NEWS AND VIEWS: Can Communists and Socialists come to power in Ukraine? (07/08/01)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Can Communists and Socialists come to power in Ukraine?

by Dr. Olexiy Haran

In Ukrainian political lexicon the term "left" usually means parties which are situated to the left of both social democracy in its traditional understanding and of several Ukrainian social democratic parties. In fact, one of the problems for Ukrainian politics is the absence of a strong social democratic party: the quite influential Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United) represents the interests of the oligarchs and could discredit the very idea of social democracy; three other social democratic groups are not influential.

The main players among the Ukrainian left are the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) and the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU). While the non-modernized Communists seem to have no chances of coming to power, the more moderate Socialists could come to power in a bloc with other forces (first, of all centrists) but that would require much more flexible politics and their transformation into a center-left force.

As a result of the initial ban of the Communist Party after the failure of the August 1991 coup, most members of the former Soviet nomenklatura appeared in the non-institutionalized and amorphous "party of power." Now they can be found in various groups of the present Ukrainian elite, competing with each other for resources and power. Thus, the CPU (re-born in 1993) comprised the orthodox Communists; it did not follow the evolution of the former ruling Communist parties in many Central and Eastern European states that transformed themselves into Socialist or Social-Democratic parties. The CPU remains quite orthodox in its "Marxist-Leninist" rhetoric though, in fact, it is losing its anti-system character and it is quite comfortable with the status quo.

However, compared to the situation in other CIS countries, Ukrainian Communists have a serious competitor: the SPU, which is becoming more moderate. The SPU is led by the charismatic Oleksander Moroz, former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. The further evolution of the SPU towards the left of Social Democracy (and the evolution of Mr. Moroz into a kind of "Ukrainian Kwasniewski") will have a stabilizing effect on Ukrainian politics and Ukrainian independence. The problem for Mr. Moroz is that rank and file members of his party remain more orthodox than the party leadership.

Traditionally, the lists of the left parties combined have been supported by more than one-third of the electorate. The Communists have the strongest faction in the Rada, but they cannot control the Rada. Though the Communists are strong in the Russified areas of Ukraine, during the 1999 presidential elections they were defeated in several of these key oblasts.

However, it is important to stress that in single-member districts the support for the left is much weaker; moreover, the left controls only 3 percent of the seats in local councils. This fact explains the contradictory debate on the introduction of the purely proportional electoral system in Ukraine: on the one hand, the introduction of this system will definitely stimulate the structuring of the Parliament along party lines, which will have a positive effect on Ukrainian politics; on the other, authorities fear that Ukrainian Communists could follow in the footsteps of the Communist victory in Moldova's 2001 elections after the proportional system was introduced there.

Nevertheless, these fears are deliberately exaggerated by President Leonid Kuchma (who prefers to balance between different factions in the Rada rather than rely on the defined majority) and by the oligarchic factions, which have weaker chances in proportional elections as opposed to elections in the controlled single-member districts.

During the 1999 presidential elections the main rival of Mr. Kuchma was Mr. Moroz, so the president's main aim was to prevent Mr. Moroz from making it into the second round. The authoritarian trends of Mr. Kuchma's policy were revealed during the campaign (i.e., via a crackdown on the freedom of press). Presidential tactics succeeded, and the second round repeated the 1996 Russian scenario: "reformist" Kuchma vs. the "Communist threat."

After the left lost the 1999 presidential elections, the divergence between Communists and Socialists increased. The paradox is that the support of about one-fifth of the electorate keeps the Communist leadership from modernization. With the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine dubbed "Kuchmagate" (or "Tapegate"), these trends are strengthening. The Communists, in fact, united with the oligarchic factions in undermining the position of reformist Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, while the Socialists are building ties with some center and even center-right opposition forces. If these trends continue, the Ukrainian democratic opposition will have a good chance to be structured around the center-right (Yuschenko) and the center-left (Moroz).

Ukrainian Communists remain less flexible compared to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Moreover, while Russian Communists depict themselves as "patriots" defending the rights of the Russians, Ukrainian Communists use internationalist slogans to appeal to the Russian-speaking population. In some cases, their geopolitical schemes remind us of Huntington's "clash of civilizations." Ukrainian Communists oppose the Catholic and Protestant "threat." Of the three Ukrainian Orthodox Churches Ukrainian Communists support only the Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.

At the same time, they (as well as Vladimir Zyuganov) are against the slogans of the creation of the united Communist Party of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The radical supporters of this idea were excluded from the CPU in early 2001. Thus, the idea of the restoration of some kind of Union with Russia and Belarus seems to be more rhetorical than practical for them.

All the elections showed the limits of electoral support for the Communists. On the eve of the 2002 parliamentary elections the authorities could effectively use their traditional tactics of dividing the Communist electorate using populist "phantom" parties (sometimes with the word "Communist" in the name of the party).

At the same time, the Socialist electorate is much more supportive of the idea of a market economy and of Ukrainian independence (as shown in polls conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology).

It is paradoxical, however, that during the electoral campaign Mr. Moroz could (or even should) use some leftist slogans to attract part of the Communist electorate. Then he could employ the tactics of Francois Mitterand by moving to the center and outflanking the Communists (in fact, that was the fear of the Communists in the 1999 presidential elections).

At present, the SPU reminds one of the Party of Democratic Socialism (from Germany), with chances of moving to the left of social democracy. Ukrainian Communists could move in the direction of Chinese Communists, combining a market economy with "national-communism," but there are serious impediments even to this evolution.

The West could try to support the evolution of left to center, especially educating the young generation of Socialists. Otherwise, a bleak scenario is likely: the continuation of the recent situation where the center-left is split and is squeezed between the non-reformed CPU and the "oligarchic" parties which only pretend to be of the center-left.

Dr. Olexiy Haran is director of the Center for National Security Studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

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