In the article dealing with the issue of interrelations of the Union center, on the one hand, and the Baltic republics, on the other, shortly before the disintegration of the USSR, the thesis is substantiated that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, notwithstanding their historically established pro-West orientations, far from being initiators of breaking up the united country, on the contrary, applied efforts for the elaboration and for the signing of a new Union treaty. The author adduces facts demonstrating that the leaders and, especially, deputies, of the Baltic republics in 1989 to 1991 were upholding the idea of reforming the USSR into a democratic state of a federal type with an open liberal economy. In the period of the crisis of the Union the Baltic republics, thanks to the consolidation of their socio-political forces and mutual support, managed to gain sovereignty.