It appears from
the initial vote count in Ukraine
that Viktor Yushchenko has emerged the winner of the
December 26 presidential election. Yushchenko, along
with his American and European financial backers and various Ukrainian
nationalist organizations around the world, has declared the results to be a
great victory for democracy in Ukraine.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
In 1991 when the
Soviet Union was dissolved, Ukrainians were told that
communism was responsible for the anti-democratic activities of their leaders.
Tens of millions of dollars poured into the country to convince them that their
desire for genuine democracy, as well as economic and social renewal, could be
achieved only under capitalism. Instead, Ukraine,
like other former SovietRepublics
and countries of Eastern Europe, was devastated by the
introduction of market capitalism. Millions of workers were thrown out of their
jobs, factories were closed down and the top bureaucrats, managers and
“communists” not only consolidated and legalized the power they had previously
exercised illegally, but they also “privatized” the public wealth and property
belonging to the Ukrainian people into their own pockets and the pockets of various
foreign financiers. Instead of democracy, the Ukrainian people got rule by a
gang of billionaire oligarchs many of whom previously ruled as bureaucrats and
“communist” officials.
When Ukrainian workers fought back against
these attacks on their livelihoods and demanded real democracy, the Ukrainian
oligarchs and their Western backers brought to the fore a new group of
“democrats” and “reformers”. The old “democrats” and “reformers”, those who had
actually brought in the capitalist reforms, now became “Stalinists” and
“conservatives”. In this way, the new capitalist rulers of Ukraine
hope to divert the struggle of the people for freedom and democracy into a dead
end.
Viktor Yushchenko is an example of the “new reformers”. Victor Yanukovich is an example of the “old reformers” who have
now become “conservatives”. However, not very long ago, Viktor Yushchenko was also one of those “old reformers”, a Soviet
bureaucrat who got rich quick by expropriating public property. Prior to 1991, Yushchenko was a very loyal “communist” and a top
bureaucrat in the agricultural division of the Soviet Gosbank.
He, along with other top managers of the bank, took advantage of the chaos
between 1989 and 1991 to effectively seize control of the Ukrainian branch of
the bank, eventually converting it into Bank Ukraina.
Through a series of shady deals Yushchenko and his cohorts transferred virtually the entire
assets of the bank – the savings of millions of Ukrainian working people – into
their private bank accounts. When Bank Ukraina
collapsed, charges were brought against Yushchenko
and other bank officials. While some of his colleagues were convicted and sent
to jail, the charges against Yushchenko were quietly
dropped and Yushchenko remains one of the wealthiest
men in Ukraine.
One of Yushchenko’s main supporters within Ukraine
is Julia Timoshenko, who similarly used her position
within the Soviet state apparatus to seize control of the state energy company,
and is now worth over $5 billion.
During the past
few years Yushchenko became a protégé of George Soros, a multi-billionaire financier who has been
instrumental in financing regime changes in numerous Eastern European countries.
Soros financed and groomed Yushchenko
to become a leading figure in Ukrainian politics and Yushchenko
also quickly became a favored recipient of tens of millions of dollars from
various U.S.
state agencies. It is estimated that Yushchenko and
his political organization have received in excess of $65 million from the U.S.
alone in recent years. In addition he has received huge sums of money from
various European capitalists eager to get their hands on the wealth and
resources of Ukraine.
During a two-year
stint as prime minister between 1999 and 2001, Yushchenko
launched an attack on the wages and pensions of Ukrainian working people. Later,
while in “opposition” he continued to advocate cutbacks to pensions and opposed
the repayment of wages and pension benefits owed to workers from the period in
the mid-1990s when the Ukrainian government ran out of money due to the looting
of the treasury by people like Yushchenko. With his
European backers openly calling for “shock therapy” for Ukraine,
it appears that, as president, Yushchenko will likely
escalate both the attacks on Ukrainian workers and the looting of the public
treasury. When he becomes thoroughly discredited, he will in turn earn the
label “conservative” and some new “reformer” will arrive on the scene to
hoodwink the people. This has become the modus
operandi of the Eastern European oligarchs and their Western allies. Only
by overthrowing all of the oligarchs and building a new, socialist society will
the Ukrainian people achieve the democratic renewal of their society that they
so deeply desire.