Alexander Demianchuk/reuters
"They won: decisively, irreversibly, and unconditionally." That is the reaction of the Russian daily Izvestiia to the decision of Ukraine's supreme court to annul the results of the recent presidential election and hold a new one. The "they" in that sentence are the supporters of Victor Yushchenko, who, according to all observers, had been deprived of victory by blatant electoral fraud perpetrated by Yushchenko's main opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, and his backers, namely outgoing president Leonid Kuchma and Ukraine's Russian minority. Never before have events in Ukraine attracted so much attention abroad, and rightly so: They represent a genuine democratic revolution with potentially explosive consequences for all the states that once made up the Soviet empire, Russia included.
Ukraine is a young country with a recently matured sense of national identity. Until the middle of the 19th century, she was "Little Russia," a region and a people whom the Great Russians considered an intrinsic part of their own nation. Russians viewed with deep suspicion Ukrainian claims to independent nationhood, so much so that in 1876 the czarist government forbade the printing of works in the Ukrainian language. The center of Ukrainian nationalism subsequently moved to Galicia, then under Austrian rule.
Russia's claims to Ukraine rest in good measure on the historical fact that the first Russian state was located in Kiev, today's Ukrainian capital. That state was destroyed by Mongol invaders in the 13th century, following which Russia's population and statehood shifted to the forest zone in the northeast, with the capital in Moscow. What had been the Kievan principality passed under Polish rule in the 14th century, where it would remain for some four centuries. ("Ukraine" is derived from the Slavic word for "borderland," which explains why its name was traditionally — and in my opinion correctly — preceded by "the," as is the case with "the Netherlands" or "the Low Countries.")
Ukraine's long experience of Polish rule had a variety of consequences, leading to political and cultural developments that differentiated her from Russia. Unlike Russia and her autocracy, Poland was a constitutional monarchy dominated by the nobility, with parliamentary institutions and extensive civil liberties. Through Poland, literate Ukrainians became acquainted with the West. A large part of Ukraine's population consisted of runaway serfs from Muscovy: These formed anarchist Cossack communities of freebooters who recognized no external authority. All this resulted in a libertarian tradition quite different from the austere and isolated regime prevailing in Russia.
Russia acquired Ukraine gradually, beginning in the 17th century and ending in the mid-20th, when — as a result of the Stalin-Hitler pact — Ukraine's last remaining outpost, Galicia, then Polish, passed under Soviet rule. Lenin had granted Bolshevik Ukraine the status of a Soviet republic, nominally sovereign but in reality subject to control by the Russian Communist party. Under Stalin's rule, the region suffered terrible depredations, including a man-made famine in the early 1930s in the course of which between 7 and 9 million Ukrainians perished.
When the USSR dissolved in December 1991, Ukraine declared her independence, a decision acknowledged by Russia's new president, Boris Yeltsin. But a large majority of Russians found it psychologically impossible to adjust themselves to the loss of Ukraine, the richest of the one-time Soviet republics and one inhabited by a kindred people (the two share a common ancestry from Kiev). Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin — who closely follows public-opinion polls and adjusts his policies accordingly — began on assuming office to apply pressure on Ukraine and other nations of the so-called "near abroad" in order to bring them back into the fold. To this end he has employed a variety of devices, including economic and military intimidation, the military form exerted through Russian army contingents which Moscow, in violation of its pledges, refuses to withdraw. In some regions, notably Georgia, such imperialist policies have led to enduring tension.
In Ukraine, Moscow has relied on several groups that share a common interest in maintaining close links between the two countries. One of them is the bureaucracy, which dreads democratic forces and seeks support to keep them down. There are also the so-called "oligarchs," wealthy industrialists with their base in eastern Ukraine. And last but not least are the Russians who dominate the industrial regions in the east and instinctively gravitate toward Moscow rather than Kiev.
In the past decade, Kuchma has formed something of a tacit alliance with the Kremlin, the main result of which has been political and economic stagnation. In the words of Ukrainian political scientist Alexander Vydrin:
During the ten years of his presidency, Kuchma has failed to fulfill a single point of his electoral campaign: neither the development of local self-government, nor territorial-administrative reform . . . . nor the struggle against the oligarchs, nor the solution of the language problem, nor the issues of social justice. All problems have remained unresolved. They were all frozen. Kuchma is a marvelous specialist in the art of freezing problems. This is one of the fundamental causes of the political crisis experienced by today's Ukraine.
The event that brought this lingering crisis to a head was the presidential election. Yushchenko is no novice to politics. He served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, giving his country its own currency and implementing a number of constructive economic measures. He is mistrusted, however, by the Ukrainian apparatchiks as well as the oligarchs, in part because they perceive him as a dangerous populist reformer and in part because they suspect him of pro-Western sympathies. Some of Yushchenko's supporters have, indeed, talked of joining NATO. It does not help that his wife was born in the United States, which has led to ludicrous charges that she has CIA links.
The establishment much prefers Yanukovych, a bland bureaucrat unlikely to ruffle any feathers. His power base lies in eastern and southern Ukraine, industrial and mining regions with sizable Russian populations. The recent presidential election was manipulated in his favor by pro-Moscow elements in order to ensure that Ukraine remains close to Moscow and stays politically and economically "frozen."
An extraordinary feature of the Ukrainian political crisis has been the outpouring of mass support for Yushchenko. In Russia, such mass involvement has been virtually unknown: All decisions affecting the country's politics have been settled by small elites with a minimum of popular participation. Although many of the demonstrations in Kiev and other eastern and central cities were not so much spontaneous as organized by Yushchenko's camp, they undoubtedly reflect genuine popular outrage at the establishment's violation of democratic rights. Ukraine is undergoing a revolution in the true sense of the word — the first in any of the Soviet successor states but probably not the last.
This prospect is what worries the Russian establishment. Putin, normally very cautious, has intervened directly in Ukrainian affairs with a view to ensuring Yanukovych's election. He did so even as he warned the Western powers to stay out. The Russian press reflects the frustration of the Russian authorities at the prospect of Ukraine's slipping out of control and drawing closer to the West. According to the BBC, the daily Rossiiskaia gazeta is frightened by the possibility of democracy's triumph in Ukraine, lest it spread elsewhere: "Russia cannot afford to allow defeat in the battle for Ukraine. Besides everything else, defeat would mean velvet revolutions in the next two years, now following the Kiev variant, in Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and possibly Armenia." Pravda perceives an even greater and more direct threat, namely to Russia herself: "Now these same [Western] forces are striving to yoke Ukraine and Belarus, in order then to gain complete control of Moscow. Complete control! They are no longer pretending to hide it . . ."
Facing the prospect of new elections later this month and Yushchenko's almost certain victory, the pro-Moscow forces are considering two measures. One is to weaken the office of the president by transferring some of his constitutional powers to parliament — a bill to this effect has been submitted by Kuchma. The other is to threaten a breakup of Ukraine by having the pro-Russian eastern and southern regions declare "autonomy," i.e., secede.
The latter course, tempting as it may appear to Moscow, would be very damaging to its interests and hence is unlikely to be pursued. For if the regions with heavy Russian presence were to separate themselves, Russia would lose whatever influence she has over Ukraine's central and western regions. The latter would inexorably move toward closer relations with the West, especially neighboring Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union. It would surely be a Pyrrhic victory.
The Ukrainian revolution is a most heartening phenomenon. The fear expressed by some Russians that it may affect other parts of the "near abroad" is probably justified — and welcome. For in the long run it may spill into Russia as well, infecting her with the virus of liberty now sorely missing.
Mr. Pipes is professor of history emeritus at Harvard and author most recently of Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger.
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