September 5, 1991

Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union

Fifth Soviet Congress approves a transitional government and yields key powers

Gorbachev and the republican leaders handed the Congress a replacement structure in which the Congress itself had no place — and it voted the plan through.

5 September 1991: the Congress votes itself out of government

At its fifth extraordinary session in Moscow on 5 September 1991 — two weeks after the failed August coup — the Congress of People's Deputies proclaimed a transitional period for building a new system of relations among the Soviet republics. It approved proposals submitted jointly by President Mikhail Gorbachev and the republics' leaders, and called for accelerated negotiation of a Union of Sovereign States.

The principal transition resolution passed 1,682 to 43, by the contemporaneous Tass text. Contemporary reporting read the result plainly: an effective transfer of central authority to the republics, and the Congress's practical demise.

The machinery of the transition

Law No. 2392-I, signed by Gorbachev, made a reconstituted two-chamber Supreme Soviet the USSR's supreme representative body and created a State Council of the Soviet president and the republics' chief executives. The two bodies had different functions — the law did not simply pour congressional power into the State Council.

The new Council of the Republics carried a pointed asymmetry: each union republic got one vote, though Russia seated 52 delegates and most republics 20. The reconstituted body had to convene by 2 October.

Not a dissolution — not yet

Calling 5 September a literal self-dissolution overstates the record. The same law that removed the Congress from ordinary government preserved every deputy's status for the remainder of the term, and evidence from the session indicates language foreclosing future congresses was rejected.

The USSR itself continued to exist until December 1991. What 5 September fixed was narrower: the Congress yielded its ordinary governing role even as its deputies formally retained their status.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 3 audit passes

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

Calling the action a literal, unconditional 'self-dissolution' is imprecise. The adopted law removed the Congress from the new governing structure, but preserved deputies' status; evidence from the session also indicates that language foreclosing future congresses was rejected. 'Effective demise' or 'yielded its powers' is safer.
The listed 1,606–116–83 tally appears in tertiary accounts, but the contemporaneous Associated Press/Tass text reports 1,682–43 for the principal transition resolution. These may represent different divisions; the former should not be labeled the definitive self-dissolution vote without the session transcript.