You're reading: Extreme Choices: Communists pine for Soviet times

DONETSK - Nina Girnichenko, a 68-year-old pensioner from the eastern industrial city of Donetsk, is ready to defend Ukraine’s Communist Party.

“I have been voting for Communists all my life because I remember how good we used to live (in the former Soviet Union),” she says, heatedly. “We had free education and medical care, for example. So I was born under the red flag and I will die under it.”

Wearing a red cap showing the hammer & sickle Communist symbols and a red tie to match, Girnichenko brought a bright autumn flower bouquet with her. She lays it at the foot of a 42-meter high statue of Vladimir Lenin on the central square. Fittingly, here is where local communists usually stage their campaign rallies, and another is about to begin.

True to form, Soviet-era songs grace the rally on Lenin Square. Girnichenko loudly cheers the speakers. Soon, local TV news crews line up to interview her, giving her another chance to profess her faith.

It’s because of diehard loyalists like her that the Communist Party will once again likely win seats in the Oct. 28 parliamentary election. A recent poll commissioned by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation shows support for Communists across the country at 10 percent, with 19 percent in the east of the nation. If the polls translate into votes, the Communists could increase their share of seats (currently 25 deputies) in the 450-seat legislature.

Most Communist supporters are 65 or older. Young supporters – like 21-year-old Roman Astapenkov – are far fewer in number. “However, we have more young people each year,” Astapenkov contends.  The technical university student came to the rally on Lenin Square to distribute party literature before his classes start.

“They are afraid this October will be red” – Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko

He says he is a volunteer. “Whoever wants money chooses the Party of Regions,” says Astapenkov whose political choice sometimes turns out to be a laughing matter for his classmates. “I don’t see much difference between the Regions and the so-called opposition parties, which are all bourgeois parties. Communists, (as the) real defenders of working Ukrainians, and a minority in parliament, can do little for the nation.”

Girnichenko is among the millions of voters who vaulted President Viktor Yanukovych to victory over the now imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential election. However, Girnichenko is disappointed with Yanukovych, the former Donetsk Oblast governor and former prime minister, for “his unwillingness to fulfill his election promises.”

She says Yanukovych and his ruling Party of Regions have not raised the nation’s living standards and says Russian should be the second official language of Ukraine.

She applauds the Communists for their consistently populist rhetoric about social justice and for elevating the status of the Russian language. As a result, the dominant Party of Regions is facing voter competition in the densely populated Donbas region.

The president’s party has launched a campaign to discredit Communist candidates, says Serhiy Tkachenko, head of the Donetsk office of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, an election watchdog.

The newspaper Free Word Donbas is one of many media outlets trying to persuade readers that a wide gap exists between the Communists’ public statements and their private lifestyles.

Ukraine’s longtime Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko is the main target of the allegations. Despite his proclaimed antagonism to wealth, he is accused of being rich and leading a lavish lifestyle. Having criticized oligarchs and corrupt officials whose declared incomes are not in line with their luxurious tastes, the Communists fail to explain their own posh habits.

Symonenko, for instance, occupies a mansion on 1.2 hectares in a village near Kyiv. 1+1 TV channel filmed the mansion and estimated the cost of the land plot alone at approximately $187,000. Symonenko has never explained how he managed to afford this property despite declaring only a modest salary of $25,000 in 2011. According to his tax return, he does not even have a bank account.

Despite the attack on Symonenko’s integrity, the Communists are more worried about what they predict will be an attempt to steal the election from them.

Mykola Kravchenko, a lawmaker in the Communist Party faction, accuses local officials of sabotaging the Communists. Kravchenko is now campaigning in a single-mandate district in Donetsk Oblast. His main challenger is Andriy Ponomaryov, a director of a local dolomite plant, who is heavily promoted by the Regions Party. The Communist is worried about electoral foul play and welcomes the presence of 200 election observers in his district.

“We will not conceal anything from the world,” Kravchenko said at the rally. “If the European Union and other countries don’t recognize Ukrainian elections as legitimate, it’ll be a catastrophe.”

But Tkachenko from the Committee of Voters of Ukraine says the Communist Party is good at playing the role of victim. “Ukrainians love those who are treated unjustly,” Tkachenko says. “It’s easier to cry and not file lawsuits in real courts.”

More than 21 years the Soviet Union’s collapse, there are still enough true believers to keep the Communists in power for another five years at least.

Votes will come even though the Communists – while notoriously critical of the “oligarchic machine” – formed the current government after entering a coalition with the Party of Regions in 2010. They also have supported almost every bill of the ruling party in parliament.

If they regain power, however, the Communists promise life will be different. They offer social protection, order, justice and stability. They promise to re-nationalize strategic companies “which ended up in private hands as a result of unlawful privatization,” Symonenko is quoted as saying.

The Communists also promise to confiscate land plots they say were unlawfully seized and privatized.  Internationally, they strongly oppose cooperation with NATO and the European Union and, of course, advocate for closer ties with Russia and other former Soviet republics. Instead of the free trade agreement with the European Union, they want Ukraine to join the Russia-led Customs Union.

The Communists, of course, made big promises during the Soviet era and history has shown how their big human experiment turned out.

Kyiv Post staff writer Denis Rafalsky can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].