Ukraine: down with the reactionary Kuchma regime! For a workers and peasants' government!

In the Ukraine the bourgeois bonapartist regime of Leonid Kuchma has entered into a deep social and political crisis: Kuchma has alienated not only broad masses of the Ukrainian people but even sections of the oligarchs and Western imperialism.

For the working class and peasantry the reality of everyday life is one of low and unpaid wages, collapsing health and education services, insecurity and hopelessness. Even the middle strata in the cities— who were promised so much by Kuchma – find themselves joining the daily fight for survival.

In addition many capitalists now see the regime as an embarrassing obstacle to improving economic and political ties with Western imperialism. In sum the Kuchma regime has antagonised so many sections of Ukrainian society that it is tottering on the edge of an abyss.

If the working class were to give it a decisive kick—in the form of mass strikes and demonstrations— it would certainly collapse. Such an entry by the working class into the political arena would transform everything.

It would give hope to all progressive forces—both those defending democratic rights and those resisting the offloading of the economic and social crisis onto the backs of ordinary people.

Causes of the crisis
While the murder of the journalist Gongadze triggered the protest movement ”Ukraine without Kuchma” the roots of the present crisis go much deeper. It reflects the problems of capitalist restoration in Ukraine. Capitalist restoration means essentially what Marx called the “primitive accumulation” of capital—albeit in a form which he could not envisage, the destruction of a former “socialist” economy.

This primitive accumulation involves the wholesale destruction and looting of the state-owned means of production and the enslaving and exploiting the working class as wage labourers once again.

In the countryside more and more land is being transformed into agro-business latifundias. Similarly to the rest of the economy, agriculture suffers terrible under-investment. Therefore the remaining and former collective farm peasants are victims of capitalist restoration too. All this means economic depression and social impoverishment – on a worse scale than the Western countries faced in the 1930s.

But decades of Stalinist bureaucratic dictatorship and the reformist policy of the Communist party of the Ukraine (KPU) since 1991 has left the working masses confused and disorientated. This is a key explanation for the new ruling class’ ability to drive through a social counterrevolution without significant resistance.

And when the working class did fight back – like the miners strikes in the Donezt or Luhanska regions or the popular revolt in Dnipropetrovsk last year – the reformists did their level best to demobilise them.

For all these reasons the bourgeois restorationist forces faced no generalised revolt. In December 1999 Kuchma was able to beat off the challenge of KPU leader Simonenko in the presidential elections. A few months later he pushed through a reactionary referendum enlarging his presidential powers at the expense of parliament.

But since then Kuchma has faced not only the mounting disappointment of the working class and the peasants. The regime also alienated the middle layers whom it previously rallied around its anti-communist banner.

Whilst the economy is growing for the first time since 1990 unemployment has exploded. From an official rate of 2.4% in 1997 it has risen to 8% in 2000 and is expected to grow even more rapidly this year. Naturally these official figures do not reflect the even worse reality.

Last but not least the ruling class itself faces deep divisions – rooted in the contradictory conditions of capitalist restoration in the Ukraine.

Fundamentally there is a division inside the new bourgeoisie which is typical for the transitional period of primitive capital accumulation. At the beginning the first elements of the new capitalist class emerge simply as robber barons, stealing and looting the economy inherited from the decomposing degenerated workers state.

At a later stage a differentiation takes place between those capitalists who are able to make the transition from simply theft to profitable value-added production and those who cannot.

This process is plain in Russia too where the crisis of August 1998 wiped out many “unprofitable” oligarchs.) The attempts of the government headed by the former central bank chief and now prime minister Yushchenko, and the recently sacked energy minister and deputy prime minister Timoshenko, represented the neo-liberal, pro-Western policy.

It did lead for example to a reduction of barter in the energy sector where 70% of payments are now made in cash whereas this figure was only 10% in 1999.

However these divisions – typical for a bourgeois-restorationist state – are rendered even more complex in Ukraine by the regional and ethnic divisions and by the country’s specific geo-strategic position. Before 1991, in the old USSR, the Russians where the ruling nation and the Ukrainians an oppressed one.

This changed with the achievement of independence and the Russian population within Ukraine became more and more an oppressed nation. Moreover the most highly industrialised parts of the country are situated in the Russian-populated East (Donetz region, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, Odessa, Crimea etc.). It is no surprise that most of the oligarchs supported Kuchma in the last elections come from the East.

While sections of the new bourgeoisie are looking to Western imperialism they face enormous problems. The European Union, the US government and the IMF are demanding more and more concessions by the Ukraine to their multinationals.

They demand an opening up to the world market, “free trade etc. But at the same time they offer little or nothing in return. In fact imperialism has not the economic strength or the political will to integrate Ukraine into the European Union or the West in general.

As a consequence the country remains enormously dependent on Russia – a country which is itself quite advanced in the process of capitalist restoration and is trying to become a imperialist regional power. This is particularly visible in the very important energy sector where Ukraine owes Russia billions of dollars. In part payment of these debts Kuchma has agreed to give Russian monopolies a huge share in the privatisation process of Ukrainian enterprises.

Also on the level of foreign policy the Kuchma regime has initiated a certain re-orientation. Until the autumn of 2000 it followed a strictly pro-Western policy. Then Kuchma replaced the US-friendly foreign minister with a more Russian-friendly and improved the political and economic relations with Russia.

This is also true on the question of military and military-industrial co-operation (reflected in recent treaties signed by the Ukraine and Russian defence ministers and between Kuchma and Putin during the latter’s visit in Dnipropetrovsk some weeks ago). All this has rung alarm bells for Western governments and led to a tacit support for the pro-Western prime minister Yushchenko.

This political re-orientation of the regime had also important repercussions for the Ukrainian national chauvinist camp. When Kuchma had a pro-Western orientation he promoted Ukrainian nationalism. This also included massive financial support for right-wing and fascist forces.

However since the regime pursues a more pro-Russian foreign policy important sections of Ukraine nationalism and fascism have deserted their former financier and joined the opposition.

Therefore while the bourgeoisie was united in 1999 in its support for Kuchma and an orientation to Western imperialism his turn to Moscow has led to a serious power struggle between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions and between more profitable and less profitable sections.

While Yushchenko represents the pro-Western sections of the ruling class Kuchma is now siding with the pro-Russian section. Both camps contain many profit-making capitalists but there are probably more on the side of Yushchenko than on Kuchma’s because the more profitable capitalists have less to fear from an integration to the imperialist world market.

All this means that the present crisis resulted from the combination of a split inside the ruling class, from growing disillusion by the middle layers with the results of restoration and a mass hatred of the regime – albeit largely passive or fragmented until now – by the workers and peasants.

The character of the political crisis and the ”Ukraine without Kuchma” movement
When the political crisis erupted last December after the discovery of Gongadze’s body and the audiotape scandal it bore the marks of being both a mass democratic protest against the more and more open dictatorship of Kuchma and of power struggle inside the bourgeoisie.

Therefore the ”Ukraine without Kuchma” movement certainly represented the democratic outrage of many people against the cynical textile-director-turned-bonaparte and a desire of by pro-Western bourgeois forces – including some fascist parties – to bring Yushchenko to power and reverse the orientation to Russia.

The ”Ukraine without Kuchma” movement which recently renamed itself ”National Salvation Forum” is a coalition which includes the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) – a bourgeois workers party in the process of transformation into a party of oligarchs and the middle layers–the ”Motherland” party of the sacked and arrested Oligarch Timoshenko, bourgeois conservatives (like Rukh) and right wing parties including the extreme right-wing UNA-UNSO party.

While fascist forces like the Social National Party of Ukraine are not formal members of the alliance they play an significant role in the tent camp at Independence Square in central Kiev. The opposition therefor has a bourgeois character with an weak element of working class participation. It is thus a variety of popular front or cross-class alliance)

The demonstrations are relatively small with 5.-10.000 participants in Kiev. Most of them are students, professionals and better paid workers. However they enjoy the broad passive support of the working class in Kiev. Recently some sections of the workers movement joined the protests. Why are the demonstrations relatively small?

Partly because they are dominated by open bourgeois forces who don’t want to mobilise broad masses. Partly because many workers are politically passive because of daily fight for survival and demoralisation. Partly they correctly do not trust the bourgeois opposition politicians. Nevertheless the protest movement represents an important opportunity which the working class can and must utilise for its own class goals..

However the crisis qualitatively deepened in mid-February. Kuchma not only sacked but also arrested the former deputy prime minister Timoshenko. At the same time he issued an common appeal— with Prime Minister Yushchenko and parliament chairman Plyushch— which sharply condemned the National Salvation Forum.

This warned against ”professional revolutionaries” and ”extremist forces” which represent a ”real threat to the national security of the state”. The statement implicitly threatens a state of emergency, i.e. a “constitutional” coup d’état. At the same time the regime has threatened to forcibly break up the tent camp. A group of masked ”anarchists” – i.e., security officers – has already attacked it.

To summarise recent developments represent a realignment of bourgeois forces. While sections of the neo-liberal, pro-Western camp have joined the opposition (because, like Timoshenko they are now being persecuted by the regime) other sections, like Prime Minister Yushchenko, now collaborate with the president against the opposition.

What are the reasons for these developments? The main reason is that the crisis got out of control. The regime is fighting for its survival and is prepared to mobilise all its forces against any threat to it.

The arrest of a deputy prime minister reflects the degree of its desperation. On the other hand the movement on the street is radicalising too with left-wing forces now joining the protests. No surprise that in the hour of a ”extremist threat” Yushchenko prefers Kuchma to the streets.

Passivity of Reformism
The role of the reformist opposition – particularly of the KPU – is truly shameful. Instead of intervening resolutely in this political crisis and building an independent working class pole it has remained largely passive. To be more precise its policy is marked by zigzags. The party leadership has pursued a generally abstentionist policy.

True, it tried once to join the demonstration, appealing to the right-wing nationalists to collaborate (“for the sake of the motherland”!). True, individual members have participated from the beginning. But in parliament it refused to vote for the sacking of the notorious general prosecutor who is Kuchma’s puppet and declared the audiotapes a fake.

The leadership claims it can’t support the protest movement because it does not want to bring the neoliberal Yushchenko to power. Beside the fact that the Prime minister now joined the camp of the president the real reason is that the KPU is quietly pleased with the pro-Russian orientation of Kuchma and even has hopes for a future role in a coalition government with the oligarch and bourgeois forces opposed to a pro-Western orientation. Last but not least the KPU leadership is fearful of mobilising its membership and supporters against the bourgeois forces with whom it hopes to form a coalition government in the future.

The left-wing inside the KPU around the All-Ukrainian Worker Union (VCR) and some PSUP forces recently joined the protests. They marched together with the revolutionary Marxists of RV-MRM and other left wingers and naturally clashed with the fascist and semifascist forces –some of whom support Kuchma (like the paramilitary ”Trident” organisation) and some the opposition (the UNA stewards).

This is definitely a step forward to build a working class opposition against the regime, independent of the bourgeois opposition. However, for this it is absolutely necessary to develop a clear and bold revolutionary strategy and tactics.

Only revolutionary policy can save the Ukraine workers and peasants!
The present situation presents both enormous opportunities for the working class and dangers too. The ruling class is divided and therefor weak at the moment. The workers and peasants and even the middle layers hate the regime.

But if the workers’ movement does not utilise this situation then the present growing ripeness for change can become rottenness. It can end in a severe defeat for the working class and a triumph for counter-revolutionary forces.

The task of the hour is to build a mass workers’ movement intervening in the present political crisis. RV-MRM calls the youth movement PM, the KPU, VCR, PSUP and all other progressive forces to build a united front NOW.

It is urgently necessary to bring out workers, peasants working class youth and students onto the street. Symbolic demonstrations and tent camps are not enough. To challenge the Kuchma regime seriously the workers’ movement must organise mass demonstrations and strikes culminating in an all out, indefinite general strike!

Should the workers’ movement join the bourgeois careerists of the National Salvation Forum (NSF)? Absolutely not. The workers musty organise themselves organised independently. Therefore we call for the creation of mass action councils in all towns and villages.

RV-MRM calls for an independent investigation of the Gongadze murder by a commission of representatives of the workers’ movement.

The workers’ movement must not sit with folded arms during the present events. While they should not join the NSF they should intervene at their demonstrations and try to kick out the fascist forces. The task is to win over the democratic student forces on these demonstrations and win them to an alliance with the workers movement.

But this must not lead to a alliance with the right wing forces. It is absolutely impermissible to sit together with the fascist forces in the tent camp as the Ukrainian CWI centrists tried to do at first but later relented upon.

Nevertheless, the workers’ movement must defend the demonstrations and even the tent camp against any attempt of the regime to shut it down. This is an elementary defence of democratic rights. We likewise reject the arrest of opposition politicians.

Why? Because even if we oppose totally any political alliance with the bourgeois forces we understand that any dictatorial move from Kuchma would strengthen the bonapartist regime, weaken the democratic rights and therefor weaken the possibilities for the working class to fight for its power.

For the same reason we defended the White House in Russia in October 1993 despite the participation of reactionary forces (the so-called red-Brown bloc) in the fighting..

Exactly because there is a massive danger of a coup d’état plus the threat of fascist forces it is absolutely urgent for the workers movement to organise self-defence squads and arm themselves as best they can.

The protest movement is united by the call for Kuchma to resign. Naturally we support this. More than this we reject the institution of the presidency altogether because it is an inherently dictatorial, bonapartist instrument for the ruling class.

However as we are clearly approaching a deep crisis of the regime the question arises: Who shall govern the Ukraine: Kuchma? NO! Yushchenko? NO! Moroz? NO! The workers and peasants – organised in actions councils in every towns and villages across Ukraine – should take the power, the privileges and the plunder from the oligarchs and the bureaucrats.

What we need is a workers and peasants government— based on and answerable to action councils and to a mass workers and peasants’ militia. Such a government should immediately set about solving the economic crisis by taking the means of production into social ownership and workers management and democratically agreeing and implementing an emergency plan.

Workers and peasants of Ukraine! Your enemy is weaker than you think. The bourgeois opposition is split and confused. You have the chance to stop the terrible decline of the country. But you will succeed in this only if you do not place a single ounce of trust in the bourgeois and reformist politicians. Instead organise yourself now. Go onto the streets in your tens and hundreds of thousands.

Activists of the protest movement! At the moment you are a small vanguard and you bear an enormous responsibility for the future of the country. The task of the hour is to kick out the fascists from your ranks—to break the grip of the likes of Moroz and Timoshenko over the protests.

The workers’ movement must become the central force in the struggle against Kuchma. For these burning tasks a strong revolutionary organisation must be built—one which has a clear understanding of the present situation and is armed with a Marxist program based on the historic lessons of the world workers movement of the past 150 years. Building such an organisation now is the decisive task of the day.

• Down with Kuchma - the murder of Gongadze!
  
• Don’t trust Moroz and Timoschenko!
  
• The workers’ movement and the Left must mobilise – NOW!
  
• For mass demonstrations and strikes up to a general strike!
  
• Build action committees in every town and village!
  
• Kick out the fascists!
  
• For a workers and small farmers’ government!
  
• Join RV-MRM and its comrades around the world in the LRCI!
  

Declaration jointly agreed by RV-MRM (Ukraine) and LRCI
21 February 2001

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