PERSPECTIVES: Two Ukrainian leaders, 20 years apart (05/01/05)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Two Ukrainian leaders, 20 years apart

On April 6, I was in the gallery when senators, representatives, the vice-president, Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors and others rose to their feet to applaud Ukraine's president as he walked into the House of Representatives to deliver an address to a joint meeting of Congress. Powerful legislators - many of them sporting orange ties, handkerchiefs or flowers - stretched toward Viktor Yushchenko to shake his hand.

Then, from the same podium where U.S. presidents have traditionally delivered the state of the union address and where giants like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa had stood before, President Yushchenko delivered an eloquent speech outlining Ukraine's history and describing the heroic efforts of her citizens to overcome a tragic past. He associated his country with the same revolutionary principles that gave rise to American democracy and spoke of a future where Ukraine, the United States and Europe would enjoy a cooperative relationship and mutual prosperity.

It was momentous. The speech was interrupted with applause no less than 30 times. Looking around, I noticed that I wasn't the only one swelling up with emotion and pride. As Ukraine's president was leaving after completing his speech, members of Congress clapped their hands rhythmically and chanted: "Yush-chen-ko! Yush-chen-ko!" I joined in, enjoying a smidgeon of Orange euphoria.

How different this is, I thought, from the day another Ukrainian leader was welcomed to the U.S. Capitol. It's no more than a hundred steps from the House chamber where Mr. Yushchenko spoke to Statuary Hall, where the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR and Politburo member, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, was welcomed at a reception hosted by Speaker Tip O'Neill in March 1985, but the two events could hardly be further apart, separated by 20 years and an enormous political and cultural chasm.

Shcherbytsky's visit represented a thaw of sorts between the United States and the Soviet Union. There had been no high-level contacts between the two countries since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

For Shcherbytsky, heading a "good will mission" to Washington had to have been one of the highlights of his career. Representing the powerful Soviet Union, he met with senators, congressmen, President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Schultz and others. Shcherbytsky got his start in politics right after World War II in Leonid Brezhnev's hometown of Dniprodzerzhynsk and rode those coattails all the way to the top spot in Ukraine. As one of only 10 members in the Soviet Politburo, he was enormously powerful, participating in decisions involving the investment of huge amounts of capital and the deployment of millions of workers and entire armies. He was also responsible for cultural policy in Ukraine. That involved Russification and arrests of artists, dissidents, workers' advocates and others who challenged the official line. The congressional Helsinki Commission characterized him as "the Kremlin's man in Kiev - charged with suppressing popular aspirations."

So even though he was Ukraine's leader, Shcherbytsky presided over a country with no sovereignty and a nation without a future. He was guided by a combination of Communist ideology and traditional Russian great power imperialism - that's what motivated the invasion of Afghanistan and the suppression of national cultures in Ukraine, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, Central Asia - And that's why his trip to Washington was so different from the trip President Yushchenko would make 20 years later.

No adoring crowds welcomed Shcherbytsky; no one chanted his name or waved handkerchiefs as he passed by. Instead, Ukrainian Americans and others demonstrated against his very presence on American soil. Reflecting the views of many, The Washington Times published an editorial titled, "Comrade Shcherbytsky, Go Home."

Back then I was working for Ohio Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar. At the reception in his honor, my boss gave Shcherbytsky a letter from Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine listing the names of political prisoners and condemning Soviet violations of human rights accords. Speaking in Ukrainian, I seized the occasion to challenge Mr. Shcherbytsky on his government's Russification policy, on arrests, for covering up the Famine, for failing to act as a true leader of the Ukrainian people.

Later that evening when I spoke with my mother on the phone and told her about the reception, she gasped. "I'll pray for you," she said. Such was the fear he inspired among those who had experienced Soviet rule.

If the trip to the U.S. was a highlight of Shcherbytsky's career, it was all downhill from there. On his way to San Francisco, Shcherbytsky got word that his political ally, Soviet General Secretary Konstantine Chernenko, had died. Hastening back to Moscow, he arrived too late to participate in the selection of the next general secretary. It turned out to be Mikhail Gorbachev.

Within half a year, poet Vasyl Stus died in a labor camp. Half a year after that, the nuclear reactor at Chornobyl blew up. Dissent grew ever bolder, and public opinion became a factor to be reckoned with. With his health declining at the same time the Soviet empire was unraveling, Shcherbytsky resigned in 1989 and died a few months later, never to see the independence he had spent his life working to deny.

Holding on to power by "suppressing popular aspirations," Shcherbytsky represented a governing style that proved to be an abject failure. Desperate to perpetuate the positions that allowed them to live like potentates, the thuggish men who ran Ukraine in the years after independence, used methods that had worked for all the evil non-entities who had once populated the Politburo: first they tried to assassinate their rival then they stole the election. With a bit of luck and lots of courage, Mr. Yushchenko was able to frustrate their designs by heeding popular aspirations and channeling people's energy into a peaceful revolution. Now he's president and honored throughout the world.

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky came to Washington, where a lowly congressional staff person made bold to rebuke him. It was a personal highlight for me, but nothing like the thrill of being there 20 years later when President Yushchenko addressed the assembled members of Congress in the language Shcherbytsky had worked so hard to destroy. I sat back, taking in the words and thanking my mother for her prayers.

Andrew Fedynsky's e-mail address is: fedynsky@stratos.net.

| Home Page |