The creation and consolidation of postcommunist uncivil society was a completely natural sociological phenomenon for Ukraine in the late twentieth century: it is precisely in it that the social character of the “average” Ukrainian is reflected most completely. All the indicators show that the social environment of today’s “average” Ukraine needs no democratic changes whatever and for this reason devotes no societal resources to accomplishing them.
UNCIVIL MENTALITY OF THE AVERAGE UKRAINIAN AND CHOICE OF THE LESSER EVIL
The realities and dynamics of sociopolitical development in the late 1990s produce a wealth of evidence that it is not characteristic of today’s average Ukrainian to be especially exacting in the role of active subject of the changes now underway in the country. Many empirical studies confirm the undeniable fact that he has assumed the role of an unbiased outside observer of the institutional and economic changes, initiated by quite small strata the of political and business elites, as well as elite-making groups. The average Ukrainian seems to prefer the state of drastically reduced sociopolitical life activity, a unique civic lethargy demonstrating the lack of any vital forces. Paradoxically, the uncivil mentality of the average Ukrainian as a persistent component of his social character is most likely a defense mechanism in the situation of the individual’s complete vulnerability and his dependence on the policies of the central and local authorities as well as his worsening life realities.
The instinct of survival at any price, the concentration of people on a natural desire to simply survive here and now, the feeling of one’s own helplessness and exhaustion of possibilities, in short, the desire to adapt to any circumstances of sociopolitical everyday life becomes the basis of one’s life position in defining one’s mode and pattern of behavior. This is why the choice (in political terms) of the lesser evil and adaptation to it up to manifestations of servile infantilism is not only a gesture of individual helplessness and despair. Importantly, here it is also the case of the phenomenon of a mass (and conscious) personal inclination to drastic self-restraint in life needs or, to be more exact, the phenomenon of self-identification with such established social patterns of behavior that by themselves render impossible the formation of any civic identity by suppressing even the sprouts of civic consciousness.
In accordance with this situation, the average Ukrainian is nearly always inclined to minimize his human and sociopolitical desires and to put down his critical anti-civic intentions, if the authorities regard them as a manifestation of the subject’s disloyalty. He simply does not want to try to reject the role imposed on him by the post- Soviet regime. Notably, one can find him on various levels of social or professional hierarchy — he may be president of a university, a worker, shuttle trader dealing in small-scale wholesale foreign trade, a lawyer, a student, or unemployed. The category of the average Ukrainian includes even the majority of those silent and dissatisfied people who deep in their hearts are radicals, say, those who have lost their jobs at a state-owned enterprise or in a state organization, who have changed their professions, or have lost their qualifications and get along by taking odd jobs, run down by circumstances, those who already have lost all hope. In brief, it is those who feel like hopeless social outcasts, but they are speechless and even do not try to renounce their customary uncivil position, where their seemingly radical energy, bred by hopelessness, is transformed into the choice of the lesser evil as a relatively stable social stereotype. Naturally, in Ukraine under the present circumstances during the presidential election campaign a favorable atmosphere formed first of all for inventing and disseminating political myths as attributes of the electoral process, while objective realities were camouflaged (both by the official and private mass media which supported the incumbent President) or were subjected to propaganda ploys in the context of clashes of ambitions and interests of other Presidential candidates.
On their part, the realities of the living conditions of the average Ukrainian, i.e., the situation in the socioeconomic sphere, obviously do not facilitate the formation of new behavioral patterns. Instead, patterns of behavior have taken root underlying which is the constant expectation by most people of a drastic worsening of the situation.
Hence, we see the hypertrophic pessimism (catastrophism) of the average Ukrainian (quite understandable in the current socioeconomic situation) with regard to prospects for qualitative change of living conditions for the better which manifested itself in a changed form — I would call it a phobia of things being worse. This is accounted for by a paradox which could not be explained by the Western analysts who were observers at the last elections in Ukraine. Its essence lies in the fact that, judging by numerous polls, over half of Ukrainians subjectively consider their position so dire that they seem to be unable to endure it any longer. In the opinion of Western experts, the rate of drop in living standards, considered by most as intolerable, was critical and could provoke mass social protests or, as political scientist A. Marsh puts it, non-traditional political behavior. But nobody noted any perceptible deviance during the Presidential election. Moreover, in Western Ukraine where unemployment is highest and pensions, wages, and salaries are long overdue, Leonid Kuchma, who was elected for a second term, won such a great share of votes that it can be compared only with the returns of the Brezhnev period elections (in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast 92.3%, Ternopil oblast 92.2%, Lviv oblast 91.6%, Transcarpathia 84.5%, Rivne oblast 76.5%, and Volyn 75.4%).
To provisionally sum up, it should be emphasized that today post-Soviet Ukraine has found itself in a zone of a protracted economic crisis and systemic degradation and has been transformed into one of the poorest European countries where there is practically no middle class, the social basis of civil society. Instead, there is the average Ukrainian, the basis of an uncivil society.
SHADOWIZATION AS A FACTOR CONSOLIDATING UNCIVIL SOCIETY
One of the most basic characteristics of the uncivil direction in post- Soviet development is the practically total shadowization of sociopolitical relations and society as a whole. In question is not only the shadow (including criminal) economy that is a complex network of legal, semi- legal, and illegal relationships. There are sufficient reasons to argue that in Ukraine’s politics backstage forms of making agreements and decisions by elite groups currently prevail. In the final analysis, one can see a complete merger of regime and business, and the duty of government has turned into a profitable and quite secure business. The interrelations between capital, the state, and the central and local bureaucratic mechanisms have become completely opaque; in other words, these relationships have gone underground, where the rules of the game are set by players themselves, not by law.
What is outside the legal environment, that is, in the secret gray area between state institutions and big business? Or, to put it differently, what is the subject matter of these so-called informal agreements and arrangements?
First of all, it is about converting administrative resources into financial revenues by means of privatizing state property, granting privileges to various economic agents regarding taxes, duties, and the embezzlement of budget funds by way of their misappropriation (Ukrainian legislation does not provide any sanctions for such offenses), loans at the expense of the state budget, establishing free economic zones, etc. Thus administrative resources can paralyze practically any candidate, for these are not merely resources of the authorities, the state apparatus, but also attracted financial flows, the cheapest and free money from the state budget.
All this could not but result in an illegal political market, in the buy-sell relations of political parties, membership in parliamentary fractions, political decisions in the form of bills, amendments, normative juridical instructions of state officials, etc. I think in this lies the essence of our political regime, whose major agents are coalitions of political and business elite (and sometimes criminal) groups which are referred to in the mass media as corporative clans.
Certainly, the shadowization of the political, economic, and social spheres is not only an elite phenomenon. In one way or another, massive social groups are also involved in the process of fleeing to the shadows; these are, first of all, law enforcement officers, employees of financial and lending institutions, agricultural workers, scientists, scholars, educators, street traders, shuttle traders, and others. A considerable segment of Ukraine’s population is actively engaged in so-called parallel economic activities, and is also busy developing a subsistence economy tilling plots of lands around their houses, dachas, or with relatives in the countryside. The operation of several parallel economies and self-organized market of labor and services free from taxation make it possible for a considerable portion of those who are on official administrative leave, work part-time, or otherwise regard themselves as unemployed to somehow make a living. Being constantly on the defense from the state, the average Ukrainian has developed his own attitude toward it: he evades taxes, does not pay rent, public utilities, etc. In the final analysis, shadowization is promoted by the social atmosphere itself — the loss of moral criteria and constraints by the average Ukrainian.
The shadowization of Ukrainian uncivil society as an outcome of the current sociocultural changes means only that society is incapable of playing the role of an independent self-sufficient political actor. It is self-sufficient and independent in its uncivil dimensions, displaying servile solidarity with its elites, justifying both morally and politically and supporting undemocratic forms and styles of government. It is precisely because of this that in the near future things are very likely to stay like they are. One thing is obvious: the shadowization of society becomes a basic adverse factor that narrows the prospects for a democratic alternative and creates preconditions for further entrenchment of uncivil society with a neototalitarian direction of political evolution.
ON OPTIMISTIC AND PESSIMISTIC PREDICTIONS
The 1998-1999 election campaigns in Ukraine can be regarded as summarizing the political development of the last decade, thereby making it possible to trace the dynamics and logic of the political process, and the likelihood of various alternatives of its development. It is becoming clearer and clearer that today’s potential of the unprecedented patience (and toleration) of Ukraine’s society is determined not only genetically by past experience. The contemporary realities of social life, the sociopolitical situation, and the cultural one in society demonstrate relatively stable features and special features, which have characterized the new experience of a society with a post-Soviet political history of its own. Does this new experience testify to Ukraine’s automatic inclination in favor of its “European choice”, beneficial changes in strategies and within the context of its “democratic transition”, the formation of civil society?
If one is an optimist, then, in my opinion, today there can be no definitive answer to this question. But an analysis of existing realities more and more inclines one toward pessimism. First of all, both at the level of society at large and the level of elites we see already formed, distinct, and established standards of political behavior and culture, which reduce to nil the sporadic efforts of individual groups and persons to introduce truly civic, democratic values, and behavioral patterns into the political process.
One cannot help but see that the political class of contemporary Ukraine and institutions created by it in great measure are autonomous in political decision-making, no matter what the objectives, orientations, and sociopolitical outcomes of their being carried out might be. The actions of the authorities are not assessed in terms of their effectiveness — because of the obvious lack of their rational understanding on the part of the society of average Ukrainians; rather, they are mythologized in mass consciousness. This is manifested in the metaideological nature and corresponding “un- European” patterns and forms of political participation, combining as a rule in a bizarre way different, sometimes opposite, values and simultaneously reinforcing traditionalist, that is, Soviet, perceptions and attitudes.
To put it differently, a noticeable feature of the social character of the average Ukrainian is the fact that in adapting in every possible way to the various circumstances of everyday sociopolitical reality he perceives with much less patience and tolerance new values based on individual choice and individual responsibility, as well as personal values and attitudes. Simultaneously, he deliberately perceives with a greater degree of patience and toleration quite different values, inclining to uncivil normative ideas and patterns of behavior. This, undoubtedly, is cultivated by the authorities, new/old political Ukrainians.
Clearly, one should not consider absolute the process of forming the sociopolitical standards of the average Ukrainian and view it only as a manifestation of ethnic or national features of his social character. The latter, in my opinion, reflects a general trend which determines the scale and orientation of the individuals’ evolution, an evolution which delineates the parameters and priorities of the understanding of their everyday political practice. In this sense, electoral behavior during the 1999 Presidential election campaign in Ukraine is more than conclusive confirmation of this trend.
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*This is shortened from an article published in Political Thought, 1999, No. 3-4 as part of a joint project between that journal and Polis (Moscow) with support from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
