Boris Kagarlitsky, Moscow
On Russia's state television channels there was hysteria. Astonished viewers, plunged into a Cold War atmosphere, learned that neighbouring Ukraine was experiencing a coup d'tat planned by foreign spy services.
The enemies of the people were so cunning that they had organised violations of the electoral regulations, provoking demonstrations by the opposition. The aim of all this was to bring the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to power instead of the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich. If "we" were to "lose" Ukraine, Russia would never again be a great power, the commentators all concluded.
During the Ukrainian elections, the Russian observers could not fail to notice a huge number of violations, but they gave the impression that they were seeing them only in the west of Ukraine, where the elections were supposedly being rigged in favour of Yushchenko.
In reality, Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a federation but a unitary state, in which local administrations are subject to the president. Before the second round of voting, President Leonid Kuchma had replaced the heads of administrations in the provinces where the opposition was winning. To a significant degree, the violations thus favoured the authorities not only in the east, but in the west as well.
Of course, it does not follow from this that the opposition was entirely blameless. Quite the reverse; in the second round of voting the opposition bloc clearly sought to match the government's fraud with its own "counterfraud", using the same detached coupons and multiple voting. Compared to the officials of the presidential administration, however, the opposition had incomparably fewer opportunities for administrative trickery.
Moreover, the tactic of "counterfraud" spurred the authorities to make still more efforts to ensure the result they wanted, to the point where the whole procedure became farcical.
Yanukovich finally gained the number of votes he needed, but his victory was Pyrrhic. Not only did the opposition take to the streets, but it had obvious moral and political grounds for refusing to accept the election results.
East versus west?
The theses about the struggle of a pro-Washington opposition against a pro-Moscow political elite do not stand up to scrutiny, and neither do the constantly repeated assertions about a clash between the Ukrainian-speaking west and the Russian-speaking east.
Yushchenko is unquestionably a pro-Washington politician. But the same can equally be said of the present rulers of Ukraine. It was Kuchma who, together with Yanukovich, sent Ukrainian troops to help the US occupy Iraq.
Meanwhile, a number of opposition politicians criticised the sending of troops to Iraq, as did the Ukrainian Communists, who have refused to support either side in the present conflict.
Just as false are the attempts to divide Ukrainian society on linguistic lines. Kiev, the capital, is a stronghold of the opposition, even though the language one mostly hears on the streets there is Russian. Mass demonstrations took place in Kharkov, regarded as the centre of Russian culture in Ukraine.
The actions in support of the authorities that were organised in Donetsk and other industrial cities were reminiscent of Soviet-era demonstrations, to which people were driven with sticks. Those who spoke were mainly trade union officials and administrative functionaries, while the workers took the first chance to make off to their homes.
Despite the claims that thousands of miners would be brought to Kiev to do battle with the opposition, the authorities managed to put on show only a few dozen Donetsk gangsters in ill-fitting miners' helmets, along with a group of fancy-dress Cossacks.
In reality, the Ukrainian authorities are incapable of mobilising mass popular support. Moreover, they are afraid of real demonstrations by the miners. If large numbers of miners were to take to the streets, this would amount to the very strike for which the opposition has been calling. Also, there are no guarantees that the bosses and bureaucrats around Yanukovich would be able to keep protesting workers under their control.
Kremlin blunders
The logic of the Cold War might have been justified when a clash of two systems was involved, but for a good while now Russia and the West have shared the same capitalist system. The axis of opposition in world politics is not rivalry between NATO and the Eastern bloc (which ceased to exist 15 years ago), but rivalry between the blocs of the euro and the US dollar.
In this contest, the Kremlin is quite unable to decide where it stands. It tries clumsily to manoeuvre between Brussels and Washington, but in such a way as to bang its head first on one side, then on the other, dooming itself to a series of one-sided concessions to each of the contending groups.
The Kremlin goes unrewarded for these concessions, since any shifts it makes in the direction of Berlin and Paris are immediately cancelled out by its demonstrative expressions of loyalty to Washington.
It is also unclear how Russia in 2004 might "lose" Ukraine. After all, the Russian state long ago recognised Ukrainian independence. If we are talking not of control but of Russian political, moral and cultural influence on the neighbouring republic, it would be hard to think of any worse means for achieving this than what the Kremlin has done in recent months.
The Kremlin has not only shocked everyone with its crude and unconcealed meddling in the affairs of a neighbouring sovereign state, but more importantly, has done this so ineptly that it has finished up harming its own cause.
Most comic of all has been the way Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing journalists in Portugal, called on them not to use "scarecrows" from Cold War times, even though his own propagandists have been doing this.
Putin's speeches on the topic of Ukraine betray his confusion. On one occasion he will adopt an extremely aggressive tone, hinting at the evil intent of the West; then he will try to justify himself to these same Westerners, explaining that he congratulated Yanukovich not as the newly elected president, but (and this is something absolutely new in world diplomacy) "on the basis of the results of the exit polls".
The stakes in the political struggle in Ukraine are enormous, including for the Kremlin. But these stakes have nothing to do with national interests, or with the now long-gone contest between communist East and capitalist West.
Threat to plunderers
The semi-criminal clans which in the course of privatisation seized control not only over the industry in eastern Ukraine, but to a significant degree over the population as well, have close ties with the bureaucratic-oligarchic groups that hold sway in Moscow. These groups are united not only by business links, but also by a common fear â that sooner or later they will have to answer for the plunder of their countries' collective wealth, for the rigging of elections, and for the suppression of political freedoms.
For precisely this reason, the rise to power of the opposition in Ukraine will set an ominous example for Russia's new elites, even if this Kiev opposition is extremely moderate, promising neither nationalisation nor a redistribution of incomes.
Russian capital is starting a massive expansion in Ukraine. Talks have begun on the purchase of telecommunications companies, metallurgical plants and even breweries. The Donetsk clans that have united around Yanukovich need to hold onto power, to ensure that the planned deals will go through smoothly.
The Western political elites as well are thinking far more strategically. While Moscow commentators continually cite the ousting of the Shevardnadze regime in Georgia as an example of a secret US plan providing backing for a "democratic" revolution, the past also contains other instances in which limited democratic revolutions have received support from Washington â in the Philippines against the dictator Marcos, and in Indonesia against the decades-long rule of the armed forces. In all these cases, as in Georgia, Washington supported the overthrow of a pro-US regime.
There is no paradox here. The crisis of a ruling elite has an objective character, quite separate from Washington's intrigues. All US diplomacy does is to realistically weigh up the existing situation, and then, instead of taking a stand on what is obviously the losing side, to select new and more promising partners from among the opposition.
What is important for the US rulers in such cases is to ensure that when the new leadership comes to power, the foreign policy course of the country in question remains as before. In other words, Washington supports democratic revolutions with a single aim â to geld them of their radical potential.
On the moral level, the authorities have already lost the struggle in Ukraine. The only way they could restore their political control would be to resort to violence on a scale tantamount to catastrophe. The agreement on new elections reached between the authorities and the opposition will, if fulfilled, merely ensure a smoother and more legitimate handover of power.
Whoever wins, one of the main victims of the Ukrainian crisis will be Vladimir Putin. By openly supporting the Kuchma-Yanukovich regime, investing large quantities of money in it, and by sending it a whole army of advisers and political tutors, the Kremlin risked getting only problems in return.
Even if Yanukovich wins, his main concern will be with rebuilding relations with the West. At his meeting with the European Union in the Hague, Putin will have to try to justify himself, losing the last shreds of his authority. Most importantly, before his own people, armed forces and police in Russia he has once again shown himself to be a weak and incompetent politician. And in Russia, the weak do not prevail.
From Green Left Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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