A Revolution at the Crossroads

By Walter Kish

Ukraine just celebrated the fourteenth anniversary of its independence in the aftermath of what has become known as the Orange Revolution. Many political and historical experts actually question whether Ukraine truly became independent back in 1991. True, the Soviet Union was no more, yet Ukraine would go on to flounder for another thirteen years until it finally could be said that the will of the Ukrainian people started to be fulfilled.  
    In the intervening time, a self-serving but politically savvy cast of former Communist apparatchiks managed to gain control of the levers of government power and enrich themselves immeasurably while the economy backslid. The long-suffering Ukrainian population languished still further. It was only in 2004, when it became apparent that the ruling elite was about to install yet another centralized and tyrannical, though technologically sophisticated, political regime, that the people finally rose up and said enough is enough. And so the Orange Revolution made its mark on Ukrainian history.
    It has been seven months since President Yushchenko came into power, and both the local press as well as international political pundits are starting to question whether anything significant has really changed in that time. Most of those branded as oligarchic “bandits” still remain at large and are marshalling their forces for the upcoming elections for Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada to be held in March 2006. Those responsible for the murder of the crusading journalist Heorhiy Gongadze have still not been brought to justice. Those who engineered Yushchenko’s almost fatal poisoning still roam free.
    To be sure, the Yushchenko government trumpets the dismissal of some 18,000 incompetent or corrupt government officials. Yet in a bureaucracy as large as the Ukrainian one, this is but a drop in the bucket, and at the local or village level, as most of my relatives and contacts tell me, the graft and corruption continues unabated. What is perhaps more ominous is that the coalition of parties and political forces that was formed at the time of the revolution is starting to show signs of dissension and internal conflict. A certain amount of disillusionment has obviously set in.
    This, too, should not have been unexpected. Revolutions by their very nature inspire unrealistic expectations. As the contemporary Russian historian Dmitri Volkogonov wrote in his biography of Trotsky, “Every revolution creates the hope that it is possible to destroy the old way of life overnight and to open the door to a new one. Excessive expectations soon give way to great disappointment.” The very fact that the Orange Revolution was such a passionate and emotionally charged affair created the very conditions for the “letdown” that Ukraine is currently experiencing.
    Yet, we should not be too quick to render judgments on the success or failure of the Orange Revolution. Nation building is not a task to be measured on the timescale of months. We should recognize that many of Yushchenko’s team are relatively young and inexperienced in the art of governance and will need time to grow into effective managers of their spheres of responsibility. A bureaucratic system in which endemic corruption was built in over the course of some 70 years, is not capable of being reformed overnight. A political culture based on elitism, cynicism and contempt for the masses will not be transformed by mere changes in legislation.
    At the same time, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko need to do a better job of delivering on some of the commitments and promises made during the heady days of the revolution. No one expects everything to be fixed overnight. But the current administration needs to show a better and steadier stream of tangible results. Some of the big names from the elite who have pillaged the country for the past decade and subverted the Presidential election last fall need to be prosecuted and put behind bars. So far only a few small fry have been brought to justice. The investigation and prosecution of those behind the Gongadze murder and the poisoning of Yushchenko needs an injection of competence and urgency. The campaign to uproot corruption needs to be focused on the bottom levels of the bureaucracy whose rapaciousness has the most adverse effect on the average citizen.
    Lastly, Yushchenko needs to enforce a little more discipline and political accountability into his team. His personal loyalty to some of his appointees whose behaviour lacks integrity has embarrassed his administration and hurt his credibility, leading many ordinary Ukrainians to start thinking that one bunch of dishonest oligarchs has simply been replaced by another.
    It is true that Ukrainians have historically been a patient and long-suffering people. However, revolutions tend to change people in dramatic ways. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians put their lives and their futures on the line in the last months of 2004. They are waiting for reassurance that it was not in vain. They will not be inclined to wait as long this time as they have in the past.