Ten Years According to the People’s Initiative
On December 1, 1991, over 90% of the Ukrainian electorate voted for independence. The December referendum was at the same time the election of our sovereign state’s first president: the people chose Leonid Kravchuk. Alas, the past decade has brought disappointment to many of us. Throughout this period the country has looked forward to an economic miracle, displaying miracles of electoral activity in other elections and another referendum. The past ten years have been years of constant choice between East and West, coercive and the civilized methods of political struggle, premiers and presidents, freedom of speech and permissiveness, truth and lies, hope and hopelessness, as well as the choice of strategic partners, a national idea, new criteria and benchmarks
The Day has asked Leonid KRAVCHUK, “Has Russia changed its ways and means of influence on Ukraine over the past ten years?” Mr. Kravchuk gave a diplomatic answer:
“The Ukrainian policy toward Russia (or Ukraine’s Russian policy) has not been very effective for a decade. One can come to only one conclusion: we have to think seriously about Ukraine’s Russian policy, while Russia must be serious in formulating its policies toward neighboring Ukraine. Russia has already begun to change the accents and idea of its policy toward Ukraine. What kind of policy will this result in? We can be sure it will be pragmatic because [President Vladimir] Putin is a natural pragmatist. This official policy of Russia is likely emphasize the independence of Ukraine and its right to build its own life. I must also admit that the same old songs and old trends will remain somewhere at the level of political structures, non-governmental organizations, and all kinds of intellectuals, which all will continue to engage in nostalgic and dream of restoring certain associations and unions based on the common principles of the former Soviet Union. Incidentally, the CIS as such is collapsing for the single reason of inequality. No international organization of any caliber can exist and have prospects when it lacks the principle of equality (nonexistent in the CIS). Thus, although there will be various views of and tendencies toward Ukraine at the various rungs of Russian society, I am already aware of serious changes at the governmental level. We should also ponder Ukraine’s policy toward Russia. Incidentally, the SDPU(o) has come up with a crucial principle of Ukraine’s Russian policy. I think we must think how to put this principle into concrete practice, taking up the challenge of Russia which has proclaimed 2002 as the Year of Ukraine in Russia. This is challenge for us, and we must be prepared not only to accept it but also to think, propose, and forecast, say, important trends likely to occur in Russia. For example, is Russia putting pressure on Ukraine today? What changes have taken place in these trends? I can say that the pressure has eased on the political level but is still strong on the economic and intellectual levels. But even this pressure is becoming more refined and diplomatic.”
Asked about CIS prospects, People’s Deputy Kravchuk pointed out, “The CIS has in practice turned today into a political club” and “has in fact lost its levers as an international organization.” According to him, the CIS was created to perform two primary functions, one of civilized divorce and the other constructive. Independent Ukraine’s first president thinks the CIS has fulfilled, with some reservations, the former function but failed to fulfill the latter. “In this status, the CIS has no prospects,” Mr. Kravchuk noted. “The CIS will only see some prospects if it changes its approach, charter, and philosophy along European Union lines.”
