Gorbachev's press secretary Grachev: the USSR could continue to exist as a voluntary union 
The USSR could continue to exist in a democratic version of a voluntary union. The last press secretary of the President of the Soviet Union Andrei Grachev wrote about the missed opportunity to preserve the union in his book “The Last Day of the USSR” (Le jour ou l'URSS a disparu), published in France, RIA Novosti reports.
To him, in order to preserve the USSR, it was necessary to adapt it to the new world and society, on which six years of perestroika were spent, but this was not done. At the same time, an associate of the former president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev said that, according to the ex-head of state, two events prevented the preservation of the USSR: the coup in August 1991 and the Belovezhskaya meeting of the three presidents.
Grachev, in turn, stressed that this is a superficial answer. He stated that the USSR could no longer exist in the form in which it was created, since it was not a voluntary union, but rather a continuation of the Russian Empire. “We can say that Perestroika was the last chance to preserve the Soviet Union, which, unfortunately, was cut short,” Grachev summed up.
Earlier, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, called for Gorbachev to be imprisoned for the collapse of the country. “Gorbachev had to be sent to places not so remote, because he crossed out the will of the peoples to live in a single Soviet country. 77 percent [of citizens] voted for it, “Zyuganov said.