Treaty on the Creation of the USSR
On 15 August 1989, official daily newspaper "Pravda", in response to worker strikes in Estonia, published sharp criticism of "hysteria" driven by "extremist elements" pursuing selfish "narrow nationalist positions" against the greater benefit of the entire Soviet Union. On 17 August, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published a project of new policy regarding the union republics in "Pravda". However, this project offered few new ideas: it preserved Moscow's leadership not only in foreign policy and defense, but also in economy, science, and culture. The project made few cautious concessions: it proposed the republics the right to challenge national laws in a court (at the time all three Baltic states had amended their constitutions giving their Supreme Soviets the right to veto national laws) and the right to promote their national languages to the level of the official state language (at the same time the project emphasised the leading role of the Russian language). The project also included law banning "nationalist and chauvinist organisations," which could be used to persecute pro-independence groups in the Baltics, and a proposal to replace the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR of 1922 with a new unifying agreement, which would be part of the Soviet constitution.