Scuffle breaks out in Verkhovna Rada over October Revolution anniversary (11/15/98)

Scuffle breaks out in Verkhovna Rada over October Revolution anniversary

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A scuffle between two leading members of opposing factions in the Verkhovna Rada on November 6 added some color to relatively peaceful October Revolution commemorations in Ukraine.

The brief skirmish in Ukraine's legislature and what has become an annual confrontation between Social Nationalists and Communists in Lviv were the only two disturbances in what leftist political leaders had predicted would be a weekend marked by large-scale demonstrations.

The commemorations, and the first confrontation, began in the Verkhovna Rada, whose ideological split and paralysis to many is symbolic of the problems in this country of 50.9 million. At the opening of the morning session, while Rada Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko read a statement honoring World War II veterans who helped free Kyiv from Nazi occupation on November 6, 1943, a radical member of the Communist faction, Volodymyr Moiseienko, unfurled a red Soviet banner and began waving it about the session hall.

As other Communists took their turn with the flag, including faction leader Petro Symonenko, annoyed national deputies from the democratic right, mostly members of the Rukh faction, moved to wrest from the hands of the leftists what for them is a symbol of 70-plus years of Soviet tyranny.

A tussle occurred between Communist Moiseienko and Rukh member Bohdan Boyko, which nearly led to a melee on the Parliament floor before order was restored.

Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil, who took to the rostrum after Mr. Moiseienko had been given permission to speak, called for a moment of silence in memory of the victims of Soviet repression. With shouts of "Get off the rostrum" emanating from the Communist section of the hall, Mr. Chornovil called on deputies to abandon the hall in protest against the Communist "provocation." Only members of the Rukh faction heeded their leader's request.

This year's commemoration of the most important holiday in the Soviet Communist world, the storming of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1917, which led to the Bolshevik overthrow of the Kerensky government, was even more important to leftist forces because it was celebrated in conjunction with official government commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Kyiv's liberation from Nazi occupation.

Leftist leaders, most notably Communist Party leader Mr. Symonenko, had said people would take to the streets in numbers not seen since Ukraine declared independence in 1991. However, only some 90,000 Ukrainians nationwide thought it important to attend Communist demonstrations on November 7 in commemoration of the October Revolution and in protest against the current administration's pro-West policies. A scant 4,000 demonstrated in Kyiv. Ukraine's leftist political parties have some 170,000 registered members.

At a rally in Kyiv on European Square, before what was once the Lenin Museum but today is the Ukrainian National Home, leading members of the left, including Mr. Symonenko, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz and the head of the Chornobyl Union Yurii Andreiev, called on Ukraine to alter its course of reforms, join the Commonwealth of Independent States Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and the Russia-Belarus Union, and ban all NATO military exercises in Ukraine.

After the rally the throng marched down the Khreschatyk to the Lenin monument.

Meanwhile Rukh held its own rally in Mykhailivskyi Square, where more than 1,500 national democrats and their supporters paid tribute to victims of Soviet repression. After laying flowers at the Shevchenko Monument, they held a mourning march down Volodymyrska Street, the location of some of Ukraine's most important historic landmarks, including the Teacher's Building, in front of which the Ukrainian National Republic was proclaimed in 1918, and the Golden Gates (Zoloti Vorota) and the St. Sophia Sobor, both built by Prime Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century.

The Young Rukh bloc of the party held an unusual action of its own that same day. After the Communist march and rally had ended, Young Rukh members followed with a "sanitation action." Several dozen young men walked the route of the Communist demonstration wearing gas masks and white lab coats, and holding disinfection apparati in a symbolic cleansing of what Rukh Press Secretary Dmytro Ponomarchuk called "the red infection."

In Lviv, which had marked the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Western Ukrainian National Republic the week before, October Revolution demonstrations became violent when rightists and leftists crossed paths after their separate rallies were over. A confrontation between the leftist Socialist Youth Congress and the rightist Social National Party of Ukraine and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists turned into a brawl that chiefly involved the leftists and the police, after someone tried to destroy a leftist placard. Order was quickly restored, but not before five people were injured and 21 Socialists were arrested. All were later released.

No more than 250 people attended the Socialist demonstration that took place before the disturbance. The rightists' rally, held to protest October Revolution Day celebrations, involved some 100 individuals.

In other major cities of Ukraine police reported only peaceful demonstrations. The largest rallies were held in Mykolaiv and Kharkiv; approximately 5,000 people participated in each rally.

| Home Page |