MUDDLING ALONG: THE FIRST DECADE OF INDEPENDENT UKRAINE Taras Kuzio he aim of this article is twofold. First, to or where it is heading. Indeed, President Leonid outline a general framework for the study of Kuchma hoped that a Ukrainian scholarly conference post-Soviet Ukraine that draws on my study of in Summer 2001 would provide him with these Tdevelopments in different areas over the last decade. answers, seven years after first being elected. Ukraine became an independent state in January The national aspects of Ukraine’s path 1992 with historical baggage from empire and dependency have played the decisive role in totalitarianism. Of the 27 post-communist countries determining two further outcomes? Ukraine’s those with the lightest burdens of legacy from inherited legacy within the national domain produced empire and totalitarianism have produced a more a country lying midway between denationalized successful transition.1 Belarus and the highly nationally conscious three This baggage has shaped a path dependency in a Baltic states. This has influenced such questions as country divided into roughly three equal camps: active support for current borders, the weakness of national democrats (often mistakenly referred to as separatism, a close correlation between national “nationalists”) who form the basis of civil society, a identity and civil society and an amorphous passive center that draws upon those with an “pragmatic center,” which acts as a buffer between amorphous identity and former national communists national democrats and communists. Ukraine’s path turned oligarchs, and Ukraine’s largest political party, dependency has helped to facilitate a delegative as well as an unreformed Communist Party of Ukraine democracy where Russophones and Sovietophiles, (KPU). This path dependency and the resultant who although living in the most populous regions of threefold division of political forces has produced a eastern and southern Ukraine, largely do not relatively stable environment in Ukraine, where none participate in civil society and whose main of these three political forces are able to dominate the participation in the political process occurs only country and impose their will. Breakthroughs in during elections. As a consequence of this political reform, along the lines of Central-Eastern Europe, configuration, Ukraine’s elites can ignore national were therefore impossible (and, by implication, so democrats during elections and Russophones and was a complete return to the past, as in neighboring Sovietophiles between elections. Belarus). Domestic and foreign policies maintain In this article I will survey this path dependency Ukraine along a “muddling way” within a virtual in two domestic areas to test the framework. These polity where declared and actual policies are very two areas are political and economic reform as well as different.2 Ukraine’s “muddle way” has meant that state- and nation-building. Foreign and defense Ukraine has never outlined a concrete goal or policies are referred to in the article within the context domestic or international vision of what it is building of domestic policies but to do them justice would require a separate article.43 1. See Alexander J.Motyl, “Ten Years After the Soviet Collapse: Persistence of the Past and Prospects for the Future,” in Adrian 3. See Philip G. Roeder, “Peoples and States after 1989: The Karatnycky, A.Motyl and Amanda Schnetzer, eds., Nations in Political Costs of Incomplete National Revolutions,” Slavic Transit 2001. Civil Society, Democracy and Markets in East Review, vol.58, no.4 (Winter 1999), 854-81 and Taras Kuzio, Central Europe and the Newly Independent States (New Brunswick, “Transition in Post-Communist States: Triple or Quadruple?” NJ and New York: Transaction Publishers and Freedom House, Politics, vol.21, no.3 (September 2001), 168-77. 2001), 36-44. 4. See Jennifer Moroney, Taras Kuzio and Mikhail Molchanov, 2. See Dominique Arel, “Ukraine: The Muddle Way,” Current Ukrainian Foreign and Security Policy (Westport: CT: Praeger, History, vol.97, no.620 (October 1998), 342-46, D. Arel, forthcoming 2002).0ther bibliographic sources on Ukrainian “Kuchmagate and the Demise of Ukraine's ‘Geopolitical Bluff” and security policy can be found at: Andrew Wilson, “Ukraine's New Virtual Politics,” East European www.taraskuzio.net/ukrainian/bibliography.html. Constitutional Review, vol. 10, nos. 2/3 (Spring/Summer 2001), 54- 66. 11 The Harriman Review Twin Legacies and Path Dependency The KPU has always commanded a large number The legacies of empire and totalitarianism of seats in the Ukrainian Parliament, its only source fundamentally affect the national question in of influence in Ukrainian politics, ranging from 80 in Ukraine. Due to this legacy the national idea in the 1994-1998 Rada to 120 in 1998-2002. The only Ukraine was strong enough to propel the country to occasion when they were absent from the Rada, due independence but insufficiently powerful to become to their illegal status, was in 1992-1993. During this hegemonic in post-Soviet Ukraine. The national idea period the Rada under President Kravchuk and in Ukraine is influenced by these twin legacies in Prime Minister Kuchma could have ostensibly three areas. introduced radical reforms, but the fact that they did First, the link between nationalism and not is due to the reasons outlined in this framework. modernization, which has always, as Ernest Gellner At that time the former national communists were reminded us, been strong since the late eighteenth even more unclear about any program of action or century and remains so in modernizing states in where they were taking the country (Kuchma asked South East Asia today, was broken in eastern the Rada this very question in despair), they had no Ukraine. Until the 1920s nationalism and political parties to represent their interests, the modernization were allowed to develop eastern Ukrainian wing of this establishment had simultaneously in Soviet Ukraine because of the still to decide whether it was financially worthwhile policies of indigenization and national communism. to be derzhavnyky and if they introduced reform After Soviet leader Josef Stalin consolidated his policies which failed they would have had no KPU- power these twin policies were dropped in favor of a dominated Rada on which to deflect blame. fusion of Soviet communism and Russian great Since 1994, when economic and political reforms power chauvinism that masqueraded as began, Kuchma has constantly attacked the Rada for “internationalism.” blocking his reform plans. This has been a These policies lasted for five decades (from the commonly used excuse throughout the CIS and has mid 1930s to the mid 1980s), creating an urban and been used by the executive as an argument to industrialized population with a territorial attachment weaken parliamentary power at the expense of the to Soviet Ukraine and, in some cases to the USSR, presidency. Undoubtedly, the KPU has been a more but with few cultural or linguistic links to Ukrainian vociferous critic of reform than the Communist culture and language. Among this element of the parties of Central and Eastern Europe who, having population only two of the three political groups that become social democrats, have usually embraced dominate Ukrainian politics have been successful in reform (Serbia and Croatia, of course, until 2000 winning their support—centrists (dominated by represented exceptions). Nevertheless, by former national communists turned oligarchs) and continually blaming others for Ukraine’s problems the left.5 the executive follows the Soviet tradition of refusing These legacies have influenced the inability of to accept responsibility for problems that should be KPU (Communist Party of Ukraine) to evolve into a clearly laid at the feet of the head of state. national communist or social-democratic, Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2001 report derzhavnyk, political party as elsewhere in Central- clearly does not point to parliamentarianism as an Eastern Europe. After the national communists obstacle to reform in Central Eastern Europe, where (Leonid Kravchuk) and economic elites (Leonid it is more prevalent.6 In the CIS, where Kuchma) of the KPU defected to the national presidentialism is prevalent, reform has not democrats, the rump KPU remained disorganized progressed faster but has regressed. The April 2000 and illegal. It was finally permitted to establish a referendum organized by the executive to reduce the new KPU in October 1993 that consisted of the hard- powers of the Rada by introducing a smaller number line minority “imperial communists” from the pre- of deputies, two houses and removing immunity August 1991 KPU. from deputies would have eroded Ukraine’s democratization even further. It was not implemented because “Kuchmagate” destroyed the 5. I discuss this legacy in my “Ukraine: Coming to Terms with the Soviet Legacy,” The Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics, vol. 14, no.4 (December 1998), 1-27. 6. Available at www.freedomhouse.org. 12 The Harriman Review unity of the non-left majority in the Rada later that russification measures were relatively relaxed in year.7 comparison to those in western Belarus, also Democratization, the role of political parties and annexed from Poland.10 influence of civil society have regressed since the Ukrainians were not only the largest ethnic group late 1990s in the CIS, including Ukraine,8 corruption proportionately among Soviet dissidents, but also a and patronage have increased, and the independent proportionately large number of them came from media have come under attack. To blame the KPU western Ukraine itself. Two-thirds of the parishes of for blocking reforms is, therefore, not to see the the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet era were forest for the trees. By the end of the post-Soviet to be found in Ukraine and three-quarters of these decade the former national communists-oligarchs were in Galicia, reflecting a close link between had become the main threat to democratization in nationalism and religion, higher than that found in Ukraine, not the KPU.