The tremendous popular movement that has taken control of
the centre of Kiev to demand the departure of the government represents a wide spectrum of forces. They range from workers tired of falling living standards to
rabid nationalists who hate everything Russian.
Ukraine’s debts are overwhelming the country’s economy and
it’s reckoned it needs to find $60 billion to make interest payments on its
loans next year. A paralysed regime reluctant to sign up to stringent
International Monetary Fund conditions has found itself caught between Moscow
and Brussels.
President Putin fears that if Ukraine is drawn into the
European Union it will open the door to imports into Russia itself. So Russia,
which has a stranglehold over Ukraine’s energy supplies, wants the country
instead to become part of a Moscow-sponsored customs union.
Having won their independence in the break-up of the Soviet
Union in 1991, it seems that the majority of Ukraine’s people do not want to be
driven back into the arms of Moscow again. Their uprising is the second in the
country’s brief period of independence, having taken to the streets in November
2004 in protest against rigged presidential elections.
There is material support (food and power supplies) for the
current street action from president Viktor Yanukovich’s political opponents.
Many of them helped organise the “Orange Revolution” which forced out
Yanukovich nine years ago – only to see him back in power today.
Barricades are being reinforced in Kiev’s Independence
Square, and people are settling in, despite sub-zero temperatures. They have
seen off repeated efforts by security forces to remove them from the square
over the last 22 days. Demonstrators and journalists have defied brutal
assaults by the Berkut riot police. Morale is being boosted by popular singer
Ruslana and bands like Mad Heads and Haydamaky.
There are a wide range of forces involved in the protests,
including the far right nationalist Svoboda (freedom) party. Yanukovich’s support
lies in the largely Russian-speaking eastern part of Ukraine, and its steel and
coal tycoons, while his opponents include other oligarchs from “The Family”,
the corrupt super-rich who hold the reins of economic and political power.
Behind the protests lies Ukraine’s impossible economic situation.
Its woes deepened after the global financial crash of 2008, because of its reliance
on exports of steel and raw materials from the heavily industrialised east and
south of the country. Ukraine has been in recession for 18 months.
It was Yanukovich’s failure to sign an agreement at the
November 28-30 EU “Eastern Partnership” summit in Vilnius which initially
sparked the protests. In any case, it is clear that the EU states cannot
bail out Ukraine, no matter how much they want to out-manoeuvre Putin.
Humiliation in Vilnius was quickly followed by Yanukovich’s
failure last week to secure a deal in China where he hoped to negotiate a $3bn
loan for irrigation. And the strength of the pro-EU protests makes the signing of
a deal with the much-hated Putin impossible.
Last Sunday around a million people besieged the capital’s
streets and nationalists toppled a statue of Lenin. Somewhat ironically
Ukraine’s last period of true independence was during and just after the
Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
As the founder of the young Soviet state, Bolshevik leader
Lenin defended the principle of national self-determination and strongly
opposed any forcible integration of nations into a Russian-dominated state.
Rather than wanting a statue to himself, he would have been on the streets
supporting the demonstrators.
But Lenin’s legacy was trampled by the greatest nationalist
of them all – Stalin. His regime’s reactionary policies led to famine in
Ukraine and starvation for millions. Many Ukrainians, with some justification,
see Putin continuing in Stalin’s great-Russian footsteps and reject dictatorial
rule from the east.
The mass of Ukrainians rightly want to free themselves from
the shadow of power-hunger oligarchs and political dictators of all varieties.
Becoming part of the European Union, which is imposing savage austerity
measures on member states, will not help them, however.
At the same time, the main political parties – whether they
are headed up by Yanukovich, Timoshenko,
Klitschko or Yatseniuk – are fronts for the corrupt, oligarchic tycoons and mafias
who own the country’s immense agricultural and mineral resources. These are the
barriers which Ukrainians have still to remove.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
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