MYKOLA TOMENKO: EVOLUTION OF COMMUNISTS IMPOSSIBLE
Communist slogans and rhetoric, imbibed from “reforms,” allow the Parteigenossen to confidently occupy their niche on the Ukrainian election market today. The question is, however, do they really need political power and the attendant immense responsibility? Supposing they get it, what would they do with it, considering social changes that have taken place over the past several years? In other words, are their program and slogans a bothersome political holdover or maybe they have a future? Mykola Tomenko, candidate of sciences (history), and Director of the Institute of Postcommunist Society, offers his expert view.
“The communist environment in Ukraine is made up of three segments. The first sees political activity in reviving what these people see as the sense and meaning of life as it was under the Soviets. They are struggling to restore what they believe is historical justice.”
“Would you call this nostalgic sublimation?”
“Yes. The main thing for them is recognition of the past as a ‘great period in our history, though with some mistakes.’ Specific economic programs, social policy, and all the rest is of minor importance. The second component is made up of those whose careers began shortly before the communist regime collapsed. They cannot understand how it could all have collapsed so quickly. Thus, they live between times, between those oriented toward the past and the third group. The latter are people who wound up in the Party due to various reasons except genuine persuasions: a better career, business, or a better chance to solve some vital problems (because during Soviet times not having a party membership card closed practically all doors to a better legitimate living). This is a category of pragmatic Communists. They use Party phraseology and symbols to pursue absolutely practical, pragmatic goals. One could see all three components distinctly manifest during the campaign. First, there was so much sloganeering even about absolutely practical serious subjects: after phrases about those at the top not being above the law came the addition: ‘the criminals will wind up behind bars’. Secondly, there were plenty of political discrepancies, because they wanted to say something people would listen to and at the same time preserve their ideological visage. In general, it’s hard to find any logic in what they proposed about the implementation of political power. At least, I tried to build a logical structure from their program, and it was a fiasco. One senses a constant struggle between rhetoric and attempts at pragmatism. For example, a necessary condition for overcoming the crisis is the presence of a ‘private producer’ who will never ‘exploit anyone else’s labor.’ What kind of person can make things, sell them, and not hire labor? And there were such packaged absurdities aplenty. And this points to the fact that different people representing all three groups worked on their program.”
“Considering the Communist Party’s structure, is there any possibility for its evolution into a normal European Leftist force?”
“No, not in the near future. Among its members are situational people, who will be easily detected when they vote in Parliament on economic and political issues. They aren’t many. Everything will happen exactly the same as in the old Parliament; they will side with other factions, get expelled from the Party, the works. For the time being, the first ‘rhetorical’ component is the basis, reinforced by Party functionaries who wouldn’t or couldn’t get to the top in the former system. Symonenko is a case example. His past failures evolved into a kind of inferiority complex. One can only hope that the man’s current ‘attainments’ will somehow help him get over it. Besides, he obviously lacks the character traits of a leader. It is strange that the man at the head of a Party which in a way won a national parliamentary election remains at the level of an oblast Party committee secretary or thereabouts. But this was his past attainment and I don’t think he will do any better.
“Now about intellectuals collaborating with the Communists. I see Kryuchkov as the generator of ideas who cleverly stays in the background. I don’t know of any younger capable experts among these collaborators.. I met with Communists on more than one occasion at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and I couldn’t sense any politically innovative potential there. Their only trump is severe criticism of the current situation.”
“Would it be correct to assume that Communism itself is the stumbling block in the development or transformation of the Communist Party?”
“Yes, this and its membership with their old political mentality. Europeanization could take place in the Socialist Party, slowly, step by step, but this trend looks quite real. The Communists are doomed to remain an extremist current. It is hard to say what awaits them in the distant future, but today it is clear that this political force exists outside the civilized European political arena (and de facto outside the Ukrainian one).”
Drawing by Anatoly Kazansky, The Day:
“A stumbling block”
