Taras Kuzio speaks at Shevchenko Society about Ukraine's "two choices" (11/10/02)

Taras Kuzio speaks at Shevchenko Society about Ukraine's "two choices"

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK - Dr. Taras Kuzio, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty political analyst familiar to readers of The Ukrainian Weekly, spoke at the Shevchenko Scientific Society (known by its Ukrainian acronym, NTSh) in New York on October 12, offering a lecture with the provocative title "Little Russia or Ukraine? Ukraine Determines Its Future Between Two Choices at the End of the Kuchma Era."

The speaker was introduced by Dr. Anna Procyk, a vice-president of the NTSh, who organizes and chairs the talks, conferences and presentations held at the society's headquarters throughout the academic year.

Dr. Procyk read a list of Dr. Kuzio's most impressive professional credentials. Presently he is a resident fellow and adjunct professor at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University Toronto. A prolific contributor to the media, Dr. Kuzio in the last seven years has also authored or co-authored five books and edited four more on the topic of contemporary Ukraine.

According to Dr. Kuzio, today's political crisis in Ukraine has its roots in the peaceful national-democratic revolution that enveloped Ukraine upon the collapse of the Soviet Union but has never been completed. In the center of the problem lies the Ukrainian national question. The low level of national awareness among the population of eastern Ukraine had the political consequence of bringing to power "sovereign Communists," who created a regime that is a hybrid between Western and Soviet forms of government, and is devoid of the Ukrainian national idea.

Dr. Kuzio reminded his audience that Soviet Ukraine had a Communist Party membership of 3.5 million, of whom only 5 percent remain declared Communists. Most of the former Communist careerists have now become oligarchs or "centrists," who are the mainstay of the regime of President Leonid Kuchma. Representing big business and mass media, the centrist parties have no ideology and are devoid of any Ukrainian national sentiment, being indifferent to the Ukrainian language and history.

That is not surprising as these former Communists are heirs to the Shcherbytsky era (of the 1970s), which produced some of the fiercest Russification of Ukraine. Motivated solely by power and money, the centrist-oligarchs are characterized by immorality and irresponsibility - traits they inherited from the Soviet system, said Dr. Kuzio.

Coming from an authoritarian background, they are averse to compromise, and ill at ease with Western values and a market economy; they feel more at home in the Eurasian space and mindset. According to Dr. Kuzio, it is these centrists, rather than the present-day Communists (whose influence has been diminishing), who present the greatest danger to Ukraine's independence.

The strategy of transforming Ukraine into an authoritarian state reached its apogee in 1999, when President Kuchma proposed to make Ukraine a presidential republic, thus raising the specter of the type of regime that exists in the Central Asian republics, where presidents are self-appointed for life, Dr. Kuzio related. That idea fell through, however, when Mr. Kuchma's authority was shaken in the fall of 2000 by the "Kuchmagate" scandals. Compounded recently by allegations of the sale of sophisticated Ukrainian radar systems to Iraq, these scandals have isolated Ukraine from the West and pushed it closer to Russia. They have also brought about psychological change among Ukraine's people - indeed a radicalization within the opposition to the regime, whereby the president is no longer immune to criticism just because he is the head of state.

In the next few years 12 Eastern European countries will become members of the European Union, while seven of them will join NATO. The three Baltic states are on both membership lists, but Ukraine is not on either. In Dr. Kuzio's opinion, Ukraine will never be able to join Euro-Atlantic structures if it retains its present regime or one just like it.

Fortunately, Ukraine does have an alternative: the national-democratic opposition. For example, a Viktor Yushchenko presidency would ease the path towards integration with the West, said Dr. Kuzio.

Today we are facing an impending struggle between two visions of Ukraine - the "Little Russian" model of the hybrid authoritarian oligarchy, devoid of a national idea and heading towards Eurasia vs. the national-democratic variant of nation-building according to the Baltic model, with an eye towards integration with Europe, said Dr. Kuzio.

Recent polls in Ukraine reveal that only 5 percent of the population support President Kuchma, 55 percent favor impeachment proceedings against him, and 70 percent would like to see early presidential elections (the regular election is scheduled for 2004).

A member of the audience asked: Why then did only 50,000 anti-regime demonstrators turn out in Kyiv on September 16? Dr. Kuzio explained that Ukrainians are a relatively passive people, reluctant to reveal their political feelings in public. In an analogous situation in another country, say Yugoslavia or Argentina, said Dr. Kuzio, there would be a million people out in the street. Ukrainians, however, are likely to express their true preferences via the secret ballot, concluded Dr. Kuzio.

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