By Timur FIDAROV, Candidate of Sciences in Technology
Our mass media repeat daily that the government's desperate efforts to
improve the people's life are obstructed by hardships due to "treacherous"
games being played by the developed countries that refuse to invest in
our economy. And all this with a lot of cynically pompous verbiage matching
if not surpassing that fed us over the totalitarian decades.
Previously, this very cynicism prevented us from realizing that we lived
in a stagnant society. Today, the cynicism of most periodicals, television,
and radio channels prevent some of us from realizing that we are "confidently"
standing on the brink of an abyss, about to lose our statehood. Witness
the degradation of our nation. The regime does not understand this, otherwise
how is one to regard the "number one" presidential candidate's statement
that there was "no alternative" to the course, followed the past five years
and which have brought this country to the brink of this abyss?
Unbiased analysis makes it possible to make an even less optimistic
conclusion and define the current state of the Ukrainian people as one
of total depression. Precisely this diagnosis explains the absence
of nationwide protest against the situation that has developed. There were
practically no objective causes for this condition in peacetime, after
the proclamation of independence.
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ROOTS
Historically, this condition is explained by the fact that the Ukrainian
people's hope for a happier life and respect for its national dignity never
came true, not after "reunification" with the Russian Empire, nor during
Soviet times.
Proceeding from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's motto, "Don't live by lies,"
we must admit that after Ukraine received independence this state of depression
was marked by the absence of a united will capable of joining the efforts
of the people and those in power to implement the potentialities of the
newly formed polity; absence of any real influence of the nation on any
of the contemporary processes; election and appointment to the highest
posts of Communist nomenklatura functionaries who, of course, never lived
up to the hopes the people placed in them, the result being the absence
of a true national leader at the head of the state, one capable of tapping
effectively this nation's tremendous capabilities.
Ukrainian society's depression is also explained by the fact that, after
discarding Marxist-Leninist ideology, we received nothing in its place,
no basic idea of our further development. Do we not have enough examples
of quick and conflict-free transitions from Communism to market relationships?
Where was this nation's and its leadership's will and ability?
ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION
Similar processes are analyzed by the social sciences and the problem
of developing a new generalizing science dealing with the strategy of social
development is still open. After rejecting our previous ideological dogmas
we need a theory to govern social processes and allow objective study of
them. The theory of social development could become precisely the science
we need.
An analysis of Ukraine's current condition yields very disheartening
conclusions. Regrettably, today's political leadership has no reasons to
really care for and respect the people. Those in office may well think
something like the leadership is making mistakes, which is inevitable when
changing the socioeconomic system and the people should understand this.
Apparently this people is content with its current status and its patience
is so great that whatever indignation there could be somewhere deep inside
it is not worthy of attention.
So is the way out? What is to be done to make our people respect itself?
Strikes and other protest actions do not and will not change the situation.
This writer believes that the root of all evil is the fact that the Ukrainian
nation is so far objectively underdeveloped, and that expediting this development
calls for shaping and implementing in the national consciousness such vitally
important notions as the national idea and national spirit, and of course
putting forth real national leaders.
BASIC ECONOMIC REASONS
In a market economy, optimum tax rates applied to effective enterprises
with all patterns of ownership are the main source of filling state budget
coffers. An optimal and stable tax system, in turn, forms the basis for
effective national economic development. When optimizing taxation indices
it is necessary to take into account the fact that the dependence between
the tax level and budget replenishment is not arithmetical but functional,
in that after surpassing the optimum level of taxation, capital flees to
the shadows, and the budget can be replenished only by using draconian
methods.
When tightening the screws of the tax burden since 1993-94 to "invigorate"
the economy, a system of unjustified tax concessions started being used
and has since completely discredited itself. Also, the prime force of these
"economic" processes remains the nomenklatura bureaucracy striving only
to squeeze as much as possible out of this system for themselves and "their"
people. Likewise, the bureaucrats cannot and will not understand and accept
fundamental market laws. In fact, the ignominious value added tax we have
is merely an indirect one. Given true market economy conditions, it is
a temporary measure, meant for enterprises in the best market niches. We
have no conditions for levying this kind of tax, nor are we likely to have
them soon, so enforcing our type VAT is the way in which our national bureaucracy
pumps out enterprises' working assets via an artificially made domestic
product. This tax is also a source of staggering inflation, ruining production,
and creating of "difficulties" in the transition to the market.
Our learned economists - I mean those sharing office with top bureaucrats
- never developed a genuine transition theory. Instead, they merely copied
economic models offered by Russian and international financial institutions
as ordered by the government. Is this why international financial circles
insist so strongly on high domestic taxes in Ukraine? Because, while giving
us loans, they do not want to see us turn into their rivals, ever? So where
is Ukraine's model of development? After all those insignificant attainments
and actual failures of the regime, one is left to hope for the Left revanche.
And the later has actually taken place, courtesy of the regime going through
the motions of reform. That revanche is also unrealistic, because the real
Left have done nothing new after Lenin, Stalin, and their like. Moreover,
foreign practice attests to the validity of the social market economy course.
The President and the current Premier went no farther than regulatory arithmetic
originating from all those socialist economic development plans, and this
is what makes the current regime Leftist. Thus, competent people are not
likely to believe in the Left revanche, because there is nothing left to
nationalize and redistribute, and this is about all our Left champions
can do.
WILL WE USE OUR CHANCE? WILL WE HAVE THE COURAGE?
On October 31, 1999, each and everyone of us, considering the experience
of the past years of "reform" in the society and economy, will have to
give a straight answer to a straight question: Who is to become the leader
of the nation? We do not address this question to the current regime, because
it is too busy paving the way for its resurrection and because we know
its answer. There is no money to develop the economy or pay wages, but
there is enough to support a regime which is actually bankrupt.
Until the nation is headed by a leader with a system, rather than a
workshop approach to reform and creating favorable conditions for multifaceted
state activities, while substantially reducing the number of bureaucrats
now forming a separate class, and eliminating the Soviet nomenklatura system,
all attempts to develop the Ukrainian state and seek its place in world
civilization will be futile.
We do have a chance for the next five years. No one will take it for
us. Who is dividing and ruling us? When will this people start rallying
round its national idea?
A real way out of the situation that has developed is in electing as
President an individual, who stands a real chance to become the next President
and has the hallmarks of a national leader. We have such an individual.
His name is Yevhen Marchuk.
The people of Ukraine still do not know why this President "left through
one door and I did through the other one" (Marchuk's own words - T.
F.) and why Premier Marchuk was replaced by the odious Pavlo Lazarenko,
the more so that Yevhen Marchuk gave no official consent to Lazarenko's
appointment as First Deputy Premier. From the General Prosecutor's well-known
report we know that Pavlo Lazarenko stole public money even before becoming
premier. Apparently, the President wanted a compatriot from Dnipropetrovsk
heading the Cabinet. Or maybe there were other reasons like the chief executive's
concern about Premier Marchuk's sudden talent in running the economy. Anyway,
the fellow countryman bungled it and was "exposed" on the eve of the presidential
elections, but not before allowing him to leave Ukraine, lest he start
threatening to make public incriminating evidence. Would any of us ordinary
citizens be allowed to travel abroad when found to have stolen even a small
part of the amount cited by General Prosecutor Potebenko?
It is true that Yevhen Marchuk is an SBU general, but this must not
in any way alarm the people after suffering so much from lawlessness. Considering
his current intensifying activities and publications dealing with most
domestic and foreign economic problems, one can only infer that, given
today's nomenklatura-bureaucratic omnipotence, with ex-Communist functionaries
basking in the President's entourage, Yevhen Marchuk really knows what
must be done. He could have started doing it earlier, but this called for
joining that entourage. He never did and was punished for it.
Much is being said about Ukraine needing someone like Stalin or Pinochet.
Of course, we do not accept this, yet it is really necessary to implement
a reasonably severe policy to tangibly reform previous and current politically
bankrupt structures. This takes a strong personality. The only person capable
of doing this is Yevhen Marchuk. The point is not his possessing incriminating
evidence, but his systematic approach to the problems deciding this nation's
destiny.
