Main result of Yevhen Marchuk’s visit to Kharkiv

Yevhen Marchuk, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for Social Policy and Labor, spent two days in Kharkiv meeting with those who can be rightfully considered Ukraine’s future.

A better future can be secured only by preserving the nation’s intellectual potential. Mr. Marchuk was visited by students and scholars when he visited the local Prommontazhelektromekhanika (Industrial Electro-Technical Assembly) Plant, meeting with women workers and trade union figures.

The visit’s focal event was the constituent meeting of the oblast branch of the Ukrainian Public Association held under the motto, “Twenty-First Century Ukraine with Yevhen Marchuk.” The association involves different parties and organization, often with polarized programs, ranging from the Liberals to Leftist organizations. Bringing them and their attitudes together is anything but easy.

Yevhen Marchuk considers unifying Ukrainian society a fundamental issue. Ukraine cannot enter the third millennium without an act of civic reconciliation (particularly with regard to events in 1945 and 1918), Mr. Marchuk told those present.

Another extremely important task, according to Mr. Marchuk, is the decriminalization of the state, “detection and destruction of all political-criminal clans.” He stressed that it takes “an iron hand, meaning rigid rules applied to those in power and all those outside the law,” not just “an iron hand the way it is generally understood.” This policy will not be directed against ordinary citizens or civil society as a whole. On the contrary, it will help create a mechanism of public control over the authorities.

Among other priorities Mr. Marchuk singled out measures to prevent “total collapse of the commodity sector, reviving the research and technological potential and agriculture.”

“Ukraine’s rebirth should begin in Kharkiv, this industrial and scientific capital of Ukraine,” Mr. Marchuk believes. This need was especially evident when visiting the Prommontazhelektronika joint stock company, which specializes in industrial electronic units, telephones, watches, meters, to mention but a few. A large but typically Kharkiv undertaking, although many refer to Kharkiv as a city of industrial giants.

“Enterprises such as this are a bridge to our future,” Mr. Marchuk said. “It is a shame and an outrage that the authorities pay no attention to their problems.”

Mr. Marchuk’s visit to Kharkiv showed that he had not changed his attitude after declaring in Lviv that he would not say something in the west of Ukraine and different things in the east. At a news conference in Kharkiv, in response to a question from Interfax Ukraine, he declared that he would make his program public after the presidential campaign is officially announced. He would also announce his team and identify the candidate for premier, when he wins.

The fact that Yevhen Marchuk began and ended his visit to Kharkiv by meeting with scholars and scientists is quite significant. First he met with students and in the end with philosophers, sociologists, and political scientists.

The tectonic changes in Ukrainian society demand philosophical perception. What is to become of a nation with a tuberculosis epidemic spreading so far and so wide so quickly? 600 tertiary cases, by WHO standards, place Ukraine 110th on the world list. Or back wages and salaries, when people have to wait for months if not years to get what meager pay they are due. All this can only be described as slavery, in other words, a different social formation.

Ukrainian science is commonly believed to be in a sad state. Of the great many theoretical and applied institutions of learning in Kharkiv there might not be a single one without so many researchers resigning and leaving Ukraine. Applied experts at design institutes who know how to smelt steel and build industrial giants have to look for jobs at small firms and even trade cigarettes in bazaars.

At the same time, those in power do not want to learn any lessons, says Mr. Marchuk. “They don’t yet boast, ‘We have no university diplomas but look at us now,’ but soon this could become a source of pride.” Mr. Marchuk stressed that the worst evil is an ignoramus occupying a high post. Ukraine is overwhelmed by dilettantes. Lack of professionalism and an overabundance of amateurishness is Ukraine’s scourge.