News > December 3, 2004

Deep Divide

Ukraine’s contested election reflects Russia’s push to reunify

By Fred Weir

This breakdown of the presidential vote shows a clear division between the Western-leaning and the Russia-friendly parts of the country. A breakup of the former Soviet state is possible.

Moscow—Another street revolt rocks an eastern European capital, and the world stops to watch a now-familiar televised scenario: an election allegedly stolen, energized but peaceful crowds battle for democracy with staunch Western backing and, in the final act, frightened Soviet-style bureaucrats make a clumsy exit from power.

As In These Times went to press, it wasn’t clear whether Ukraine’s “Chestnut Revolution” will turn out as neatly as its recent predecessors in Serbia and Georgia, but there are grounds to hope that it might. A compromise, which would result in new elections, appeared to be taking shape, but whatever the short-term outcome, Ukrainian society has likely been changed forever. Thousands of protesters surging through the streets of Kiev and other cities were confronting the semi-authoritarian, oligarch-backed regime of President Leonid Kuchma, which almost certainly tried to falsify the results of November’s presidential election in favor of Kuchma’s annointed successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. They were also defying the Kremlin, which invested huge sums of cash and the personal prestige of President Vladimir Putin in a brazen effort to manipulate Ukraine’s voters into choosing Yanukovych over his liberal, westernizing challenger, former Central Bank Chairman Viktor Yushchenko.

But there are reasons to worry that Ukraine’s fragile post-Soviet stability has already been undermined by the bitter dispute, which has deeply aggravated the longstanding divisions between the country’s heavily Russified, industrial east and the largely agricultural, nationalistic west. Since leaving the USSR in 1991, Ukraine has managed to maintain a vibrant—if muddled—democratic political culture, with relatively independent parliament, media and courts, while neighboring Russia and Belarus have become aggressively recentralized states run by super-presidential figures. Though nationalists have made desultory efforts to compel schools, media and public organizations to use only Ukrainian, these have had virtually no impact on those Ukrainians, roughly half the population, who describe Russian as their “first language.”

In foreign policy, Ukraine has walked a careful line between Moscow and the West, gladly accepting subsidized Russian oil and gas and favorable terms for its otherwise unmarketable agricultural products, while taking aid from the West and making polite noises about eventually joining NATO.

In the past few years, however, the world has become more interested in Ukraine. An expanding European Union has moved right to Ukraine’s borders, taking in Poland, which has strong historical links with western Ukraine. Putin’s Russia, flush with oil profits and seeking to reassert hegemony in the former Soviet space, has designed a four-nation common market for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan as a springboard for Russian economic modernization.

“We would like to restore what was lost with the Soviet Union’s disintegration, albeit in line with different concepts,” Putin told a meeting of post-Soviet leaders last June. “We must steer toward integration … concerted action is the only way to survive in conditions of [global] competition.”

Ukraine’s election, featuring two moderate members of the country’s traditional elite, thus became a proxy battle between larger global forces. Inevitably, and dangerously, Yushchenko and Yanukovych spun their messages to appeal to the country’s two very different constituencies.

Ukraine, Europe’s second-largest state by territory, is split down the middle between eastern and western populations whose historical, linguistic, religious and cultural differences make them almost foreigners to one another. Western Ukrainians, who have spent much of their history honing a strong sense of national identity under Polish and Austro-Hungarian rule, strongly favor Yushchenko’s plans to steer Ukraine into NATO and the European Union as rapidly as possible.

But half the country’s 48 million people live in the industrial eastern zones, which were part of Russia and the USSR for more than 300 years. Many of them speak no Ukrainian and identify most closely with the Russian population just across the recently established border. Yanukovych’s pledges to make Russian the country’s second official language, to allow dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship and to join the Kremlin-sponsored free-trade union with Russia resonate strongly in Ukraine’s eastern reaches.

No matter which Viktor emerges victorious in Ukraine’s power struggle, he is likely to adopt radical measures to satisfy his loyal constituents. In either case, the breakup of Ukraine looms as a real possibility. Several western regions rejected official election results that labeled Yanukovych the winner and recognized Yushchenko as president. The eastern regions, where most of Ukraine’s industry is concentrated, are already planning referenda on “autonomy”—read rejoining Russia—if Yushchenko becomes president. And with Moscow and the West facing off over Ukraine, with sharply divergent agendas, the possibility of a new Cold War looks more likely than at any time since the USSR’s demise.

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• Reader Comments

  Hmmm. The one thing that has bothered me about all of this, since the media started reporting on it (who can follow everything happening in the world?), is the substitution of drama for information.

  Who is the pro west Yuschenko? Personally, If pro west means pro US (pro neoliberal capitalism), then I’ve got a serious problem with the guy. He’s a former banker?! Ppppff!!

  Pro east vs pro west means what? Communists versus capitalists? Putin versus Bush? Undeveloped and chaotic Russia versus developed (it’s relative I suppose) and stable and prosperous Europe? I think folks had better think on this some. All other things being equal - and not necessarily good - I would say that given the sraightforward choice of being a part of Russia or else a part of Europe, I have no trouble understanding, and agreeing with, Ukraine’s, and Yushchenko’s, desire to join up with Europe.

  One of the problems I have with Putin is that the only thing he has on his mind is capitalism, which means exploitation and oppression and, often, terrorism. One of the many problems I have with Bush is his gangsterism. He will rob millions of their freedom and security in pursuing the best interests of his capitalist class. He just stole a whole country in plain view of the world for gosh sake, because he is the most powerful man in the world. It helps that he is, in fact, godless. No one who believes in, and follows, God could think and act like this nut.

  If it’s true that Ukraine is divided, fundamentally, in ways that the ITT article I’m responding to outline, then that should be addressed ‘before’ the Ukraines go for electing a single prime minister to rule over them. If they are in fact divided, then it seems to me that the rational thing for them to do is formally acknowledge that and then take legal steps to end the fiction of Ukraine as we now know it. These elections, under these circumstances, can only create chaos, and only those who believe they have the most power, who also see that as the most important value one might possess, can want such chaos. For when you have chaos and laws and so forth don’t matter, only the powerful will finally get their way.

  Another thing to consider here is this: Is this chaos, and the likely outcome (power will win), in the best interests of the working class in Ukraine (and elsewhere) or international capitalism?

  Posted by Arby on Dec 5, 2004 at 5:06 PM

  The conundrum is finding a way to keep nation-states together that are so clearly riven with fundamental differences in worldview. In fact, it begs the question whether preserving today’s national boundaries is a worthwhile goal. How can such nations continue to exist in a unified form? How can people see each other as countrymen when they agree on virtually nothing? Would not a repeated series of close-but-disputed elections feed an eventual civil war, to the detriment of all? I often wonder if some form of devolution wouldn’t be of benefit, but then what do you do with the minorities that will exist in each half if “West Ukraine” were to become a separate state from “East Ukraine”? The history of the region (and the planet) doesn’t favor the view that such minorities will be anything but victims and insurrgents, and massive relocation programs only lead to further conflict and hatred (ala India and the former two halves of Pakistan) that lasts for generations. There’s all kinds of speculation about what divides the Ukrainians, but I ask, what is it that unites them as a nation in the first place, here and now? Are the Russian-oriented Ukrainians simply the descendants of Russians who spread into the various Soviet republics during Stalin’s russification efforts? Is there something else at work here? Any insights from informed posters would be appreciated.

  Posted by Kuya on Dec 5, 2004 at 6:56 PM

  Note to Arby:  Not only can belief in a god be concordant with insane activity, it usually fosters it.  See a few thousand years of human history for other examples.

  Posted by rocco on Dec 7, 2004 at 2:20 AM

  I’m happy to see that you said ‘usually’ and not ‘always’. ;-)

  Posted by Arby on Dec 7, 2004 at 11:50 AM

  So another semi-authoritarian, oligarch-backed regime which almost certinally stole the election, i thought you were going to report on the US election.  Maybe in Kiev people are not afraid of the government but here people are terriffied!!!  Only when millions of Americans peacefully assemble and and bring our corrupt government down will we have a chance at democracy. ( We could use some of those CIA millions to help our strugle for democracy too.)

  Posted by Jim on Dec 22, 2004 at 2:24 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 7 posts.

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