When examining the prospects of the Yanukovych regime, we must take a historical excursion to better understand the causes of the Second Ukrainian Republic's crisis.
This fragment from an interview with political scientist Yuriy Romanenko for the Ukrainian magazine "Kraina" is essentially a standalone piece—an attempt to provide a coherent, comprehensive picture of the birth, life, and death of the Second Ukrainian Republic, as well as the prospects for a new political regime.
Let us begin with the preconditions that led to the formation of the Yanukovych regime.
We must understand that fundamentally, Yanukovych represents a continuation of the "great work" of Kravchuk, Kuchma, and Yushchenko. Viktor Yanukovych brings to its logical conclusion the model created after the Soviet Union's collapse.
What kind of model is this?
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine's emergence occurred not thanks to the interests and motivations of the masses, but despite them. The defining reason for independent Ukraine's appearance was the motivations of the elite formed in the USSR. The Ukrainian SSR elites saw in this situation an instrument allowing them to preserve their power and, most importantly, to multiply the opportunities that power provides in an independent state.
The Soviet Union's elites in the national republics understood perfectly well by the late 1980s where processes were heading. The key task was gaining control over economic assets, the de jure legalization of the power they possessed de facto. Legalizing such control expanded and legitimized political power amid the collapse of communist ideology. In these conditions, liberalism became a convenient bugbear—waving it around, one could carry out a legal transition to new forms of power under new conditions.
Gorbachev's miscalculations led to centrifugal processes in the Soviet Union beginning to intensify, acquiring an avalanche-like character by early 1991. Moscow's power rapidly weakened, contrary to the motivations of the masses, who in spring 1991 voted to preserve the Soviet Union.
Boris Yeltsin played the key role in the USSR's collapse, understanding that he could defeat Mikhail Gorbachev not within the framework of the Soviet state, but by seizing power in the RSFSR. Yeltsin outlined a path that proved acceptable to the leadership of the remaining republics.
The declaration of independence in Ukraine on August 24, 1991, was a consequence of the intensifying struggle between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Yeltsin's victory, having bet on nationalism, opened the gates to Ukrainian independence, which was legalized in the referendum of December 1, 1991.
The will of the majority gave Leonid Kravchuk the necessary trump cards, which were instantly used when concluding the elite pact in Belovezhskaya Pushcha by Shushkevich, Kravchuk, and Yeltsin.
Then began the creative process of mastering the "post-Soviet Klondike" by "Soviet Oktyabryata, pioneers, Komsomol members, and responsible party workers."
Everything collapsed: the management structure, ideology, value system, economic ties.
The elite and masses began searching for themselves in the new world. The elites better understood the essence of processes, since they had knowledge and resources, while the population found itself literally left one-on-one with massive economic and social collapse.
At this moment, what Vadim Karasev two years ago called the corruption contract took shape, defining the essence of processes in the post-Soviet space for the next 20 years.
The essence of the corruption contract was as follows: since the Soviet Union's population was accustomed to benefits from the state, which served as compensation for low wages, they wanted to preserve some social package amid rapid impoverishment.
The new authorities said: "Fine, we ostensibly preserve this social package for you, but you don't claim power and you don't claim large assets. You can get six acres of land (this was logical, since the population needed to be fed, so the process of mass 'settling' on the land was one of the key elements in the barbarization of this space, decreasing mass mobility and strengthening its dependence on local elites), privatize housing, create various small enterprises, potter about... But don't climb to the level of redistributing key assets."
A link emerged between former party functionaries and bandits, since the formation of bandit groups occurred in the late 1980s, due to the state's inability to curb the people's liberating energy. Achieving status positions in the late USSR became increasingly difficult for someone from the people, so the criminal world served as that alternative where one could obtain status and material goods without submitting to the formal norms of the decomposing Soviet state.
In the 1990s, state and criminal systems coexisted, traveling in parallel, intertwining ever more actively. Some were shot, some were imprisoned, a new elite pact was forming, in which some top party functionaries didn't fit and were thrown out of the system, like, say, Prime Minister Vitaly Masol. Who remembers Masol today, though he's an intelligent and substantial manager who now lives on a meager pension.
Can you imagine Azarov, having the same status today, living like an ordinary pensioner upon retirement? It's simply unrealistic.
Bandits had analogous processes: those who didn't fit in were killed, those who did began entering this system, began advancing through government positions, received assets.
Thus large financial groups began forming.
In this model, each president fulfilled his function: Leonid Kravchuk's function was to legalize the Ukrainian SSR elite's claims to power after the USSR's collapse.
Kravchuk's problem was that he couldn't negotiate with the red directors, couldn't negotiate with a significant part of the elites, couldn't find common language with Eastern Ukraine. Therefore, Leonid Kuchma came to the forefront, not expecting it himself.
His victory was a big surprise to him, but one can understand what motivated the elites to support his candidacy. Against the background of cunning and experienced Kravchuk, the production manager Kuchma with his unsophisticated "tell me what to build and I'll build it" seemed less dangerous and more pragmatic. This was an illusion. Kuchma, as a manager, was stronger than Kravchuk and, most importantly, tougher.
Years later, one can confidently say that over 22 years of Ukrainian independence, Leonid Kuchma was the most successful president. He was a constructor and viewed situations as an architect, an engineer in the direct sense of the word.
Kuchma created this state.
When he entered Bankova, he literally prescribed the functions of various state institutions in boxes, attaching a specific person to them. Kuchma's approaches were determined by the conditions in which the state found itself in 1994.
These conditions were very harsh, since the economy was virtually destroyed, new systems of relations within the country, relations with external partners had not yet been formed, the masses were grumbling (recall the miners' riots, marches on Kyiv, etc.).
The elites were also searching for how to preserve what they'd already obtained, but in conditions of social explosion could lose. All this was overlaid with harsh external pressure, since the States and Russia demanded that Ukraine surrender nuclear weapons.
It must be acknowledged that Kuchma emerged from this situation with dignity, insofar as a person raised by the Soviet system with all its stereotypes could.
In conditions of collapse, Kuchma faced the task of launching elementary processes. Without this, the country would have fallen into the abyss of armed confrontation, as happened in Georgia, Azerbaijan, or Tajikistan in the early 1990s.
For better or worse, Kuchma managed to stabilize the situation, managed to take power control into his own hands, managed to place security forces, managed to shoot a significant part of the bandits, and incorporate some into the system of power.
Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko was a very effective person in this sense. Tough, with whose help alternative groups challenging the state were removed, since they possessed real power locally. A classic example is the physical liquidation of bandit groups in Crimea.
Thus, Kuchma began bringing Ukraine onto a certain main path. The initial chaos began to be ordered, and the state began acquiring certain clear forms.
But Kuchma actually created the oligarchy. That's precisely what he's accused of.
Let's examine why Kuchma proceeded to create FIGs [financial-industrial groups] or didn't prevent their creation. Actually, I'm not sure he had any alternative at all. The fact is that the president of any country at any time cannot sit down and "drive" in any direction he wants, since he's bound hand and foot by a whole series of factors.
First, certain doctrines or stereotypes dominate in any society, determining the behavior of masses and elites.
Second, there are real interests of elites (economic, political, worldview), which require balance. Imbalance leads to the appearance of various risks, diverting certain resources.
Third, there are interests of external actors, most often more influential and capable of influencing the situation within the state.
Fourth, there are limited resources, which large numbers of social groups and external subjects claim. The more resources, the greater the intensity of struggle.
This list can be continued indefinitely. Therefore, any president, even with the most excellent intentions, must always take these factors into account if he wants to be a successful ruler. Most often in politics, success is achieved not along a straight highway, but through winding paths. When a politician forgets this, he quickly turns into a "Yushchenko."
Only genius personalities are capable of changing the course of events in a brief period, but this only emphasizes their scale. Think about what a concentration of will, what energy such a person must have, who has risked not only going against millions of wills, against circumstances, against powerful internal and external enemies, but leading masses and elites!
That's why one must look at the deeds of our "statesmen" with understanding of the circumstances determining the line of their behavior. Regarding the absolute majority of our politicians, one can say that they don't determine circumstances, but circumstances dictate the trajectory of their behavior. We have what we have.
Therefore, to better understand the essence of processes, the essence of our time, the reasons for our disastrous situation today, it's necessary to pose the correct question—what was the function in the system of state power of Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych?
And Kuchma here deserves more detailed analysis than Kravchuk.
He faced a key task: the state in a condition of disintegration, and the people on the brink of revolt. The people needed to be fed quickly. Obviously, in the new conditions, the corps of "red directors" that remained from the Soviet Union couldn't react quickly and operatively to new conditions. As is known, a person's ability to respond to challenges is determined by his life experience and what was laid into him from youth. A classic example—during a shipwreck, surviving crew members in percentage terms are more numerous than passengers. Because they understand how to act in a non-standard situation when every second counts.
From this point of view, the "red directors," despite the fact that most of them were quite competent people, found themselves helpless in new conditions when the state gave no plan, distributed nothing. They simply weren't taught this.
Yes, a smaller part proved more effective, adapted and crawled out of the pit they found themselves in. For example, Vladimir Boyko at the Ilich plant, who ultimately fit into the new system. He was eaten later, when the 2008 crisis began. But most directors weren't capable of transformation, so new managers were necessary.
The oligarchs rightfully gained control over assets, because they really were "worthy" of this at that moment, even though for most of our compatriots this sounds cynical. To become an oligarch, one had to pass through harsh selection. This was a fight to the death. At the same time, the qualities of these people were determined by their short will, that is, at that moment, the winner wasn't the one who thinks long, but the one who had the will to act here and now.
In principle, this distinguished those who later became oligarchs from the "red directors." The latter as personalities were formed under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev. And the worldview of our current oligarchs was formed in the late Soviet Union, when there was total deficit and material values dominated as life priorities.
The second component was the power vacuum, the ideological emptiness of the early 1990s, when everything was decided by the minute, even the second. In these conditions, a person without brakes became the master of the fate of entire communities, cities, factories and, ultimately, the country.
This "Pepsi generation" (I call it by analogy with Pelevin's novel "Generation P") has ruled the country for 20 years. By virtue of this worldview baggage, this generation proved more adaptive in the prevailing conditions and could launch the economic processes that faced Kuchma acutely and distinctly—how to feed the people? If my mother received a salary in 1993 of 10 dollars, by the end of the 1990s she was receiving about 50 dollars, which was substantial for budget workers, and most people survived at the expense of the budget.
Having rebooted the state, facilitating the appearance of oligarchs as stabilizers of the economic system, Kuchma as its demiurge occupied a special position: he tried to be above the fray, that is, tried to ensure that none of the groups gained an advantage.
This continued for a time, until the oligarchs grew stronger, since control over economic assets gave them real power and the ability to form a quasi-ideological discourse through controlled media.
By 1999, the oligarchs had formed as a social group with their own clearly defined interests. Although they supported Kuchma in the 1999 presidential elections, it was obvious that strong presidential power was burdensome to them. This was connected with the fact that Leonid Danilovich acted as a representative of the state he created, and acted as an arbiter limiting their potential. They wanted to free themselves from this "yoke."
Support for Kuchma in 1999 was connected with the fact that Moroz and Symonenko represented a greater danger, since they could collapse the existing balance of forces. Therefore, it was more profitable for the oligarchs to prolong the Kuchma regime than to face unpredictable risks. This situation was identical to what happened in Russia in 1996 during the presidential elections.
At the same time, Kuchma was still quite strong, had his own FIG loyal to him, really controlled the security forces (and did this systematically), and was also quite profitable for Russia, the States, and Europe, since he conducted balanced foreign policy. The totality of these factors made him the "lesser evil," and it most often wins.
When Leonid Danilovich said that after 2000 he would become different, he was hardly being disingenuous. As a logical person, he understood that the development of economic processes would strengthen his competitors. He needed, like Yeltsin at the same time, to create a new model where the state preserved its positions. For this, part of the oligarchs needed to be "drained."
According to one version, Kuchma began preparing a successor, one of such successors was supposed to be Yuriy Kravchenko. However, the cassette scandal erupted, which was a consequence of the forming conflict with the oligarchs, plus the foreign policy factor played its role. The Gongadze case can be examined in detail, but we'll deviate too deeply from our topic, so I'll outline the essence in bullet points.
The essence of the cassette scandal was that thanks to manipulations with the tapes, the oligarchs instead of weakening, strengthened, since Kuchma's legitimacy quickly collapsed, and he needed to lean on someone. Legitimacy in the eyes of the West also collapsed, so Kuchma began listing toward Russia and toward the oligarchs, strengthening several financial-industrial groups. This was the essence of the conflict, which the oligarchs used to strengthen their positions. Most of them found Kuchma unprofitable, so they began creating political instruments. There's a detail that few noticed—in the interval 2004-2005, people previously figuring as Leonid Danilovich's successors died (Yuriy Kravchenko, Georgiy Kirpa).
It was precisely in this situation that Viktor Yushchenko was in demand. His mission was to remove the president as arbiter, and in a broader sense to remove the state as an instrument that doesn't allow oligarchs to realize plans for monopolizing control over economic sectors. The state objectively acted as a brake on the path of this logic.
Therefore, Yushchenko's victory within the framework of this logic was quite natural. At the same time, it was overlaid on another logic—the logic of mastering the territory of post-Soviet space by transnational groups. That's precisely why the USA and Europe supported Yushchenko as a protégé of financial transnational lobbying to open this market. They needed to enter here, because Kuchma with his protectionist policy and preservation of the role of a strong state prevented breaking into this space.
The Orange "revolution" became the battering ram that destroyed Kuchma's plans to remain in power. Of course, the events of 2004 were no revolution. This was a palace coup with the participation of duped masses, whose energy was used to change the scenery.
The essence of the 2004 deal. The social explosion of 2004 had both rational motivations and a technological component as its foundation.
Rational motivations for the masses' uprising in 2004 certainly existed.
Here was fatigue, and unsettled life in the 1990s, and the forming middle class's dissatisfaction with state arbitrariness, low levels of wages and pensions. The middle-class stratum gave mass character to the demonstrations against the Kuchma regime.
What do I mean by technological components? By this I mean the organization of protest with the formation of appropriate ideological discourse, with the creation of appropriate organizational forms capable of managing the masses, forming their mood. Creating such infrastructure is a sure path to achieving victory in competitive struggle.
The Orange forces managed to do this largely thanks to powerful technological and financial support from the West. Moreover, the technological component was key.
Why precisely technological?
Because it's not enough to have money, one needs to understand how to use it effectively for managing masses. This is precisely what's connected with the Orange forces' subsequent collapse.
The Maidan was based on technologies for overthrowing power that were tested in 2000 in the presidential elections in Serbia, then in overthrowing Shevardnadze in 2003 in Georgia. They were built on Sharp's theory of nonviolent overthrow of power.
By 2004, this was all perfected and allowed for real mobilization of the masses, which even a year before this seemed not so obvious.
In subsequent years, the Orange forces' tragedy was that when the American technologists left, who helped create the technological canvas and framework of the Orange Revolution, they never could use Maidan technologies for successful manipulation of masses. Here arose an interesting cult of Maidan cargo-cultism.
As is known, cargo cult refers to the behavior of natives who, having seen some Western technology, perceive its external manifestations without understanding the essence. This is how natives of Pacific islands behaved during World War II. They saw that airplanes fly, land on islands, bring with them products, fuel, etc., from which they also get leftovers. Then the war ended and the planes flew away, and the natives got used to American soldiers giving them food and sharing the benefits of civilization. So they decided that all these benefits were somehow connected with iron birds. To attract them back, one needed to create wooden models of airplanes and then brave American warriors would return and begin giving them products. Therefore, after the end of World War II, on many islands of the Pacific region, natives built models of airplanes, and this behavior was dubbed cargo cult.
After 2004, the leaders of the Orange Revolution behaved exactly like those natives.
They thought that reproducing certain moves—tents, tambourines, singing songs, chants, using certain symbolism—would work magically, suddenly—clap!—and a hundred thousand people came out to the square. Therefore in 2006, 2007 and subsequent years we saw attempts to repeat the "magic of Maidan."
Characteristically, not only the Orange forces fell into the captivity of cargo cult, but also the Party of Regions. At the subconscious level, it was deposited in the Regionals that tambourines, horns, hand-clapping, tents—this is a threat, this is loss of power, this is fear, this is the prospect of landing in prison and losing everything. Therefore later, everywhere tents appeared, the Regionals began behaving inadequately.
Now let's return to the essence of the 2004 collusion.
Kuchma's strategy in 2004 was to weave between the drops and delegitimize both Yanukovych and Yushchenko in order to remain in power himself. Kuchma was going to show: look, they're really splitting the country, so let's schedule re-elections, let's create another model, in which Kuchma saw a key place for himself.
The West and a significant part of the oligarchs opposed this, because they understood: if Kuchma remains as a player, he'll do everything to leave the system unchanged, and this won't provide opportunities for enrichment.
Therefore, Kuchma was shown the door, and to make him more agreeable, the West proposed a deal. The essence of this deal was voiced by Kwaśniewski and Solana when they flew to Ukraine at the end of November-beginning of December 2004. They brought Kuchma a message of this character: "Yes, you can fight for power, perhaps you'll even win tactically, but you'll lose all the money that you and your family keep in Western banks. At the same time, the strategic agenda for you is most likely losing, because we'll play for your defeat. The elections designated for you the threat of oligarch revolt, who, some openly, some quietly, supported Yushchenko (for example, ISD, which gave money), i.e., you have no guarantees and shaky positions. If you agree to leave, then we guarantee you the positions you've already achieved: this is money in accounts, this is an umbrella over your family's assets, this is a guarantee of immunity."
Kuchma as a logician, calculating his moves many steps ahead, and as a good preference player, adequately calculated his chances. Therefore, in the difficult situation of choosing between power and money, Kuchma chose money. As we see, this was an entirely rational choice, based on an adequate assessment of the situation. Especially since a crowd was raging under Bankova.
As already said above, the crowd had its own motivations, since during the 2000s a middle class had formed, it was weak, unfledged, but it began realizing its interests, plus there was a significant number of dissatisfied budget workers who were tired of this state over 15 years. Everyone wanted a kind tsar, since we think in categories of a "kind tsar." Whatever they say about Ukrainians being very different from Russians, we're arranged such that we gravitate toward leaders. If these leaders aren't there, then our space begins tearing into pieces.
And small and medium business wanted clear rules of the game. After 1998, when a single tax was introduced, a stratum of small and medium business formed very quickly. It began realizing itself, its political interests. They wanted the state to be strong, but this strength to be directed at protecting their interests, and so that in collision with large capital the state wouldn't have fatal losses. They wanted to get rid of racketeering, remnants of criminality that still operated in the sphere of their interests. In general, they wanted clear rules of the game, and all this was overlaid on the myth of European integration.
And European integration became an ersatz substitute for communist ideology. Under the communists, we had a goal lying somewhere beyond the bounds of everyday life: one day we'll come to a just society, and now we're building it. For this we must do such and such. After the death of the Soviet Union, they formed another mythology, they told us: guys, a just society already exists—in the West. Therefore, we need to go there, and if we get there, we'll live richly and happily.
The trouble is that no one considered at what price the West achieved all this. Europe reached today's prosperity (already, incidentally, found to be under threat) at the price of several empires warring among themselves, at the price of several revolutions, at the price of fierce class struggle between rich and poor, when millions of people lay on battlefields, at the price of two world wars.
The latter definitively formed horror in the European ruling elite before conflicts that undermined Europe's imperial might, on which its strength was based. Therefore, the EU's founding fathers proposed a plan for gradual integration after World War II, which was realized over half a century under the umbrella of US imperial might.
All these and a mass of other factors lie beyond understanding of what Europe actually represents. But the myth exists, it simplifies understanding of the world and creates motivation in a simple person to move in one direction or another. It's like with a rat into which they stick cheese, it doesn't think about consequences, it sees cheese and climbs into the mousetrap. Yushchenko very successfully exploited the myth of European integration, therefore this was a successful form of mobilization and radicalization of the masses.
So, Yushchenko won, and the above-indicated logic begins developing further, since the result of the deal was profitable for everyone.
Kuchma understood that he was leaving, he needed to weaken the state so it wouldn't activate the repressive apparatus against him, and using existing mechanisms, monetary connections, to turn away possible repressions from himself. It was profitable for him that with his departure, the presidential-parliamentary republic would disappear.
It was profitable for the oligarchs, because this opened simply enormous possibilities for mastering assets.
It was profitable for the West, because this opened an enormous market. The credit boom that we observed during the Yushchenko period was precisely connected with Western capital entering here.
The transnationals carried out an operation to drag Ukraine into a financial noose.
Before 2004, Ukraine had very small debts. Less than 10 years later, the situation changed cardinally for the worse. In this interval, they gave us credits for purchasing products of Western brands. This formed a gigantic negative balance of payments. Buying foreign automobiles, household appliances, electronics, we not only credited someone else's production, but also went into debt for this! This is a brilliant move for destroying our industry on the part of transnationals and it's precisely here one must seek the reasons for our disastrous situation today. Those who made the corresponding decisions from our side must definitely be punished.
Actually, all the years after the Soviet Union's collapse, we systematically destroyed our production base. Very little of it remains, except aircraft construction, which is being finished off, rocket construction, which is actually finished off, the military-industrial complex, which is breathing its last, etc. One must understand that this was a very harsh competitive game. This game was profitable for the West also because in this way it indirectly influenced Russia. The economic base that tied Ukraine to Russia was being cleared. The prospect of uniting the economic potentials of the RF and Ukraine automatically strengthens Russia's positions in the global game both economically and geopolitically.
At the same time, one must understand that Russia itself fell into the same scheme and its production potential was destroyed according to exactly the same scheme. Its raw materials sectors were consciously given free rein, they developed, and the Russian elite, having the same morphology as the Ukrainian, participated in this with pleasure. Although, objectively, the RF succeeded less in destroying its industry. However, this is a separate topic.
Viktor Yushchenko's coming to power opened the road for oligarchs, who privatized the state. The neoliberal experiment in Ukraine begun under Kravchuk and Kuchma, described by Naomi Klein and other left theorists, under Yushchenko entered the home stretch.
Undoubtedly, in this experiment we were pioneers, since having started later than Latin American, Asian and African countries, we reached unprecedented heights in "creative self-destruction," as Schumpeter said.
Undoubtedly, in a number of aspects we outpaced the West, which is going through exactly the same situation. Actually, we're moving within the framework of general logic, though more radically and more dynamically. What happened to us in 1991 was a designation of the course along which the whole world began moving. This process was prepared over several preceding decades. Now we see that in the States, in Europe the same processes are occurring: state capabilities are narrowing, social packages are decreasing, state functions are being privatized—the education system, medicine, the service sector, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I'll make a separate emphasis that I'm not saying at all: is this good or bad, I'm speaking exclusively in the language of logic to better understand processes. My personal evaluation is unimportant in this situation. Imagine, you've gotten on a ship in a storm, and there's no sense reasoning: is the storm good or bad. This is a given that determines whether you survive or not. This depends on the parameters of the ship you're on, and your ability to control it. But most importantly, so you understand with utmost precision that you're in a storm and ignoring this is very dangerous. That's the goal of our conversation today.
In the next part, we'll examine the preconditions for Yanukovych's coming to power, the motivations of the forces that moved him to the heights of power, the key tasks of his presidency.
