority called that decision illegal. Again, Crimea's parliament decided to postpone the referendum that should ratificate the decision - but they didn't cancelled it.

In 1994, they run again another referendum of independence, and this time they went ahead despite Ukraine's wishes - Ukraine was suffering the economic collapse of all ex-soviet republics, and had been stripped of its nuclear weapons, so they probably thought they couldn't afford a military operation. The 1994 referendum asked for Crimeans to have dual ukrainian/russian citizenship, President of Crimea's decrees having status of law and relationship between Crimea and Ukraine to be defined in a Treaty - so is, de facto independence, even if Ukraine wanted to keep considering Crimea as part of Ukraine. The three questions were aproved by solid majorities - even if the USSR didn't exist anymore.

The situation deteriorated rapidly, with Crimean authorities creating state agencies and infrastructures as if they were actually sovereign, until Ukraine sent the army in.

The situation became so threatening that the Ukrainian authorities were forced to take decisive measures to restore Ukrainian sovereignty on the peninsula. In March 1995, the Ukrainian Parliament abolished the Crimean Constitution and the office of the President of Crimea. Soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine and Ukrainian special forces were transferred to the peninsula.

All in all, Crimea staying in Ukraine despite wanting to be independent is not different from Ukraine voting that ukrainian laws have precedence over soviet laws, but not outright declaring independence back in 1990. Declaring independence of a part of the country is usually met by a military response from the central government - it's not just that a powerful USRR would sent its tanks to Prague, it's that UK sent its army against Washington, and Lincoln sent the Union Army against the Confederates. When you're dealing with independence, cautious steps are sensible options. Ukraine only declared itself independent after the definitive collapse of the USSR, while Crimea's attempts of independence in 1991 and 1994 were ignored or crushed, and only the one in 2014 - with russian troops on the territory - went ahead.