What kind of system is being built in Ukraine?
After Viktor Yanukovych became president of Ukraine in January this year domestic and foreign analysts, politicians, and journalists wondered about Ukraine’s new regime: how President Yanukovych and his team (with both the familiar and new names) would go about running this country, and what to expect from the future?
European experts were mostly cautious in their assessments, which were echoed by many counterparts in Ukraine. Everyone tends to hope for the best, of course. For each Ukrainian being aware of his/her national identity, notions such as national interest, patriotism, political responsibility, political code of ethics have a deep significance. Even if some of the practicing politicians are far from being ideal, they ought to have the political self-preservation instinct; even if bereft of state patriotism, they ought to care for their posts and play their patriotic role, something which is possible only in an independent country, and that has to be a guideline for any influential party member.
As it is, after the spring, summer, and toward the end of the fall, this optimism appears to be on a downward curve in Ukraine. The same is true of Europe and the United States. Not coincidentally, Den carried Ivan Hordiienko’s article entitled “What is the Party of Regions building in Ukraine?” (No. 197-198, October 29, 2010), one of the most concise and accurate assessments of the current period. Hordiienko notes that “the new Ukraine the Party of Regions wants to build strongly resembles the Ukrainian SSR…” and proceeds to describe the numerous similarities: “All things considered, the Party of Regions is trying to play the role of the bankrupt Communist Party of Ukraine, which is proof that we’re past the waiting period.”
I think he is absolutely right. The question is why, considering the scale of this project, its sources of support and prospects.
First, the Donbas — a very specific area of Ukraine, a neo-Soviet-brainwashed part, together with the Crimea, according to the Image Control Social Study Center — remains the main base of the Party of Regions. Here most people see regard current realities from the Soviet nostalgic angle (e.g. “everything was OK before the Soviet Union collapsed…”). Interestingly, most human values are being attributed to the “Donbas character.” On the other hand, this character and everything that goes with it are locally regarded as sufficient only when supported by Moscow. Even now most Donbas residents subconsciously consider Moscow, not Kyiv, as their capital city. The situation in the Crimea is similar (with the exclusion of the Crimean Tatars). Most elderly residents say that they will make a trip “to Ukraine” when buying rail or airplane tickets to Kyiv. For most of them there is the accursed West, the sworn enemy of Russia, and Stalin and Putin as celebrated leaders of a nation. Needless to say, they are scared stiff of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” and all things Ukrainian (save probably for borshch and salo).
The Kyiv Institute for Social Studies (KMIS) registered 22 percent of respondents, — mostly in the Crimea, Donbas, and southern regions of Ukraine — who supported the idea of Ukraine being made part of Russia during a poll early this year. These people, along with the Communists, constitute the Party of Regions’ reliable electoral base.
Second, the industries of the Donbas and, partially, of the south and southeast regions (where the Party of Regions has firm neo-Soviet support) are markedly obsolete, dating from the turn of the 20th century. Of course, there has been some modernization, but most of the smelting, coal-extraction, rolled-stock and chemical-processing techniques remain the same. In other words, these regions are industrially archaic by 21st-century European standards. Ditto the social structure and mentality, in regard to the majority of the populace. Today’s sham market relationships serve as a front for what a number of Ukrainian and foreign experts refer to as industrial feudalism, with its uppity, uncontrollable social structures.
Third, Ukraine’s national independence, proclaimed in 1991, almost instantly got out of the Ukrainian nation’s control and became rigidly controlled by the most organized political forces. Such forces had consolidated under the Soviets and after the USSR’s collapse they used democratic vehicles to assert their dominance. A decade ago, Dr. James Mace wrote in Den that, back in 1962, the late Dr. Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky saw the roots of today’s Ukraine: republican nomenklatura and those who would seek and promulgate the national values. While he had previously referred to these forces as the territorial/national elite, the tragedy of independent Ukraine is that the territorial, rather than national, elite has become the predominant force, whose functionaries retain all Soviet nomenklatura habits, including saying one thing while having a different thing in mind, and acting in yet another manner. In fact, the Ukrainian economy remains the same nomenklatura-business-underworld triangle it was back in the 1970s. In this sense, the Donbas and the Crimea are very much on the underworld side.
Fourth, many Soviet myths have survived in Donetsk oblast, which is historically known as Sloboda Ukraine (Slobozhanshchyna), the territories adjoining the Black Sea, and the Crimea. These myths weren’t destroyed under presidents Kravchuk, Kuchma, and Yushchenko. In fact, the latter signed a memorandum of understanding with Yanukovych in the spring of 2005 and bungled all attempts of ideological education in these regions on the part of certain political forces and NGOs. Image Control polls have it in black and white that most Donbas citizens respect a strong head of state; for them, he who has power and rules with an iron hand is always right. In this respect, the incumbent President Yushchenko was the weakling, ditto all his Ukrainian projects. The ratings of Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, then down to 15 percent, miraculously jumped twofold and have since remained high. Something well to be expected, considering that even the local intelligentsia wasn’t offered any realistic upbraiding projects by Kyiv, except for hot-air sessions. Hence the understandable self-preservation response: Best to have something we have dealt with over the years, something we understand, than some vaguely formulated new concepts.
Viktor Yanukovych is playing the leading part in this authoritarian/ neototalitarian scenario. Due to his traits and background, this man remains on the level of the manager of a mid-20th-century [Soviet] filling station. He is most comfortable dealing with truck drivers. Hence the consequences, and his concept of patriotism.
In fact, Yanukovych’s patriotism can be called into question for a number of reasons. Had he and his Parteigenossen, as well as the supporting oligarchs, had been Donbas territorial patriots — they would have raised the Donbas living standard, which is glaringly low these days, what with the crime, AIDS, prostitution rate, with a number of the oblast’s towns and transport infrastructure falling into decay. These people “upstairs” appear to be concerned only about soccer, by striving to make Ukraine’s championships part of those in Russia. They are apparently eager to host Russia’s Spartak and CSKA [the Russian acronym for the Central Army Sports Club, a surviving Soviet organization] in Donetsk and send Ukrainian FC teams to Moscow, to be given VIP treatment in return. To make these youthful dreams come true, Ukraine’s richest citizens appear to be prepared to pay mind-boggling sums, just to make Ukraine the laughingstock of the European community of nations. For example, the Faroe Islands, a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark, with a population of 50,000, holds national junior, senior, men’s and women’s soccer championships. And here is Ukraine, prepared to part with one of the symbols of its sovereignty, just so it can play host to Moscow’s Spartak or Lokomotiv teams.
I won’t dwell on the truth of Donetsk’s Shakhtar team being mostly made up of African and Brazilian players, what with all the cock-and-bull stories we’re fed about the Ukrainian government taking care of talented boys from Makiivka and Yenakieve. The result is what we can watch on our television screens (if and when). In a word, the territorial patriotism of the Donbas is too complicated a matter, too different from the European standard.
Naturally, there are a number of Ukrainian patriots in the Donbas (with quite a few having to conceal their patriotic persuasions, strange as it may seem in an independent country). There are, of course, positive traits of the Donbas character; those who really believe in the Ukrainian national idea will make every effort to help it, with Ivan Svitlychny and Ivan Dziuba serving as graphic examples.
I might as well try to sum all this up and try to forecast further steps that will be taken by the current Ukrainian regime, with most executive posts occupied by people from the Donbas and other like-minded areas; people whose moods differ from those prevalent even in Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.
Backed by some one-third of Ukraine’s electorate for the past several year (without standing the chance of increasing this number), the Party of Regions has started building a vertical of power of its own, going the easiest way about it, without involving the narodnyks, communists, etc., even though all of them are this party’s satellites; without going through the lengthy and complicated procedures of winning over the neutral part of the electorate and experts; without trying to gradually add to its ratings, relying on a blitz strategy, having political and monetary support, aimed at destroying every existing and imagined opponent, there and then.
The current political leadership of Ukraine inherently hates everything Ukrainian — perhaps because all of Ukraine’s socially significant movements have relied on the Ukrainian tradition over the past 20 years. In fact, the same is true of the past century. Of course, there have been some marginal democratic efforts involving separate groups of intellectuals, including the Maidan, with Russian-speaking Ukrainians taking an active part, adhering to the Ukrainian national democratic values. And so all who wanted to pose as democrats had to start speaking Ukrainian in public. Some of them even sported vyshyvanka hand-embroidered shirts.
Nothing surprising there, considering that a nation, once given its definite status, produces a community of free citizens capable of working out optimal projects for their own benefit, rather than that of a handful of oligarchs. Those currently in power in Ukraine, along with their sycophants, are faced with entirely different realities.
For them, the Ukrainian state isn’t dear, the way it is for the national democrats. Nor is it a means of self-enrichment, of raising national prestige, as in the case of Leonid Kuchma and his milieu — all those people of the Dnipropetrovsk clan, who could pull strings on the highest bureaucratic level to make important deals. For them, Ukraine was a territory seized after a pitched battle, where they could act as they pleased, and which they had to keep come what may. Since it was impossible to keep their control by holding European-like fair elections (as evidenced by the local election campaign), those in power relied on the law enforcement and clandestine agencies (considering their being exposed to rampant corruption and lack of professionalism). Under the circumstances, Russia was the only powerful option, the more so that Ukraine’s Russian-speaking electorate was no obstacle in professing all those “regional values.”
Ukraine’s current political force in power can achieve the long-sought-for stability by including this country into a rigid structure that will even surpass the Russian standard, by adding the Kremlin’s propaganda and organization potential when handing out bits and pieces from the landlord’s table to the house help. Nothing is done in return for nothing. Ukraine will have to pay with its political sovereignty and certain strategically important economic projects.
It stands to logic to wonder whether Ukraine is doomed to play out this scenario. My answer is resolutely in the negative. In fact, the Party of Regions’ neo-Soviet directives are in stark contrast to current realities. Previously, one could exchange one’s loyalty for a decent living; today, all one hears is promises from the powers that be while being told to combat “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism.” These [propaganda] resources aren’t limitless, nor is the fear of all those “upstairs.” Verily keep fighting and you shall win.
