NEWS AND VIEWS: The Orange Revolution: the scene two years after (11/19/06)

NEWS AND VIEWS

The Orange Revolution: the scene two years after

by Alexander J. Motyl

The widespread frustration generated by the inability of the Orange forces to get their act together and form a government in 2006 has produced feelings of doom and gloom and impatience, both here and in Ukraine. That's hardly surprising. No one likes to lose, and losers instinctively look for scapegoats and chomp at the bit. The perfectly natural response is to proclaim the end of the world and look for messiahs, or messianic solutions, promising immediate salvation.

Accordingly, all the Orange elites must be venal and incompetent. Viktor Yushchenko, who could do no wrong two years ago, must be a spineless opportunist. Viktor Yanukovych and his Donetsk pals must be nothing but crooks out to sell Ukraine to the lowest Russian bidder. Eastern Ukrainians must all be sheep; western Ukrainians must all be irreversibly disenchanted. The Ukrainian economy must be heading south. Ukrainian identity, language and culture must clearly be on the verge of collapse. And Ukraine's very existence must be on the line.

This kind of mindset comes with an appropriate language and set of solutions. Since the world is obviously coming to an end, apocalyptic terminology is the order of the day. Yulia Tymoshenko likens the government's budget to "genocide." One's opponents must be "traitors." The "bandits" should all be thrown into jail. Ukraine must be "saved." This kind of thinking also leads to an insistence on immediate, radical change, on the necessity of revolutionary justice, and on the indispensability of clean people with clean consciences. Politics - or the art of the possible - is replaced with morality - or the desire for purity.

The necessity of politics

Every nation needs people of impeccable moral authority to serve as its moral conscience - to remind it of its sins of omission and commission. Many of the dissidents played just such a role as long as they remained in opposition and were persecuted by the regime. After 1991, however, when Ukraine became independent and they began engaging in the horse-trading and deal-making that everyday politics entails, most of them lost that authority.

That's why Mr. Yushchenko seemed to embody every imaginable Orange ideal during the Orange Revolution - until he became president and had to run a country. That's why Ms. Tymoshenko's claim to be the conscience of the nation is not quite persuasive: who can forget that the former "gas princess" wants to be president? That's also why diaspora commentators with cushy jobs and blogs have no right to speak in the name of justice and morality in Ukraine.

But just as Ukraine needs voices of conscience, so too it needs policy-makers and policy-sensitive intellectuals who understand that, to repeat, politics is the art of the possible. That means that, while one may hope to attain one's maximalist goals, one must be willing to settle for second or third best - if and when existing circumstances are such that second or even third best are the most one can achieve.

The Orange forces failed to appreciate this simple truth and could not form a government this year. The Party of the Regions of Ukraine (PRU) was willing to form a programmatically bizarre alliance with the Communists and Socialists and did form a government. In politics, as in so much in life, good enough is quite good, and the insistence on one's own version of the very best can produce catastrophe.

Politics - real politics - requires distinguishing between unalterable facts and desired ends, and looking for ways to achieve the latter within the context of the former. Demagogues, self-styled seekers of revolutionary justice, and proponents of mass purges of bandits generally make their claims without reference to real life. We admire their boldness and purity of vision, while failing to appreciate that translating it into reality will produce either failure or violence. Policy-makers are all too aware of facts and their constraining nature. And we detest them for their willingness to compromise and settle for mediocre solutions.

What are some facts about Ukraine that policy-makers and policy-sensitive intellectuals are aware of? And what do these facts imply? Here's a brief and far from exhaustive list:

First, Ukraine is here to stay. The number of independent states has grown almost exponentially since World War II, and only a few Marxist-Leninist multinational states have fallen apart since then. States may "fail," but they rarely disappear, and there is no reason to think that Ukraine will disappear - or fail.

It's high time to accept Ukraine as what it is - a crummy state that will not go away - and to deal with it. Among other things, that means abandoning end-of-the-world language and the demagoguery that tends to go with it.

Second, Ukraine has actually done relatively well since independence, compared to the other post-Soviet states. It's far better off in almost every respect than every other such state, with the exception of the Baltic states. And, since we're all obsessed with Russia, let's remember that Ukraine is far more democratic, far freer and far more stable than its northern neighbor. To be sure, Ukraine is crummy and corrupt, but it's not a crummy kleptocratic petro-state like Russia - and crummy kleptocratic petro-states that organize their entire existence around energy never generate sustainable institutions.

However unsatisfying, Ukraine's political and economic institutions actually have the potential to keep on developing in the right direction and become fully stable. Significantly, Ukraine has come this far even though all its elites have been morally tainted and politically amateurish. The lesson may be that even bad people can build good institutions, and that institution-building might need to take priority over moral character.

Third, almost all of Ukraine's elites and population are ethically compromised. Some profited from Wild West privatization; some manipulated elections and bought votes. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Many were implicated in collaboration with the Stalinist secret police; many were implicated in collaboration with the Nazi authorities. Millions served the Communist Party faithfully, informed on their neighbors and were happy to look the other way - in both eastern and western Ukraine. Diaspora Ukrainians, by the way, are hardly above such criticisms either.

Ukraine needs a moral regeneration, but, unless we want to turn the population against one another and destabilize Ukraine, calls for introducing revolutionary justice and sending bandits to jail should be treated with skepticism and reserve. There is, alas, no responsible alternative to going slow with demands for instantaneous justice.

Fourth, Ukraine and Ukrainians have changed - for the better - as a result of the Orange Revolution. Despite the widespread feelings of hopelessness, despair, and doom and gloom, Ukraine has developed a more robust media, civil society, youth culture and self-reliant middle class in the last two years. Having become so utterly disillusioned with the Ukrainian state, they may just have the courage and will finally to conclude that they, and not the elites, will have to build Ukraine. These forces, therefore, will promote Ukraine's economic development and, for better or for worse, constrain and influence Ukraine's policy-makers. These are also the forces that we in the West don't pay enough attention to.

Fifth, all coalitions are unstable, because all coalitions are based on a confluence of overlapping interests and divergent personalities. Just as the Orange coalition was probably preprogrammed to fall apart, so too the seemingly monolithic PRU really consists of a bunch of people with very different interests. Those differences will become more obvious with time, as the PRU's elites cope with actual governance in a constantly changing country that has experienced the Orange Revolution.

Smart democrats would enhance those differences and promote splits within the ranks of the PRU and its electorate by coopting parts of the PRU's platform in the manner of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Ukraine's democrats could easily position themselves as the champions of the linguistic rights of all Ukrainian citizens by vigorously promoting Ukrainian as a state language and all other languages as regional languages. They could insist on "democratic federalism" and the devolution of substantial powers from a dysfunctional central state to restructured and realigned regions. They could take Prime Minister Yanukovych's recent statement in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of support of NATO membership for Ukraine at face value and insist that his vice prime minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk, explain why he has consistently contradicted his boss's views.

Sixth, Russia will always be larger than Ukraine, and Ukraine will always have extensive economic ties with it. No Ukrainian policy-maker can be openly anti-Russian - and no Ukrainian policy-maker has ever been openly anti-Russian - if only because Ukraine is dependent on Russia for energy and trade.

By the same token, no Ukrainian policy-maker can be unreservedly pro-Russian. All political elites - and especially the mafia-like elites grouped around Mr. Yanukovych - are jealous of their prerogatives and will never abandon their turf to their competitors. It's not surprising that Russian capital investments are smallest in Donetsk Oblast, and it's not surprising that Belarus's dictator, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, wants to preserve his country's sovereignty while seemingly pursuing a union with Russia.

Ukraine, therefore, has no choice but to reinforce its independence and seek prosperity in Russia's shadow. That's not easy, but it can be done if Ukraine's oligarchs, as odious as they may be, are firmly anchored in the state-building project. Victor Pinchuk, Rynat Akhmetov, Petro Poroshenko and Vitalii Haiduk may be crooks and criminals, but if they don't support - or are induced to support - Ukraine, Ukraine's position vis-à-vis Russia will become immeasurably weaker.

And seventh, Ukraine is not a priority for the European Union and the United States. Neither the EU nor the United States wants Ukraine to collapse, and both wish it well, but neither has given and neither will give Ukraine greater priority than Russia. Russia is an energy superpower, it has a veto on the United Nations Security Council, it possesses a large nuclear arsenal, it's a major exporter of arms, it can play an important role in the "war against terror," and it can influence outcomes in North Korea, Iran and Palestine. Ukraine has none of these assets.

If pressed to choose between Ukraine and Russia, both Europeans and Americans will choose Russia. This means that Ukraine must seek to join "Europe" and "Euro-Atlantic structures" in a way that does not force Europeans and Americans to make that choice. That too isn't easy, but it can be done - if Ukraine plays on Europe's obligations to a fellow democracy, develops a strong economy that makes it an attractive partner for European and American business, and continues to develop as a democracy.

What the diaspora can do

Ukraine needs nimble and flexible politics, and it needs nimble and flexible policy-makers. It would be infinitely nicer if Ukraine faced no tough choices that entailed terrible trade-offs; it would be wonderful if we could throw all the bandits into jail and with the wave of a wand transform Ukraine into a Switzerland. Until that happy time comes, however, it may be wiser to deal with realities and maneuver as best one can.

Although the diaspora cannot create nimble and flexible politics in Ukraine, there is, perhaps surprisingly, quite a lot that it can do to help promote nimbleness and flexibility.

First, it can stop employing the language of apocalypse and treason. That just obscures the real issues, aggravates misunderstandings and helps no one.
Second, it can prod Ukraine's demoralized intelligentsia and confused democrats to think realistically and creatively. They can't think out of the box, because, to mix metaphors, they're too close to the trenches. We're far away, we can see things more clearly and dispassionately, and we can generate the kind of politically bold solutions that they cannot. Besides, we can, if necessary, also take the heat.
Third, the Ukrainian diaspora can support those forces in Ukraine - the business people, civil society organizations and young people - that will shape Ukraine's future. Let's all stop debating the latest silly article on the Ukrainska Pravda website and instead support efforts to make it easier for these groups to travel to Europe and the United States.
Fourth, the diaspora can contribute to civilizing Ukraine's oligarchs by promoting their integration into the world. Steven Spielberg deserves a prize for encouraging Mr. Pinchuk to promote himself as a philanthropist. If Mr. Spielberg can do it, we can do it.
Fifth, the diaspora can keep Ukraine on both Europe's and America's policy agenda. Above all, that means framing the debate about European and American relations with Russia in a way that is favorable to Ukraine. And that means emphasizing that, while Ukraine is democratic, stable and reliable, Russia is undemocratic, unstable and unreliable.
Sixth, and most important, the Ukrainian diaspora must be patient and keep a level head. That, unfortunately, may be the hardest thing of all to do.

Alexander J. Motyl is professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark.

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