[2] The authors of the writing appealed to the citizens of the country, severely criticizing the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, and they pleaded to avoid the collapse of the Soviet Union, suggesting the formation of new opposition movements.
And this collapse takes place at our silence, toleration and accord.<...> Brethren, too late are we waking up, are observing the misery when our home is already burning in four corners, when extinguishing this has to be done not by water, but by our own tears and blood.
<...>Let us unite, so as to stop the chain reaction of the disastrous collapse of the state, economy, human personality; in order to contribute to the strengthening of the Soviet power, to the transformation of it into a genuinely people's power, and not some manger for the hungry nouveaux riches, who are ready to sell off everything for the sake of their insatiable appetite.<...>Soviet Union, this is our home and stronghold, built with enormous efforts of all the peoples and nations, that has saved us from disgrace and slavery at the times of hideous invasions!
[5] According to A. James Gregor, the signatories (a number of them active CPSU members) abandoned class war rhetoric, emphasizing rather "a salvation of the Motherland",[6] stressing the priority of patriotism[7] over Soviet Marxist ideology.
"[9] In his memoirs, the ideologist of Perestroika and the former head of the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Alexander Yakovlev, negatively characterized the letter, calling it "demagogy", "a set of evil passages and simultaneously desperate moans of the soul", "vulgar essay" and "ideological program of the August rebels".