TEN YEARS LATER

Among the topics discussed during the course of this election campaign have been quite a few that were debated prior to the 1994 presidential elections, including the establishment of Russian as the second official language, dual citizenship, and others. The Hegelian dialectic alone certainly does not explain this deja vu. There are enough reasons to contemplate just how much Ukrainian society has changed over the past decade, where its progress is headed, and what kind of future it can expect. Is the 2004 presidential campaign a watershed between two political epochs in Ukraine’s latter-day history? Will it serve as an impetus to finding fundamentally new solutions to acute social problems? The Day invited the following individuals to take part in a roundtable: Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Studies; Andriy YERMOLAYEV, Director of the Sophia Social Studies Center; Oleksandr ROZENFELD, Rector, Solomon International University, and Mykola SLIUSARENKO, Director of the Institute for Social and Political Psychology.

FROM NATIONAL ROMANTICISM TO PRAGMATISM

The significant changes in the presidential campaign were among the reasons for inviting a few experts specializing in various spheres, such as sociology, economics, and social psychology. Many people who are witnessing these changes are having a dОjИ vu of what came to pass in 1994. Today, we are hearing similar statements about enhancing the status of the Russian language and introducing dual citizenship. The feeling is that this is a kind of spiral, with society responding to the very same things it did ten years ago. At least this is what we are hearing from sociologists. This is another reason why we are here to discuss what changes have taken place in society during the past decade. Our president recently said that this decade marks a political course aimed at reform. In other words, an era is coming to an end, no matter how different people view the outcome.

I might as well begin with the dynamics of poll results during this period; we started our polls in 1994, and since then have kept a sensitive finger on the public pulse, relying on time- tested techniques, so we have a rather accurate picture of how our people feel in the social domain, their attitudes to the current realities, and so on. There is an interesting aspect at work here. If we accept 1994 as our point of departure, all these indices registered a noticeable decline until 1998, in regard to subjective estimates of the situation. Of course, this had everything to do with Ukraine’s economic situation, because 1998 marked an abysmal economic decline. In 1999, the process of stabilization began. Since 2000 we have been witness to a certain degree of growth that has been particularly conspicuous in the last couple of years. Why is this interesting? Because by 2004 we have reached a certain level of self-consciousness — I mean a kind of subjective assessment — which we had in 1994. I would say that in 2004 Ukraine has found itself at the same level that it had reached in 1994-but that situation was by no means the best one, as you can well understand. Generally speaking, the 1990s marked a period of decline in terms of subjective perception. There is another important thing: the fact that we remained on an upward rather than a downward curve. I mean we would go down and then up, so today’s indices are pointing to an upward curve, I think. Even though our pensioners do not feel socially protected, the situation has considerably improved. In other words, if we were to assess the era in general, in terms of individual and biased attitudes to this society, and a given individual’s place within this society, then the Kuchma era seems to be ending precisely on the same note on which it started. So we are back at the level recorded in 1994, yet — and most importantly — there is a positive trend and we hope that this trend will survive.

Aside from elation over receiving higher pensions, there are other sentiments. After all, we have been living in a different country for ten years.

Ye.H.: The 1990s marked a period of terrible disillusionment. We studied the balance sheet reflecting our hopes and disappointments; it was heavily on the unsatisfactory side. We will have a hard time overcoming the inertia of disappointments dating to the 1990s. Therefore, a great many people, especially people who are middle-aged and older, still favorably regard the Soviet Union and their former status, compared to what they have had to experience over the past couple of years.

What categories of people do you have in mind?

Ye.H.: It all depends on the social group. These are poorly educated people, mostly aged fifty and over; conservative individuals who live in the eastern regions of Ukraine, people who are the least oriented toward inertia. What can you expect from us, considering that 13% of the population still identify themselves as Soviet citizens? Most people feel nostalgic about the recent Soviet past, saying they lived better then. This is understandable. Today, we have a GDP of 60%, compared to what Ukraine had under the Soviets. Meaning that we have the same per capita revenues, keeping in mind the shadow economy (which also existed in the Soviet Union). I believe that this mood of Soviet nostalgia will eventually disappear, probably even before the next election campaign, provided we can at least maintain our current economic growth for the next five years. If we can, we will reach the Soviet GDP level and people will realize that they are living at approximately the same level, along with additional democratic benefits. In that case, we would be able to overcome the balance sheet indicating predominant disillusionment. However, factors such as nostalgia, having Russia as our closest neighbor, language, and others will surely manifest themselves. Decades spent in a language situation mean nothing. This takes hundreds of years. Therefore, these factors will be at play during a number of election campaigns.

First of all, I would like to emphasize the era/no era point. In my opinion, today it is safe to assume that the term of office of a certain political group has ended. In other words, a period of time associated with policies and political conduct associated with the rule of President Leonid Kuchma and the assortment of political teams that had to cooperate with him and which supported him, and under whose influence that ten-year course was formed, with all its collisions and changes. I think that at one time politicians and political analysts were in a hurry, claiming that the end of Leonid Kuchma’s presidency marked the end of an era. In my opinion, the turning point at which Ukraine has arrived, in conjunction with the presidential elections, marks a turning point in the course of a struggle that displays features relating not only to the political course, but also to standards concerning politicians, public life, foreign political orientations; above all, this relates to social motives and every member of our society, in terms of interrelationships with the state. Depending on this struggle, we will be able to discuss the possibility of entering a different era.

Indeed, the beginning of Leonid Kuchma’s presidency marked a disastrous period in mass consciousness. Moreover, if you recall all the political manifestos and programs of that period, including the numerous campaign promises, you will see that the term “disastrous” is ubiquitous. I mean that everyone was aware of it and tried to capitalize on it politically. This was supposed to be an ideal social status. It was associated, first and foremost, with economic and social disillusionments. Second, there was an actual disillusioning effect of the sovereignty that had been acquired. In general, at that time we found ourselves faced with a sovereignty crisis — not as an institution, but as a sort of value having to do with statehood. Finally, the third decisive factor at the time was the exhaustion of the notions that were formulated during the state-building period. At that time politics were clad in national-romantic attire, and the crisis suffered by Ukrainian society in 1994 was, among other things, caused by the crisis of that model, that assortment of values and national-romantic concepts addressing progress, which was perceived as national rebirth, a national project, and so on.

Leonid Kuchma’s presidency marks a period when politics became pragmatic. I would even describe it as the commercialization of people’s lives, because most of the messages that we received during that decade, from the government and political forces representing those in power, were mercantile, and they relied on that gain/overcome/set standard principle. Regrettably, after ten years, we are now facing a new turning point against the background of totally understandable material conditions that by now have become altered (economic stability and higher incomes), and these political assets are being actively exploited by the new political team. We are currently faced with a new phenomenon, an actual spiritual crisis involving ethical standards, the absence of an adequate legal framework dealing with ethics and relations between citizens and the state. In fact, during those ten years we failed to pass through the stage of establishing Ukrainian statehood, what some French Utopians described as a citizens’ state. This is another unresolved question. By the way, this is a hidden point in the 2004 campaign agenda: the future relationships between our citizens and our state, between the man in the street and the powers that be.

We are witnessing a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is a degree of social optimism linked to the economic and social realities. This is difficult to deny, because people have been receiving wages and salaries for the past several years, and pensions are actually increasing. At the same time, there is spiritual void, a crisis of prospects, failure to envision the future. Unfortunately, those who are currently struggling for power do not articulate this future. It is not evident and not transparent. The crisis of the future and the spiritual crisis in the civil society, in the national format, are clearly apparent. It is this turning point that we are witnessing. I don’t know if there are any sociological tools to assess this situation, but from an expert’s standpoint, this problem, unrelated to data, seems obvious to me. Unfortunately, it cannot be solved by the current elections. This problem is not on their agenda.

DEMOCRATIC POTENTIAL

Transformations are taking place, even if they are not being described and studied at sufficient length and depth. One indicator is the fact that now, more than ever before, it is considerably more difficult to plumb the minds of those who consider themselves part of the Establishment. However, it would be far more important to poll these people and understand what all those who are in charge of district, regional, and central state administrations actually think. Leonid Kravchuk’s presidency deserves special notice. His term of office was short, but we lived the next couple of years in what could be described as a humanitarian context, owing to the dividends stemming from his presidency. Certain things may have been done instinctively at first. No matter what people think, serious steps were taken at the time, and Ukraine was being opened to the rest of the world. Remember the establishment of the Ostroh and Kyiv-Mohyla Academies. No such conspicuous steps were made in that direction subsequently. Of course, considerable headway was made in later years, in many directions. However, what have we actually achieved and what could we have achieved?

Ye.H.: I don’t entirely agree with the assumption that what is actually important is what people think rather than what is actually taking place. I believe that what people think is in many ways determined by how they actually live. True, people don’t tend to become instantly aware of living in a better way. The fact remains that we register our respondents and their respective fields of endeavor, be it private business or the public sector. What amazes me is that we first experienced a period of impetuous privatization, and that our people did not seem to be aware of it. They said they worked for government structures, although they had actually long been working for some joint-stock company or another. For a long time the ratio of such people did not increase. Only in the late 1990s did it begin showing a sharp increase, and we recorded this fact. Today, we have more people employed in the private than the public sector. What does this mean? This means that the domestic economic situation has passed a turning point, let alone the fact that people employed in the private sector are better off in terms of social protection. That turning point on the threshold of the third millennium had a crucial meaning for our society, and I think we can lose our positions only if the existing system of private ownership starts being destroyed.

A.Ye.: There is economic success and its illusion. The fact that people living in a given country over a historically brief period find themselves eventually appeased and are able to buy things and receive pay is not sufficient proof that theirs is a new economic entity. This is especially true of Ukraine, where certain structural issues remain unresolved since the 1990s.

The main thing is not to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the works. Also, it is time to stop trying to manage this country.

A. Ye.: I would like to return to the problem of scope of tasks in the context of eras and periods. We should remember that ten years ago Ukraine, despite all its domestic controversies and expectations, found itself involved in the global transformation process. A number of countries and young nations were entering this transformation phase. The West regarded this as a process of entering a common democratic world — not necessarily the one in the West, just a world marked by a new civilization. This was determined in the early 1990s, and this transition had an impact on the rest of the world. Accordingly, every nation, including Ukraine, came face to face with three onetime tasks: national revolution, formation of statehood formation, formation of a political nation, and all the attendant issues, including democratization, new rules and regulations, and democratic institutional mechanisms. The third aspect was what we have already discussed: capitalization, meaning the transition from administrative to market economy ruled by the laws of capitalism. In my opinion, what makes our current situation paradoxical is the fact that only the third aspect has been dealt with in a practical and efficient manner in the past decade. In this sense, the Kuchma phenomenon can serve as a graphic example — I mean his being the father of Ukraine capitalism. It is his problem, his generic trauma, as well as his advantage. Ukrainian capital is associated with Leonid Kuchma. All systematic business that took shape owed its existence to the ruling era or had to do with the creation of certain schemes, administratively or personally connected with the regime. Herein lie the specifics of the transition period and all those political scenarios. The national revolution dates from the early 1990s and the agenda may have been formulated in a romantic, even utopian, context under Leonid Kravchuk, but that agenda was actually postponed. What our news media and experts in the humanities have done over the past couple of years proves that we are actually returning to that agenda, because we have lost a whole decade in the humanitarian context. As for the task of the democratic revolution, this is the main problem of the period that marks the turning point. The thing is that Ukraine has yet to manifest itself as a full-fledged democratic nation-state, and is currently falling prey to new international processes. Getting ahead of myself, I would like to ask this question: What makes our transition process so tragic? The reason lies with our elite, those who have actually decided to take part in someone else’s restoration project. What has happened to Russia is a case study of such a restoration. The political elite, wishing to protect its specific interests, the government, wishing to protect all those powerful institutions, especially in conjunction with the presidential campaign, is actually solving someone else’s problem, that of restoring the absolute rules of a new civic organization. Certain historical analogies are inevitable, such as France in the first half of the nineteenth century, after Napoleon’s defeat. Try to imagine French politicians cooperating with Louis-Philippe and deciding also to cooperate with the Holly Alliance rather than keep up their domestic power play, or to hold up the banner of the French Revolution until the very last moment. This is precisely what is happening in Ukraine. The Ukrainian political elite, instead of solving the domestic problems that are tied to democratic revolution, which is part and parcel of capitalization and the national project, is trying to participate in a new project devised by the Russian elite and aimed at resolving matters pertaining to restoration. In other words, this is actually a silent refusal to solve the tasks of the democratic revolution. Actually, this is the problem. It’s whether this national project is actually in demand or whether we will fall prey to further internationalization. The prospects that our political elite is offering are best summed up as further cooperation with Russian politicians, Russian society, and Russian economic and integration projects. This will be internationalization capable of leading to Ukraine’s absorption. Ukraine’s Western orientation option belongs to the globalization process, which is tricky in that it envisages business cooperation aimed at establishing the institutional basis of unity, but within a multicultural environment. It reserves the possibility of staging a national project. Herein lies the paradox of this transition period, as well as the paradox of choice. Will the Ukrainian elite realize all this? My question is that this elite does not speak this language.

STAKES AND AMBITIONS

Ukraine’s membership in the European Union is a remote prospect because not everyone is convinced that we should have it. NATO, in contrast, is our history. It is safe to assume that the Istanbul summit marked an important turning point. Unfortunately, no one in our society encouraged the elite — or the Establishment — to take decisive steps to that end. The Istanbul summit passed a paradoxical resolution, playing into the hand of those who simply pretended to be heading in any direction. Our domestic forces seem too weak to pull the old wagon out of the mud and drive it in the Euro-Atlantic direction. And they were dealt a devastating blow at the summit.

A. Ye.: This puts the problem in the right perspective, in principle; I would also suggest a somewhat different dimension. Ukraine is a big polity and its European ambitions are its own problem. By and large, we are not placed on lists of welcome partners, as was the case 200 and 50 years ago.

Moreover, a double standard is constantly encountered at the intergovernmental level in the West. I mean corrupt information, dirty technologies, and elites unable to fulfill their own commitments. I think that this cold spell is natural; Europe has been experiencing very serious internal problems in the last two or three years. In this context, flirting with a country with a 50- million population, promising her loans or refusing them, would be an unaffordable luxury. Civil society is an altogether different story. This is a very important project being closely followed by Western political and diplomatic communities. I agree that they are not likely to put all their stakes only on Yushchenko, Yanukovych, or anyone else for that matter. It is very important for Europe to make sure that Ukraine and its political elite can solve all those problems that were posited almost ten years ago. For Europe, four to five years in Ukraine are as good as wasted, because a number of institutional tasks remain unresolved. At present, Ukraine has several good political and economic reasons for moving toward a new constitution of a genuine civil society. I don’t mean volunteer organizations or civic activity at this point. The main problem is political reform and advancing local self-government. These are the real tasks, especially since the concept of local self-government is getting on a real social and economic footing. Note what has been constantly on the agenda since 2002. The situation with mayors and city councils, meaning the kind of life our territorial communities have been leading. Also, the fact that the political elite does not want this kind of agreement; it is aware that, once the barriers to self-government are removed, the same will happen to all such territorial communities’ self-organization, whereupon the social sector will actually appear. This is a natural response from, and the specifics of, the Ukrainian social state of affairs. Here you will not find free citizens, but you may find free self-government. This task is also being consciously protracted in the political sense.

O.R.: In my opinion, regardless of the election results, we are faced with three dangers. The first one is the possibility of an abrupt change in the economic policy. Whether for better or for worse, the outcome will be equally hazardous. Second, we have a high level of social scandals. There are big mouths everywhere, every occasion is used to create another scandal, and no one seems aware of the fact that there is a solid, unbreakable connection in business between assets and concomitant revenues and risks. Risks are the sum total of all ventures, primarily in the political realm, of course. What happens after we discuss something, somewhere? We still have our assets and expect our revenues, but we are faced with higher risks after such hot-air sessions, meaning that our discussions can lower our assets and reduce our profits. In other words, the more scandals we have, the less we can expect in terms of Ukrainian assets. The same is true of land, business, and other spheres of activity, of course. Why do we have an oil refinery worth 20 million while there is a similar one worth 1.5 billion dollars in the United States? Precisely for such reasons. The third danger has to do with the first and the second one: reallocation of property. Any such reallocation, whatever the formal reasons (e.g., social justice, economic homogeneity of society, etc.) will have a devastating effect on our economy. Finally, allow me to remind you of the role the state must play in the economy. Only two aspects are crucial here: protection of ownership and encouraging competition. The rest boils down to attempts to rule rather than manage. The new government’s task should, in my opinion, focus on administrative-territorial reform. We must immediately alter the very mechanism for delimiting power, for the existing one is glaringly archaic.

Here is another general thesis that we seem to have failed to include in our discussion. There are actually objective and subjective factors at play in the life of any society, and these factors are closely interconnected and dialectically interrelated, although each has its own value. I believe that the Marxist paradigm about external changes resulting from those in human consciousness, in turn preconditioning further changes, does not exactly work in the modern situation, given the rate of world progress and globalization. Proof of this, among other things, is found in all those major and minor changes in public consciousness that we have witnessed in the past decade. I also believe that in our specific situation, when we began struggling for our national independence, the subjective factor should play a significantly more important role. Andriy, you mentioned building a new national project, consolidating the political class, formulating an economic strategy; all these are understandable and obvious messages to our society. When I cited data that sparked debates, data relating to our social consciousness, I meant that it is very important to address such messages to our society now, to let our people know that there are people with a different level of this consciousness, so that we can somehow demonstrate this. In other words, we need a fresh impetus. Unfortunately, I must concur with the other roundtable participants that this year’s campaign platforms offer no such impetus.

We have growth, we also have changes, albeit slow ones. But what we need now is a variety of personalities capable of reaching an agreement and formulating an agenda to take part in what will hopefully be a national government. Otherwise we will be playing out other countries’ scenarios. So what we are actually up against is competing for our rightful place in the world, according to our national project, or becoming dissolved. In this sense we are embarking on a second edition of the national movement: an independent, upgraded national model, or playing a minor role in someone else’s project.