COMMENTARY by James E. Mace
Professor, historian, journalist living in Kyiv, Ukraine
Published by "UKRAINE REPORT-2004," Number 8
www.ArtUkraine.com  Information Service (ARTUIS)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, January 16, 2004

Viktor Yushchenko has such a reservoir of public sympathy, if only for having been treated so unfairly by a regime already so detested, that one way or another, the outcome of 2004 will depend on what he will do. The question is whether he will become Ukraine's Washington or Mexico's ill-fated President Caranza. And, of course, they could simply decide to have him killed, but with the firestorm that has already happened with the decapitation of Gongadze, that would simply light the fuse to the powder keg.

In 1994 in the journal "Political Thought" (No. 4), this writer put forward the idea that Ukraine had already become a kleptocracy (for the uninitiated, rule of the thieves who psychologically just cannot help themselves from stealing), that this system was not viable, and that Ukraine had but two options - the Polish (moving toward Europe) or the Belarus (moving toward Russia). The buyers of the Constitution and those who sold their votes have now opted for the latter without Batsko (Papa) Lukashenka.

Of course, Western states have always been willing to work with authoritarian and corrupt regimes ("He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard," as Roosevelt said of the elder Somoza), but they will never ever be allowed into the club of Euro-Atlantic integration. Ukraine is a rich country with a dysfunctional system of political and economic relations that keeps its people poor.

If the Ukrainian people is pushed too far without responsible and enlightened leadership, very ugly things could well happen. Recall the pogroms of 1919. This time it is likely to be a different target, but everybody knows where most of the people's deputies live, in a valley just off Lesia Ukrayinka Square, and no hired defenders can defend against the rage of the people itself.

I cannot say that Viktor Yushchenko is above reproach as a political mastermind. He has a tendency to do things off the cuff without thinking them through and then not following through to see that they are actually done (although he did a wonderful thing with the Candle in the Window campaign that the media downplayed outrageously). He also has a reputation for inflexibility and not being aware that compromise is sometimes the soul of governance. There are a number of people whom I know have either left his campaign or are in despair because of these things.

But the people of Ukraine want him as opposed to those whose honor seems too weak to make any compromise meaningful or durable. If he calls on those who look to him, there is Ukraine's biggest national minority, about a quarter of the population called here "shchyri" (literally "broad," but perhaps "real or authentic" would be as good as any translation in this case) Ukrainians, who will follow. And as 1917 in Russia showed, a quarter of the population is more than enough to make a revolution if the old rules begin to break down.

This is something I pray does not happen. Ukraine's history is about as bloody as one can image, and the chernozem black soil needs no further fertilization with the bodies of those who would do better to till it. Still, things could get out of control and nasty enough to make the former Yugoslavia look like a walk in the park. It will demand wisdom from a figure who has not yet demanded a surfeit of it.

To some extent the Kravchuk years (Kravchuk was and is a classical Great Pacificator in the tradition of Henry Clay, and his current alignment with the Social Democrats {oligarch} shows a bit more moral flexibility than I would be comfortable with) and much more in the Kuchma years (the peak was Lazarenko as premier but Yanukovych also has been convicted of two crimes already and there is a prosecutor out there, who desires to charge him for yet another), post-Soviet Ukraine evolved into a blatant kleptocracy that every gypsy taxi driver can see and complain about to his passengers when the conversation turns to such a topic. They are not pleased to have what should be theirs (it IS their country after all) ladled out to a privileged few, and should they decide to do something about it, all hell could truly break loose.

Everything will depend on Viktor Yushchenko, long referred to as the Hamlet of Ukrainian politics. Nobody knows what he will do, he will certainly receive all sorts of bad advice, but he will have a chance few are offered to right the wrongs and give people something they can live with, embrace as their own, and be ready to defend to the death. There is an art of compromise, with which I would do what I can to foster if asked, but there is also a range of much worse alternatives that I fear those in power might ineptly put into motion.

No friend of Ukraine wants to see this country, the history of which is so marred with tragedy, suffer yet another. The people cannot be denied their right to directly elect their president. If this move goes forward, I fear for what might happen.

The moment demands statesmanship. Whether he acts as a statesman or a simple politician, Viktor Yushchenko, the most popular and looked to figure in the country, will largely determine what can and cannot be. In 2004, upon his decisions and actions the fate of Ukraine will most depend.