The Ukraine in the Land of Freedom

Since 22 years independent Ukraine exists on the map of Europe—inside the best possible borders for itself, with regulated legal relations with its neighbors. The state for which not too many had waited passed the test of time. Its particular parts originate from various political traditions and administrative cultures: Russian, Austrian-Hungarian, Polish, Soviet. Also in the ethnic, religious and confessionary sense the Ukraine is not a monolith. And yet in crucial moments, when the fate of the Ukrainian country was at stake, the citizens proved to be up to the challenge: it was so both in 1991 during the referendum on independence and in 2004 during the Orange Revolution.

They managed to make the use of the Ukrainian language widespread, to create their own military, currency and diplomatic network and to strengthen their international position. Compared to other former Soviet republics the Ukraine may boast that elections there are relatively free—the Ukrainians change their regime at the polls. In line with Western expectations, the new state abandoned the possession of nuclear arms. In cooperates with NATO and with European Union countries under the Eastern Partnership and is close to signing the association agreement with the EU, a document, which in terms of harmonizing Ukrainian law with the European Union almost equals full membership. So what has failed, since the situation of the Ukraine raises so many reservations? Who has not passed the test?

Kuchma’s Triangle

The Ukraine entered the land of freedom with participation of independent political communities— the National Movement of the Ukraine, writers and dissidents. In theory, it had the potential to build an independent country based not only on the nomenklatura elite. But Ukrainian dissident elites soon proved too weak to impose their terms of the country’s development. The development of the party scene under the presidency of Leonid Kravchuk was interrupted by his successor—the Ukraine did not evolve a type of democracy based on party-political game typical for the West, where parties are freely competing for power. Former dissidents either receded into the background of public life or decided to cooperate with Leonid Kuchma, who strengthened his position on the political scene through blocking the development of the party system. But he also strengthened the position of the state against Russia and supported a pro-European and pro-NATO course.

Kuchma introduced the model of the party of power, which thanks to its access to the highest offices, means of coercion and capital plays the crucial role in the system, does not make specific policy proposals to particular social groups but is perceived as the only actor capable of governing the country. Just like in Russia, in the post-Soviet Ukraine appeared a group of people who in the twilight years of the Soviet Union became managers of state-owned companies. It happened in the period of moving towards more market-based rules governing the economy. The Comsomol and Communist Party networks, as well as the support of special forces allowed this group to privatize a significant part of the assets they were controlling. If it went hand in hand with entrepreneurial talents and access to the new political elite, in numerous cases it produced surprisingly good financial results.

The triangle: officials (administration)— politicians—business, under Kuchma became the foundation for the Ukrainian oligarchic system. The president initially consolidated his power and later, when his position got somewhat weaker, he became a kind of stabilizer of the influence of particular oligarchs. He balanced the impact of the largest groups: the Kyiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk clans. The crucial element of the political and economic game around him was the possibility to sell natural gas and oil and the right to transport these resources through Ukrainian territory.

Orange—the Color of Bourgeoisie

An attempt at an unlawful guaranteeing the influence of one business group through making Victor Yanukovych president, despite the fact that he lost the 2004 election, mobilized the not very numerous opposition gathered around Victor Yushchenko and Julia Timoshenko. They gained social support expressed in mass demonstrations calling for repeating the vote. Some representatives of great capital—especially those magnates whose position was still in the making—joined the protest movement. It also gained support of a large part of the international community, including the United States and the European Union. International negotiators, Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus and EU High Representative Javier Solana participated in working out a constitutional compromise in Kyiv and consequently in ending the political crisis.

The program of those protesting against Kuchma was based on the publicly stated promise of speeding up the European journey of the Ukraine. Responsibility for fulfilling this promise was assumed by politicians mostly originating from the political and business circle around Kuchma but at some stage they distanced themselves from the—former by then—president. In order to understand correctly the successive developments, we must realize that the architects of the Ukraine’s new course were recent associates of Kuchma, such as Julia Timoshenko. They were perfectly familiar with the mechanisms of the oligarchic economy but in the years preceding, the revolution they were even willing to risk prison in their fight against Kuchma.

Another key issue is to correctly interpret the 2004 revolution. The domestic program of the revolution was a catalogue of expectations of the middle class in its Eastern European version. From this point of view in contemporary Ukraine orange turned out to be the color of the bourgeoisie.

The emotional layer of the Orange Revolution, which in the symbolic sphere had the nature of a bloodless national uprising, took shape among Ukrainian national symbols. The movement was led by Yushchenko, personifying the “perfect Ukrainian.” He came from Sum, that is from a central region of the country, he spoke Ukrainian but was an Orthodox, and as a former president of the Ukrainian National Bank and former prime minister under Kuchma he personified the ability to communicate with all political forces. He was not owned by this or other part of the Ukraine and he was not associated with the conspicuous wealth of the oligarchs. Highly regarded in the West, he embodied the dreams of the Ukrainians about a good hero from an old Ruthenian fable who brings liberation.

The pragmatic layer of the political program of the revolution announced an opportunity for those who had not received it in the oligarchic system of Kuchma. Managers and intelligentsia were looking at the Orange camp with a hope for opportunities for enriching themselves, to pursue their personal wellbeing. You can say that the more power and real profits was captured by the revolutionized bourgeoisie as a result of the Orange revolt, the more the Ukraine would have moved towards the West.

A Historical Mistake of the West

The events of 2004 in Kyiv were comprehensible for the Kyiv elites—the call to change the political and economic system and to strengthen the Ukrainian character of the state was clear. They were comprehensible also for the West— as demands of citizens who wanted to have an impact on how their country is governed. They were clear in the symbolic sphere, they brought to mind the events from the late 1980s, called the third wave of democratization by Huntington. They brought to mind Solidarity or the Velvet Revolution in Prague. But the initial interest of the West in Kyiv did not translate into a quick offer of abolishing visas for Ukrainians travelling to EU countries or quick signing of the association agreement. Gunter Verheugen describes the post-revolutionary lack of an offer for Kyiv as a historical mistake of the West.

The new regime in Kyiv rapidly started to provide arguments for Western reserve: in just a year or so the slow pace of change and violent conflicts within the Orange camp seemed a normal element of the political landscape in Kyiv and contributed to what we could call Ukraine fatigue. The Orange rule did not eliminate corruption or even limited it, and it did not undermine the oligarchic system in politics and economy. It became a symbol of continuity that after some initial trouble Victor Yanukovych retained the privilege of living in a government villa when he left the post of prime minister and his main rival Victor Yushchenko kept residing in a presidential villa in the centre of Kyiv after the 2010 elections, which he lost. Transfers between the old and new regime were so intense that the post-revolutionary impression of “new reality coming” quickly went into oblivion.

Permanent achievements of 2004 were relatively free elections and an enlarged scope of freedom of expression. In a positive reading the Orange Revolution remained unfinished, the plans for changing the system are still waiting to be implemented. In a more negative interpretation, we witnessed a betrayal on the part of the elites, which abandoned the program presented to the demonstrators on the Maidan during the bitter cold in 2004. One more thing remained from the Revolution: the support, and in the West of the country even longing of the Ukrainian society for “being in Europe.”

In 1991, the Ukrainian citizens said: we want our own country, different from the Soviet Union. When Kuchma took power in 1994, pro-independence Ukrainian elites gave him their support. In the name of various goals and causes they abandoned their program of democratization and change. A decade later the Ukrainians invested their hopes in elections and the possibility of replacing the regime with a better one. The elites failed again and the West quickly forgot how delighted it had been with the Maidan. The Western choice of the Ukraine will not be realized just by the sheer will of the Kyiv people or the votes of the Ukrainians at the polls. Another necessary element is the determination of Kyiv elites, a change in their thinking and support of the West. This support should find expression in an official integration of the Ukraine with the EU—in recognition that the Ukrainians have the same rights as the rest of the Europeans.

A New Magdeburg Law

In the Middle Ages the Magdeburg Law regulated internal relations in the cities of Central Europe; its adoption offered a chance for development and prosperity. Thanks to the Magdeburg Law Chernichov, Lviv or Kyiv created a class of wealthy burghers, they could afford to build churches and sponsor works of art. A legal impulse for change was necessary but it came from the outside, from the West. Today’s Ukraine needs not so much an injection of cash, aid programs or, God forbid, EU bureaucracy. It needs a new Magdeburg Law in the shape of the association agreement with the EU.

The experiences of the last 20 years are unambiguous— the Ukraine is unable to make this step on its own. But the decision “we go West” must be taken by the Ukrainians themselves.

But here the greatest weakness of independent Ukraine becomes an obstacle—the complex of being a buffer. A buffer, a grey zone that is a state or territory between great powers, for the big players is a guarantee of maintaining the status quo, and sometimes peace. For the citizens of the buffer state it usually means a number of restrictions, which do not allow them to furnish their country well, in line with their ambitions, so that their life would be as comfortable as in metropolitan capitals of great powers. Those wanting to go West did not have political influence or quickly lost it. They were replaced by leaders who decided to go along with the general belief of the Ukrainians that it is better to have good relations with both the West and the East. The buffer status, in the general opinion of political scientists, not the best possible development model, in Ukrainian political debate suddenly became an asset, an opportunity for keeping an “equal distance,” for “being in-between” and so on. This way of thinking was the bane of both Bohdan Khmelnitsky and Ivan Skoropadsky.

It is usually your neighbors that push you into being a buffer—Russia is probably interested in keeping the Ukraine in this role. If we look at the last centuries of shaping of the Ukrainian statehood, we will see that only during Yeltsin’s rule the Ukraine gained some time to freely choose its geopolitical direction and build its state structures. The whole policy of Vladimir Putin is a great comeback to rebuilding the empire, which—as Aleksander Kwaśniewski said after the Orange Revolution—cannot exist without the Ukraine.

Russia looks at the Ukrainian game in geopolitical terms. In order to bring the Ukraine under the rein of “pax Ruthenica,” it is ready to use any possible means: religion, the tradition of the Holy Ruthenia, gas supplies, culture. The EU looks at the Ukrainian game in tactical terms. The leaders of EU countries follow opinion polls on EU enlargement and eliminate anything resembling it from their actions—and the association agreement does resemble enlargement. Given this disparity of determination levels between Russia and the EU, the pro-European party in the Ukraine is structurally doomed to weakness and lack of adequate support.

No One is Waiting for the Ukraine?

Perhaps the problem of the Ukraine with the West is also that no one waited for it when it was coming into being. Poland was awaited, as was Hungary, as was the Czech Republic. Only a handful saw the emergence of an independent state with the capital in Kyiv as the dismantling of the Russian empire, most perceived it as a prelude to destabilization. And no one likes lack of stability.

The beginnings of Ukrainian independence more than two decades ago: in 1990 Margaret Thatcher arrived in Kyiv and announced that the Ukraine should be for Russia what Texas was for the United States. In July 1991 Helmut Kohl warned the Ukrainians that they should not destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union. He reported on his conclusions from his talks with Gorbachev and the Ukrainian authorities to the US president. The West did not understand the processes unraveling in the Ukraine, the key factors for Western leaders were stability and concern for the position of the failing Gorbachev. On 1 August 1991 George Bush arrived in Kyiv and delivered the famous “Kyiv Chicken Speech” in the Supreme Council, to a large extent written by the young Condoleezza Rice. In the context of the renascent national feeling of the Ukrainians he talked about the dangers of nationalism. On 24 August 1991 84 % of the Ukrainians voted for independence in a referendum. To say that Bush did not grasp the atmosphere in Kyiv would be a gross understatement.

Just as it was two decades ago, the EU is today unable to read the Ukrainian moment and offer a timely reaction. And thus we return to the problem of Ukrainian leadership. Instances of Western unconcern encourage Ukrainian elites to abandon their responsibility for their country. “It is them, not us”—such an approach dominates in the descriptions of Ukrainian transformation failures. In fact it is the leaders of the Ukraine as we know it today—Blue in government and Orange in the opposition—who must overcome their own laziness, stop explaining things away with public opinion, geopolitics, spurious Realpolitik aimed at keeping the country suspended “in-between.”

Are they going to shake off the buffer complex and achieve the signing of the association agreement with the European Union in Vilnius (on 28–29 November 2013)? If it happens, the Ukraine will be the closest to political and legal unity with the European continent in its entire history, and definitely since the 17th century. A great test is coming—if the Ukraine has made good use of its 22 years of independence.