A GLIMPSE OF SOVIET REALITY: Ukrainian party congress supports state sovereignty (07/22/90)

A GLIMPSE OF SOVIET REALITY

Ukrainian party congress supports state sovereignty

by Dr. Roman Solchanyk

The 28th Congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the first phase of which concluded on June 22, adopted a wide-ranging resolution "On the State Sovereignty of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic," affirming, inter alia, the priority of republican law over all-union legislation; Ukrainian ownership of the republic's land, natural resources, and primary means of production; the inviolability of Ukraine's territory and borders; the right to enter into direct economic trade relations with foreign countries and to exchange diplomatic representation; and the institution of citizenship of the Ukrainian SSR.

These principles were laid out in the keynote address of the Ukrainian Party First Secretary Volodymyr Ivashko (at the congress, Mr. Ivashko was replaced as party first secretary by Stanislav Ivanovych Hurenko) who also urged the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet to adopt a declaration on state sovereignty and repeated his call for a new union treaty, which he previously voiced at the plenum of the Ukrainian Central Committee on February 22, at the session of the USSR Supreme Soviet on February 27, and at the plenum of the Ukrainian Central Committee on March 31.

Support for the state sovereignty of the Ukrainian republic was already evident at the plenum of the Ukrainian Central Committee held on November 29, 1989, which adopted the party's platform for the March elections to the republican and local soviets. At that time, the party leadership posited the republic's state sovereignty "within the framework of a renewed Soviet federation."

The issue was broached one again at the February plenum, which was convened in the wake of widespread public protests and meetings throughout the republic and which resulted in a substantial turnover of party secretaries and government functionaries on the local level. At the plenum, which had all the characteristics of a crisis meeting, the resolution that was adopted still referred only to "a sovereign Ukraine within the framework of a renewed Soviet federation," although Mr. Ivashko himself spoke of "the economic independence of Ukraine within the framework of a Soviet federation based on a new union treaty."

The majority's apparent hesitation to tackle the sovereignty issue directly was raised by M.K. Rodionov, of the Kiev Polytechnical Institute, who argued: "I feel that today's declaration, that we are for Ukraine within a renewed federation, is not enough."

He added: "I think that the first priority of today's resolution should be to provide for the development of a concept of real sovereignty for the republic within the Union on a federal basis and the conclusion of a new Union treaty."

This was the position taken several weeks later at the March plenum, and enshrined in the Ukrainian party's "Programmatic Principles of the Work of the Communist Party of Ukraine." Section III of that document, titled "Towards Sovereign Ukrainian Statehood Based on Law," contains the essential points developed in the resolution now adopted by the party congress.

A further occasion for leading figures in the Ukrainian party and government to define their position on sovereignty was the delivery of the report by Nikolai Ryzhkov to their third session of the USSR Supreme Soviet on May 24 on the transition to "a regulated market economy." The Ryzhkov plan elicited outright rejection by Kiev, which is almost unprecedented.

This was made clear by Vitaliy A. Masol, the chairman of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers, in the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet on the next day. At the following session of the Ukrainian Parliament, held on May 28, Mr. Ivashko proposed that the deputies consider a resolution on the central government's proposals that would affirm the "inadmissibility" of any decisions on price increases without "comprehensive discussion with all union republics and a referendum across the country" and further to send the resolution of the USSR Supreme Soviet. The resolution was adopted the same day, although in a milder form.

The Ukrainian view of the Ryzhkov plan was also presented directly to Moscow by Vitold P. Fokin, the chairman of the Ukrainian State Planning Committee in an address to the USSR Supreme Soviet. The last of Mr. Fokin's five points and, in his words, the "most important" cause of disagreement between Kiev and Moscow was that the mechanics of the regulation of the market, as proposed by the center, remained exclusively in the hands of union organs.

He said that, "in practice, this actually means the complete removal of the union republics from participation in regulating the market. We are aware of this and we do not agree with it. We insist on the transfer of the majority of these regulators to the union republics... The USSR is not simply a federal state but a union of sovereign states with all of the rights and responsibilities that proceed from this."

Mr. Fokin's view differs little at base from that of the opposition. In a recent interview, Vyacheslav Chornovil, chairman of the Lviv Oblast soviet and a former political prisoner, was considerably more forthright in his evaluation of the Ryzhkov plan, calling it "colonial in character" and "a very cunning form of exploitation of the republics, particularly Ukraine."

Finally, in still another display of the inclination towards independence, Mr. Ivashko, then president of Ukraine (he resigned on July 10 to assume the position of CPSU deputy general secretary) is reported to have told the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet on June 25 that military conscripts from Ukraine should be permitted to perform their military service in the republic, a demand that echoes similar popular sentiments in the Baltic and Transcaucasian republics, as well as in Ukraine.

The views expressed by Messrs. Ivashko, Masol and Fokin may be judged by some outside observers as nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, in the short space of several months, the top leadership of Ukraine has begun to defend positions formulated by the Popular Movement of Ukraine for Perestroika, "Rukh," and for which the latter had been roundly criticized by the very same party and government leadership.

The degree to which Mr. Ivashko and company have "restructured" themselves can be seen from the sections of the reports on the CPSU Central Committee plenums of December 9 and December 25-26, 1989, which were recently published in Izvestiya TsK KPSS. At the latter plenum, which was convened to discuss the situation in the Lithuanian Communist Party, Mr. Ivashko railed against "emissaries" from Lithuania, who, he alleged, seemed to be present at every "nationalist and separatist" public meeting in Ukraine, and he called for the "strengthening" of the USSR, the "strong Socialist state."

"Whoever, whether in Lithuania, Ukraine, or elsewhere, thinks that solving socio-economic problems, establishing the economic independence of the union of autonomous republics and other regions, and [making] the transition to qualitatively new economic relations that combine planning and the market are possible without strengthening the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is either a naive simpleton or pursuing secretly the aim of liquidating the strong socialist state. There is no middle ground here," he said.

Using one of the standard cliches of the stagnationist lexicon, the Ukrainian party leader accused the Lithuanian Communists of preparing the groundwork for "the demolition of the single national economic complex of the country." The same phrase turned up in Mr. Masol's speech at the plenum on December 9, 1989, where he expressed his displeasure at the discussions concerning the need for a renewed Soviet federation. Whereas the rest of the world was moving towards greater unification and integration, argued Mr. Masol, the opposite trend could be observed in the Soviet Union.

He said: "I do not understand why, if we want to set up our federation, we are talking about isolation, self-financing, and self-sustenance? Here, today, what we should be taking a clear stand on and talking about is unification and consolidation, that we are developing as a single national economic complex, not each alone... In my view, history teaches that the stronger the state, the more strongly it is united around itself."

Clearly, Messrs. Ivashko and Masol are now singing a rather different tune. The question must be raised, however, to what extent that tune rings true.

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