Anatoly Selenov
Political parties and the governing elite becoming more distant from the broad masses of Ukraine, while the 2010 presidential race races to its climax.
Once again, as five years ago, two main candidates for the role of national leader represent different clans of capitalist oligarchs and Mafia, while ordinary people act as spectators in this pseudo political theatre.
Viktor Yanukovych, currently leading in the polls, uses moderately pro-Russian rhetoric, relying on the support of local oligarchs from Donetsk clan, centred in Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine while incumbent Premier Minister Yulia Tymoshenko plays on the strings of moderate Ukrainian nationalists, sucking all the blood possible from younger generations’ future by signing horrifying deals with the IMF.
The Country faces a purely geopolitical choice, as it has all the time from the very beginnings of its independence. Russian language versus Ukrainian language, pro-East against pro-West, pan-slavism versus Ukrainian nationalism. Economic programs, if any, are hardly distinguishable between the two remaining combatants of Presidential race. Both candidates used a “let the heart guide you” election campaign, making no significant promises, but plenty of abstract platitudes. Tymoshenko absolved herself from responsibility for country’s economic state as she tried to avoid the mention of her being incumbent Prime Minister, putting forward the call “Care for each other and the crisis will be over soon”. Yanukovych’s campaign went from the slogan “I hear you, I will protect you” to a more ambitious one -“Lets unite the country!”
Highly unpopular incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko, after discovering his utter defeat in the first round of voting, made the task of uniting the country much more difficult, granting the status of Hero of Ukraine to such a controversial figure as Stepan Bandera, leader of a Ukrainian nationalist separatist group, who collaborated with Nazi Germany in his attempt to achieve the independence of Ukraine. Bandera is perceived as a symbol of freedom-fighting for people from western part of the country and as a traitor for eastern pro-Soviet part.
While this decision was greeted with excitement in Lvov in the west, some people in Sevastopol in the Crimea burned their passports in anger, claiming that they don’t want the citizenship of country that makes heroes out of such people. Yushchenko’s result of 5.45 per cent is the smallest ever result for incumbent President in the world, beating the previous 7.4 per cent “achievement” of former Slovakian President Rudolf Schuster in 2004.
His defeat brings an end to the tale of the so-called Orange Revolution, where many socialist speeches were pronounced, but none were realised. Instead, people faced an ultra-right policy of Ukrainisation, disregard for the problems of national minorities, and NATO-above-all foreign policy. All of this failed to receive the support of large masses of people, despite costly advertising campaigns, a ban on the Russian language in cinemas and fierce anti-Russian rhetoric.
Many people in the Ukraine look on this situation with disdain and irony yet do little to change things. After decades of bureaucratic rule under the USSR and messiahs of a different kind in times of independence, many people lost any understanding or concern about their role in shaping of society, and withdrew from social and political activity. The upper classes use this situation of disillusion to pursue a nationalist agenda in order to secure themselves against any threat from the left.
Despite the problems, Ukrainian progressives from different leftist orientation continue to work for the creation of a real working class party, as they hope it can bring a wave of positive internationalism, uniting working classes worldwide and healing inner disagreements within the Ukrainian proletariat. Let all the nationalities of Ukraine, and those countries around her, live in peace and harmony once again. To make these changes possible, workers and youth must be won to a programme of class struggle and an idea of socialism not contaminated by the horrors of Stalinism.
And there is plenty to fight over. Ukraine was hard hit by the 2008-09 recession, with GDP falling by 15 percent in 2009 and major crisis in its banking system. Unemployment has risen to nearly 10 per cent. The IMF granted Ukraine a loan to weather the crisis with the usual harsh conditions. In November it publicly threatened to withdraw a €11.5 billion emergency credit if Yushchenko implemented increases in the minimum wage and pensions passed by parliament .Whoever wins the election will unload the costs of the crisis on the working class. The working class needs its own party and fighting trade unions to mount an effective fightback.
Unfortunately, the Communist Party of Ukraine forgot these basics, and earns its living by supporting capitalists and nationalists in their never-ending theme “NATO and EU – to be, or not to be”. They say next to nothing about returning the means of production into the hands of working class and broad masses of people, but talk a lot about how good it is for communists to support the Orthodox Christian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Thus, we, genuine revolutionaries of the Ukraine, must work for the creation of Fifth International, for it will be a beacon of awakening the consciousness of working people in Ukraine and all the World, a fortress of socialist revolution.