Editor’s Note: This op-ed was originally published in the June 11 edition of Novoye Vremya and is republished in translation with the author’s permission.
It’s entirely possible that I’ve not understood something, and I’m almost certain that I’ve missed something, but I think that something has started in Ukraine that, as a nod to the owner (even if only formally) of the country’s largest producer of sweets and chocolate, who also happens to be our president, could be called a sweet counter-revolution.
What else could one call the “putting up against the wall” of anti-corruption activists, the pressure on former allies of (politician Mikheil) Saakashvili and (Lviv Mayor Andriy) Sadoviy, the deals with the former Party of Regions members in the south and east, and the passing of a series of authoritarian laws disguised as patriotic necessities?
If Ukraine were a normally functioning democracy and a free market, all these things could just be seen as part of the ordinary struggle for power.
But our country is not normal. Otherwise, there would not have been two revolutions by people seeking a normal life, and with the main goal of dismantling the system of informal ties that provide economic preferences to those who have access to power.
Thirteen years after the first Maidan, and three years after the second one, we have to acknowledge that these two revolutionary blows have failed to kill the system. On the contrary, the system has regrouped and is now going on a silent offensive.
Of course, 2017 is not the same as 2007. Never before has Ukraine achieved so much in the way of reform as it has now. But it has still not been possible to reach a tipping point. That which was described in the presidential strategy of Ukraine for 2020 with the phrase “going on a trajectory of stable development,” remains an unattainable goal.
This is not just my conclusion, but also that of experts who gathered recently at an international conference in the Swedish city of Uppsala. The discussion panel was called “Ukraine: 25 Years of Disappointment.” The assessments of the participants were as follows: If there is no drastic change in Ukraine, we can expect another 25 years of instability.
In conditions of chaos, it is important to keep clarity of thought. Knowledge of history helps, and history shows that there are very few successful revolutions. Moreover, a counter-revolutionary phase cannot be avoided. It does not matter when exactly this phase comes: after a year (as happened during the 1848 Spring of Nations anti-monarchy revolts in Europe) or after 70 years, as in the case of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It comes. Another question is what form this counter-revolution takes. In the Ukrainian case, a “sweet counter-revolution” is not the worst option. An alternative scenario could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Novorossiya, or a populist counter-revolution led by Yulia Tymoshenko.
However, the consciousness of the worst options does not mean we have to accept them, and the counter-revolution phase is not the final stage of a revolution. After all the various scenarios work themselves out in practice, a certain balance is established between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary processes, and only then is the path of future developments determined. For example: The wave of revolutions of 1848 is seen as a failed turning point. But after a couple of decades, the main demands of these revolutions – parliamentary democracy and a nation state – became an everyday reality.
Closer to us – both geographically and chronologically – is the example of Poland. There, after the victory of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the former party functionary Alexander Kvasnevsky came to power in 1995. This Polish “velvet counter-revolution” (a term used by the Polish historian and former dissident Adam Michnik) stabilized the agenda and made Poland one of the most successful countries in Europe economically. Will today’s Polish government “knock” the state off this trajectory? We will see. But it would be much easier for it to do so if the velvet counter-revolution of 1994 had not happened.
Therefore, if the assumption is true that a “sweet counter-revolution” has begun in Ukraine, it is simply time for civil society to form a new agenda.
Firstly, don’t be disheartened. The counter-revolutionary propaganda machine is now trying to impose the idea that there are not, and cannot be honest people in Ukrainian politics. This blanket statement is supposed to convince people that the system is invincible, and fighting it is a waste of time.
Here, it’s worth offering a counter-thesis: reforms are not a waste of time, they simply need more time to work, and Ukraine has bought this time with two Maidans, a victory in the war with Russia, and in the emergence of a new generation of Ukrainians of the same age as independent Ukraine itself.
Secondly, you need to understand yourself, and bring this understanding to others, where we can find the egg and the needle that will kill Koshchei the Immortal. (Koshchei is an evil character in Slavic folklore, who to evade death has hidden his soul in a needle, which is within and egg, within a duck, within a hare, within a chest buried on the secret island of Buyan in the ocean. If one possesses the egg they gain control of Koshchei, and if they break the needle he dies).
My hypothesis is that the egg and the needle (needed to control and then kill the old system) are hidden in the judicial system and closed party lists. But I admit that this might not be the complete answer.
Thirdly, it’s time to prepare for a third Maidan – at the ballot box. The next election is in two years. That’s time enough to ensure a victory even from a low starting position – if not in 2019, then in 2024.
And most importantly, it’s time again for moral dissent. Ukraine needs people who can swim against the current. People who, not with words but with actions, will prove that there are values worth living for – ones that cannot be replaced by any sweet things of the world.
Yaroslav Hrytsak is a historian, publicist, and a professor of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.
