Book Review:  Why did the Orange Revolution Take Place?

Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. By Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press, 256 pages, US$27.50.

 Reviewed by Orest Zakydalsky

One of the most important events in Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union was Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Andrew Wilson’s new book, titled Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, explores the complexities of this revolution.

How did this momentous event, which few suspected was possible, occur? Wilson answers this question by tracing the development of the “Orange opposition” to its earliest days. He outlines the complex political process that culminated in the revolution and investigates the reasons why the Ukrainian government failed to stop it. What emerges is a balanced and fair view of why the revolution of December 2004 took place.

So, why did the Orange Revolution happen? Wilson presents several convincing reasons. One of the most important factors was the fact that there had emerged, during Kuchma’s presidency, a significant sector of the business elite that was tired of using the old methods of intimidation and bribery and was ready to embrace more ‘European’ standards. Victor Yanukovych, the pro-power candidate, represented the old way of doing things, while Victor Yushchenko represented the new, more stable business practices. “After over a decade of orgiastic corruption, those parts of the business elite that had already made their fortunes through corrupt privatizations and now had going concerns that would benefit from secure property rights wanted to become legitimate. The contradiction would ultimately undermine Yanukovych’s campaign,” writes Wilson. It was these elites, such as Petro Poroshenko, who would provide important funding to Yushchenko’s campaign.

Further, there were numerous failures by the Ukrainian government that greatly improved the chances of success for the Orange Revolution. According to Wilson, “One of the great ironies of the Orange Revolution is that the authorities might possibly have won the election if they had used different methods.” Most important of these failures was the choice of Victor Yanukovych as candidate. Choosing, him, a man with a criminal record who spoke both Ukrainian and Russian equally badly, exacerbated the need to commit extreme fraud to win the election.

Wilson does well in tracing the reasons why the authorities chose Yanukovych as successor to Kuchma. The deciding factor seems to be the fact that Yanukovych was considered to be an individual who could be easily manipulated, allowing Kuchma to wield power from behind the scenes.

In addition, the intrusion of the Kremlin and Kremlin political technologists into the election campaign proved ineffective. What the Russians failed to realize is that methods that work in Russia would not necessarily work in Ukraine. “Putin’s chief political fixer, Vladimir Surkov, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, convinced him that the same methods that had entrenched directed democracy in Russia would work in Ukraine. Or, rather, he didn’t have to. Both men worked within the same set of assumptions, within a world view that saw their methods as omnipotent and any opposition as marginal,” asserts Wilson.

The most important factor, however, in the success of the Orange Revolution was the ability of the Orange forces to mobilize the population into the streets. The reasons for this success are myriad. First, the opposition movement, through other unsuccessful protests, such as Ukraina bez Kuchmy (Ukraine without Kuchma) in the wake of the Gongadze tape scandal, had learned valuable lessons. They effectively applied them to the situation during the 2004 elections. Secondly, the level of fraud necessary to ensure a Yanukovych victory was such that it was obvious that the second round of the elections had been stolen. This was important in mobilizing the protestors.

The high level of support for Yushchenko in Kyiv was also of utmost importance. “Yanukovych’s Donetsk team had numbers on their side in eastern Ukraine, but the epicentre of government, of electoral fraud, and the world media’s likely point of interest was the capital, and [the] city had voted heavily for Yushchenko in the second round…[Kyiv] businesses, small, medium and large, had grown impressively during the economic recovery since 2000, and had begun to resent the influence of the arriviste Donetsk elite since Yanukovych had become prime minister,” argues Wilson.

It was the ability of the opposition to mobilize large-scale protest that caused the authorities to lose their nerve. Within three days of the beginning of the protests on November 22, elites who had supported Yanukovych began to switch sides– in the words of one of Yanukovych’s campaign chiefs Nestor Shufrich, ‘like rats jumping off a ship.’ It was in this atmosphere, with the opposition unquestionably gaining an all-important momentum, that the Supreme Court, which head of the Presidential Administration Victor Medvedchuk believed was in his pocket, delivered the verdict nullifying the second round and ordering a repeat.

Wilson not only convincingly explains the success of the Orange Revolution he also dispels several popular misconceptions about it. The myth that the Orange Revolution was a Western- or CIA-sponsored coup is one such misconception. Wilson shows that, in fact, since the West spends little funding candidates, and most on funding the process and the institutions that ensure free and fair elections, much of the money the West spent went to institutions such as the Central Electoral Commission and the Ukrainian Parliament. “In other words, a large proportion of foreign funding went to the government side–as it should,” argues Wilson.  He goes on to show that the behaviour of the West was quite fair. “None of this is especially problematic…The West was promoting its own values. It may not always live up to them itself, but that does not mean it is wrong to try to help other countries live up to these values.”

Wilson's account of the Orange Revolution and its major players is balanced. Neither Yushchenko nor Tymoshenko are romanticized, and their murky pasts are discussed in detail. Also, Wilson’s use of taped conversations of the infamous ‘Zoriany team’ (which was hooked into the Central Electoral Commission’s computer and rigged the results as they came in from the Territorial Electoral Commissions) is very effective. The tapes are full of intrigues and schemes and Wilson presents this information in a way that makes the book read like a real-life spy thriller story.

Wilson has written an important book, not only for those who want to understand the Orange Revolution, but also for those concerned with the future development of Ukraine. As post-revolutionary Ukraine develops, Ukraine's Orange Revolution will undoubtedly become an important reference for those who want to study the nature of this period in Ukrainian history.

Orest Zakydalsky is a graduate student at the Centre for European Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is studying institutional changes in the democratization process in Ukraine.