Post-Revolutionary Disillusionment

In 1920, as the Red Cavalry fell apart in Western Ukraine in a riot of incompetence and mayhem, a disillusioned Isaac Babel wrote in his diary, “They all say they are fighting for justice and they all loot.”

Last week, an indignant Secretary of State Oleksandr Zinchenko, took much the same tone in his televised resignation, disillusionment with what the Orange Revolution had produced and a sense that the nation’s romantic purpose had been betrayed and hopelessly compromised.

As Washington returns from a painful summer, people here are beginning to wonder what is it about Kievan politics which seems to induce such despair in Ukraine’s most talented citizens. Actually, there are two separate issues in the minds of the few American policymakers who concern themselves with the future of Ukraine.

First, since character is supposed to predict destiny, what does all this acrimony say about the character of Ukraine? Is this the way European democracies normally act or does the constant charge of corruption and counter- charge of provocation suggest a stranger, more neurotic and, frankly, foreign country? This first issue could be called the question of Ukraine’s astounding ability to disappoint itself.

The second issue relates to the persistent lack of progress in Ukraine’s development as a European nation. Whether we look at the last years of President Kuchma or the first years of President Yushchenko, discussions with NATO are always behind schedule, WTO membership is still blocked in Parliament, and EU discussions are just over the horizon. Is Ukraine wrestling with some deep-seeded psychological problems often associated with people who have been occupied and brutalized? Or is there just something wrong with this year’s political leadership which a little EU “capacity building” could fix in a few months? In other words, has the Yushchenko Government stumbled as a result of its own clumsiness or were the Ministers tripped up by darker forces about which Brussels and Washington know next to nothing?

Both issues are worthy of serious examination.

On the question of national character, most Americans who give it a thought think that all Slavic peoples indulge in an excessive amount of political fatalism, which in our country is regarded as something akin to self-pity. But Ukraine seems to have a special, private cellar of self-doubt and pessimism. Americans tend to believe that Ukraine should be one of the most hopeful and optimistic countries in the world, blessed by a vibrant culture, exceptional art and resources, and a highly motivated and idealistic youth. Not to mention the widespread support throughout Europe for Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO and the European Union.

By contrast, the grievances of Serbia are understandable, even if they are not forgivable. Belgrade has had a role in starting many of the European wars of the 20th century and has repeatedly paid for it by being destroyed by the Great Powers in the opening days of each conflict. When a student at Belgrade University describes the isolation of Serbian youth from Europe which persists to this day and the litany of injustices done to the Serbian people, it is difficult for even the most cold-hearted not to think that life has been unfair to this family of the Southern Slavs.

Similarly, Bulgaria, which has distinguished itself by switching sides repeatedly throughout the 20th century, must have some legitimate regrets about their leaders’ uncanny ability to pick the losing side of history and to embrace the most disastrous course of action. But can this be said of Ukraine?

From an admittedly distant American perspective, the facts of Ukraine’s history and its most recent triumph in the Orange Revolution refute the claim for Ukraine as a nation of victims and comprehensive state corruption. Perhaps no country (with the possible exception of Poland) prevailed against Nazi aggression and Soviet occupation with as firm a sense of identity and national purpose as Ukraine. Few countries in Europe have been consistently as resilient militarily, technologically, artistically and even athletically as Ukraine. One wonders at a country which can qualify for the World Cup, but cannot enact the most basic reforms without months of bickering.

It is obviously not military or economic failures that retard the progress of Ukraine. Rather, it seems that it is the prospect of success which confounds the political leadership and engenders such anxiety in society. The greatest threat to the future of Ukraine is not the perfidy of Moscow or the insensitivity of global market forces. The greatest threat to Ukraine is, well, Ukrainian politics. We have all been taught that insecure and unstable European states tend to strike out at their neighbors to avoid confronting their internal problems. Instead, it seems to be the fate of Ukrainians to lash out at themselves to avoid confronting the responsibilities and demands of success on the European stage.

Let us not kid ourselves. Ukraine has no problems that half the countries in the world (and many more advanced candidates for NATO and the European Union) would not beg to have. This includes the struggle against corruption which is not more pervasive in Ukraine than it was in Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania less than a decade ago. Then, what explains Kiev’s geopolitical hypochondria?

The explanation lies in the mysterious birth of nations and the positive effect this transformation has on the collective political imagination. The Ukrainian people have a hard time imagining themselves as a successful European democracy and without this sense of self-regard and national exceptionalism are liable to harbor a contempt for their own political revolution and the very institutions which they must build in order to prosper.

The phenomena of what Anne Applebaum has called “the post-totalitarian moral hangover” can be linked to the incomplete project of building a nation after the dissolution of the Soviet Empire in 1989 and can be readily seen in the current symptoms of Ukraine’s despair. Four deficiencies confirm that Kiev is one step short of a nation in the Euro-Atlantic sense.

Ukraine is lacking a true Constitution. A state which cannot constitute itself in a central document of organization and principle will remain dangerously vulnerable to shifts in political power and popular mood in a way that European states are not. Few Germans think that a change of the German Chancellor on September 18th will threaten their livelihood or personal freedom. The same could not be said for a Pora activist or steelworker from Donbass about next March’s Parliamentary elections.

Ukraine has not yet produced accountable government. It remains a country where the primary motivation for government service is defensive. Businessmen routinely run for Parliament, not to effect legislative reform, but to seek immunity for themselves and protection of their businesses from capricious seizure. National Security officials are far more likely to investigate their political opponents than to monitor the activities of hostile powers. Unless Ukrainian voters can invest a much higher degree of trust and confidence in their elected representatives, the prospect of accountable government is remote.

Ukraine still teeters on the knife edge of disunity. The degree of alienation between Kyiv, Donetsk, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv and the collision of their sectional interests are reminiscent of the rivalries between Italian city-states during the Renaissance. Most Ukrainian political candidates are representatives of regional or economic interest groups. As much as East Germans chafe in the company of Bavarians and vice versa, their economic interests and political sympathies are locked in one nation. By contrast, the voting patterns of Ukraine are far too polarized by region to reflect the national coherence of a European nation. The highest priority of any government must be to build a nation at peace with itself, before it can begin to build an integrated European democracy.

Finally, there is the incessant war between political power and wealth. The Ukrainian narod is still lighting candles at the altar of historical justice and praying for the arrival of the Good Czar with the axe who will finally and conclusively distribute the wealth of Ukraine fairly amongst its citizens. This will never happen and has never happened. The countries which obsess about historical justice, such as Turkey, Armenia and Serbia, in a cruel irony of history, are inevitably left behind in isolation and embitterment. As Adam Michnik realized in 1989 at the round table talks between Polish government and opposition, justice is a useless verdict reached by historians years after the irremediable injustice. Michnik argued that what is decisive in the rebirth of a nation is forgiveness, not revenge or restitution. In Kiev, the politics of grievance must give way to the political compromises and generosity of nation-building, as President Yushchenko has on many occasions seemed to be saying.

Either Ukraine must move decisively to bind up the nation’s wounds or in its disillusionment it will become just another forgotten headstone on what Senator John McCain has called “the vast dictatorial tundra of Russia history.”

Here again, the desperate tales of the Red Cavalry come to mind.

Isaac Babel tells the story of Prishchepa, a soldier who survives through the Revolution and the civil war to return to his village in Eastern Ukraine. There Prishchepa exacts a murderous revenge on his neighbors for stealing his household goods. Then, he burns down his own house, shoots his last cow in the mouth with his revolver, and vanishes from European history.

Prishchepa was disillusioned with post-revolutionary Ukraine. And, when he was finished, so was everyone else.

Bruce P. JACKSON is the President of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an international non-governmental organization, which supports Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the European Union. Mr. Jackson will write an occasional column for Den on Ukraine’s European integration campaign.