“Once we free ourselves foreign slavery, we will have to beware our own Ukrainian ignorance, lest it destroy us”
There is no agreement about the paths Ukraine should take among the citizens of that part of the post-Soviet community that was left on the territory of our country after the collapse of the USSR. The election campaigns of 2004 and 2006 laid bare, far and wide, the conflict of opposing views on the proper setup in our country and the guidelines to be followed in order to develop the economy and society. A split has formed between the forces that want to build a European-style civilization and those who seek to prolong the Russian Soviet tradition.
For those readers who want to gain a closer understanding of the reasons behind this situation, I would recommend Jose Ortega y Gasset’s Espana invertebrada and La rebelion de las masas published as Bezkhrebetna Ispania and Bunt mas by Osnovy Publishers (Kyiv, 1994), as well as Mykyta Shapoval’s textbook General Sociology (Ukrainian Center of Spiritual Culture, Kyiv, 1996).
Here is how Shapoval, the founder of Ukrainian sociology, assessed all those “social types that comprise the Ukrainian people” and their status in the 1920s: “There are only a few higher types (elites) in it [the Ukrainian nation] who are dying fruitlessly, destroyed ... by a foreign hostile environment and its own blind milieu...” Thus, “40 million creatures of a lower social type cannot be other than in bondage. Only cultured nations are free in contemporary society” (p. 275).
As for the impact of the last century on the formation of an elite in Ukraine, we know that in the last 90 years several events have taken place on the territory of Ukraine, which fundamentally influenced the quantitative and qualitative composition of the population: the First World War, revolutions and counterrevolutions, the Civil War, emigration and deportation, followed by collectivization, the dispossession of the “kulaks” accompanied by the deportation of families, famine (or Holodomor — no matter what you call it, the fact that millions of people starved to death in the Ukrainian countryside is generally known and acknowledged), industrialization and reconstruction after the Great Patriotic War (also involving the deaths of millions of Ukrainians), when masses of peasants engulfed the remnants of urban culture.
Finally, there was the constant brain drain from Ukraine to Moscow and Leningrad; recurring repressions of the dissident intelligentsia and generally of any people who stood out from the masses in any way; and control and screening for all job placements. The final circumstance is the exodus of about one-third of Ukraine’s manpower. Even during the most favorable periods the average living standard is never higher than the subsistence level, which was laid down in the laws of the Soviet state.
About the existing post-Soviet elite in Ukraine we know the following: its bureaucratic and criminal origins, and most politicians’ lack of systematic thinking, contemporary knowledge on the academic level, objective awareness, a philosophical world view, and, finally, intelligence. Most politicians do not regard the latter as a must, boasting instead about their “professionalism,” which in reality is manifested in some people as technocratism, in others as pragmatism, and in others as banditry.
Science, knowledge, and information are legitimate means for overcoming chaos and enriching the energy of man and society. Yet these are being neglected. Scientific and other special literature remains practically inaccessible to the vast social strata of Ukraine. Instead, the church, which struggles for the legitimate right to minister to the souls of the rising generation, is receiving support from parents and principals of state schools, contrary to the law. Is this not an indicator of blind social consciousness?
One is tempted to send all the politicians of the parties in parliament to university to acquire some new knowledge. At the same time, it is obvious that this cannot guarantee a solution to our problems. Hardly anyone doubts that Hitler had highly qualified officials, both civilian and military, as well as successful businessmen, and above all members of the aristocracy. But everyone knows the outcome of the historical doings of this German elite, which accepted the morals of racial supremacy. In other words, the decisive factor is not so much knowledge as attitude to others, otherwise known as morals, whose foundations are laid in childhood, before an education is acquired.
The first Bolsheviks, who were implementing the ideology of communism, were intellectuals from the raznochinets class, descendants either of impoverished noblemen, people of high culture and conscience, or specialists: physicians, lawyers, and other cultured people. This is one of the reasons why the moral principle of governance established by the Bolsheviks was paternalism. The Soviets knew only too well what justified their supremacy, and they truly ensured that the “masses were fed” and “clothed, shod, and taught their ABCs.”
So what type of strong personality was formed in accordance with the real relationships in Soviet society and was able to use them for their personal climb up the social ladder? This was a type aimed at enhancing his well-being by using his public or materially responsible standing, even if it involved illegal actions. They are those who are capable of shamelessly cheating and doctoring bookkeeping documents, and committing other crimes; employees of the system of Soviet commerce and public catering; criminal elements that blackmail and extort; they are those who accept bribes, taking advantage of their official positions; bureaucrats of party-Soviet organs of the economy and budget-sustained organizations of all levels (Leonid Kanevsky’s popular TV program “Investigation Underway,” the NTV serial of 2006, and other exposes). This is precisely the amoral kind of personality that formed and proliferated within the state-social system of the Soviet Union, and later took advantage of authorizations granted during the perestroika campaign.
What is the morality of the rulers in post-Soviet Ukraine? Of course, there is no aristocracy with its sense of a higher duty to serve the Motherland and direct the state. Among Ukraine’s leaders and politicians there are no intellectuals in the field of humanities with their principled hallmarks: quest for truth, independence of declarations, and selfless aspirations.
According to many observers, Ukraine is ruled by immoral people. I will devote a few words to the question of leading the population of Ukraine to unity as a nation. If we adhere to Shapoval’s definition of a nation (although he believed that a theory of the nation would be developed by sociologists at a later date), the hallmarks of a nation are a common language, common territory, and statehood, or aspirations to statehood.
The population long ago became accustomed to regarding Ukraine as a separate country within the framework of a given territory — a republic within the USSR; the latest annexation was the Crimea, which has been part of Ukraine for over 50 years. Calls for the separation of territories emerged only in the 14th year of independence and have met with extensive popular support marshaled under the slogan of protecting the mother tongue (Russian).
The average person, it may be said, is indifferent to the state and rarely has dealings with it, whereas the question of language directly concerns everyone every day. In Ukraine, instilling in citizens — Russians or Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine -the idea that they are Ukrainians, and proposing that they not use their mother tongue produces the reverse effect. Pressure on the language factor in Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions sparks a reaction that serves to reduce the existing factor of statehood, the latter being more important for unification. Irritating the Russian-speaking population with exhortations and lecturing on national radio, and accusations of unpatriotism, destabilizes the Ukrainian state instead of strengthening it.
In order to unite the population, we are invited to look back at our past and remember our forefathers. Ukraine’s past includes the Tatar-Mongol hordes, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and the USSR (which they are eager to forget). With all of them, Ukraine maintained voluntary but forced alliances for protection and survival. In fact, Ukraine formed its single territory and body politic gradually and with external forces, which is why it remained without independence, dependent. Then for the sake of what in our past history is the population of Ukraine being asked to unite, relying on recent history?
We are being asked to review our history, without being primed by patriotic feelings, beginning perhaps with the feudal fragmentation of Kyivan Rus’ and onward and onward, until the last years of Soviet rule. We are being asked to analyze old and newly uncovered facts of political events and their consequences for the economy, from the angle of their impact on the formation of social types and the assertion of social consciousness.
We are being asked to keep in mind that history provides only characteristics, data about specifics of concrete material with which we will have to deal. Therefore, in order to create something, it is necessary to learn about its quality. Sociology, psychology, and political science provide the tools and techniques for this kind of operation. Unfortunately, such methods are being used only in Ukraine for games and manipulation, much like the latest technological stunts are used in show business.
According to the theory of cyclical sociogenetics, Ukraine (and Russia) is on a level of historical development below that of Western Europe and North America, specifically, on the feudal level. Those nations that have skipped or in an accelerated fashion passed through separate areas of the spiral of civilized social genotype development have found themselves in a profound economic, social, political, and spiritual crisis. (V. Lartsev’s “The Ukrainian Path: Uniting the Asiatic Past with Current Eurasian Realities in the Name of a European Future,” Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, no. 33 (254), Aug. 21, 1999, p. 19).
A contemporary Ukrainian researcher has pinpointed Ukraine’s backwardness: “The Ukrainian countryside is still on the feudal, pre-national level of ethnic self-awareness.” (Mykola Riabchuk, Politolohiia..., p. 125)
