Project on the Oral History

The Oral History©

of Independent Ukraine

Bohdan Kravchenko, June 24, 1996

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Project on the Oral History

of Independent Ukraine

Margarita Hewko, Director - Ukraine

Sara Sievers, Director - United States

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Val. Luteranska15, Apt. 11560 Memorial Drive, Apt. 308

Kyiv, UkraineCambridge, MA 02139

Tel./Fax: 380-44-228-4194Tel./Fax: (617) 577-5517

Interviewee:Kravchenko

Interviewer:Sara Sievers

Date:24 June 1996

Place:Kravchenko’s office in Kiev

Tape 1 Касета 1

(00:00:25) Mr. Krachenko, when did you first become involved and began monitoring in the process that led to Ukrainian independence?

Well, I was involved all the time. From whenever I can remember...but very very professionally. I was in Canada, and I was the director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian studies at the university of Alberta, and I worked at that institute since 1976. Before ’76 I lived in Europe and I was involved—as much as one could be involved—with helping the dissident movement through (00:01:00) (quite a number of actions in defense of political prisoners, and the organizational smuggling of books to Ukraine. And then professionally very much so when I was at the University of Alberta. And I wrote an awful lot about contemporary Ukraine. And I tended to belong to a very very distinct minority of people who actually was convinced that the Soviet Union was in profound crisis, that this was not a viable society, and that Ukraine’s independence is on the cards. I remember I wrote a book called “The Social Change in National Consciousness in Twentieth Century Ukraine” which developed this argument, and an awful lot of people thought I was incredibly naïve. Well, I’m glad to say they were wrong and I was right. Then, of course, I came here in the end of January, early February 1991, ostensibly to write a book, (00:02:00) on a sabbatical leave, and the book I was supposed to write was called “The History of the Communist Party in Ukraine” but very shortly after arriving, I met a number of people here, among them, a person I knew from Canada still, was Bohdan Havrylyshyn, who had organized the Council of Advisors to the Parliament of Ukraine, and we were just getting…that council just had to get going. There was also the Renaissance Foundation which just … had been in existence for not quite than a year, almost a year, so I was asked to help out in both of those structures, and especially through the Council of Advisors where I did a fair amount of little policy studies, that’s how I got very much involved. And then of course I met George Soros and everything escalated.

You were one of the early observers and participants in the political changes that developed Ukraine…we are looking at specifically (00:03:00) the period from ’88 until the Ukrainian independence was secured and recognized internationally. Can you describe your interactions with government leaders and impressions that you had about their abilities and directions.

Well, a lot of us…when I started to get involved in this there were a number of impressions that one had, and there were quite a lot of surprises. On the surface things were kind of clear, how things went. What was certainly much…what became apparent was some of the stuff that went beneath the surface, basically you have the traditional schema of things…that you know, you have the rise of the glasnost and perestroika, you have the rise of opposition, you have mass mobilization, (00:04:00) demonstrations, student strikes and all that, and it ends with the march of the people to independence. There was an awful lot of that, and I think sometimes when you put it in a kind of international context you realize how impressive some of these mobilizations really were. But there is another side of the story, and that is how all of this was perceived from within the power elite. And that one of the interesting, surprising and, I think, good things that one observed was that the reason why Ukraine became independent is because the political class, such as it was, wanted Ukraine to become independent.

Why?

For many reasons, I think. Not the least of which was the fact that they were tired of eating crow from Moscow. That even within the bowels of that (00:05:00) —something called “Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic” —there was an indigenous political class which was forming…formed. There was an indigenous administrative elite, and it did not want to have its life regulated in detail from Moscow. You have to appreciate the absurdity of the old system, which was that you could not construct a pedestrian overpass in Kiev without a permission from Moscow. The number of wagons in the metro was absolutely set by Moscow. I noticed that today the Ukraina Theater is being renovated. Well, the fact that it was built in the first place was considered a huge achievement of the Ukrainian communist elite, because apparently only a couple of capitals were given the status have such a grandiose palace. So, when (00:06:00) the most important function in government was that you translate documents that come from Moscow …you translate them into Ukrainian…you better do a very good translation job otherwise you are going to run into big problems…but you have a whole group of people that are well educated, that have been trained for power, and don’t have that power. So that was clear. Secondly, Moscow was becoming more and more of a loose cannon and one simply did not know what to expect. And I don’t think one should underestimate that kind of springtime-of-nations-feeling that was over here. I mean we are a little bit—kind of dampened by all of this with events since then, ’95 –’96. But there was a very very profound sense of discovery, a profound sense of optimism, and a profound discovery of what it means to have a fatherland or motherland or whatever it is that you want to call it. And it was interesting (00:07:00) to see it in each of these milieus. So I think the secret of Ukraine’s success, which remains to be carefully documented still, lies in a good part in the kind of stuff that happened in the cabinets, in the offices within the elite. I think that that is probably…these are people who are probably….that story, it seems to me, remains to be told. I was once present at an interesting dinner where [Vasyl] Durdenets who was then the deputy minister of the interior, and [Evhen] Marchuk who was then the deputy head of the KGB, and I asked then a question. I said “look, I do not believe that when you were confronted with these demonstrations that you did not have the power to simply chase them away. (00:08:00) I have been in enough demonstrations in my life to know that one good brigade and that’s it…”. And some of them made interesting comments…“why do you think we’d want to do that? We weren’t keen on doing that…but secondly, we had divided loyalties in that institution…that many of our guys supported what was going on… that, you know, we too are patriots…why do you think that we would not have identified with all of this.” Then when I think about how close Ukraine came to some very very intense confrontations. The fact that the military was never unleashed on the population. It seems to me that also some credit deserves to the people who were responsible for riot control, crowd control, control of the potential forces of oppression.

Why do you think that they—Rukh, students—were allowed to express (00:09:00) discontent with the state when such demonstrations had been stopped earlier. Divided loyalties is one part of the answer, but clearly, these very same people who were allowing demonstrations in 1990 were repressing political dissidents in 1985?

I don’t know. I guess I think that it became clear to large sections of the political class that they could become masters in their own home. And … and part of that process meant demonstrations …certainly, what was never on the cards, was an usurpation (not clear in interview) of political power…from their hands. So, these demonstrations were non threatening. (00:10:00) And they in fact were supportive of the goal. Now, bear in mind that they also…you know …even that is kind of fairly complicated because…but anyway, they put the kind of pressure on, they gave a little bit of backbone to some Ukrainian politicians who lacked it. The other thing is that …what I recall…that feeling is how disoriented everybody was. How seemingly so many things were up for grabs…that very little political pressure resulted in some very very big decisions. And you wonder whether it was the political pressure or whether or not these people actually wanted to make decisions, because this country is also quite capable of never making a decision. And the more people got into it, you see, I think it became the imperative of office … (00:11:00) look at what happened with Kuchma, and what he started out with…what he started out as, and what he is today. On all of the key questions of national identity, of Ukraine’s independence, I mean… the first president Kravchuck would never have said this, that Ukraine’s role in Europe is paramount at this stage, that we want membership in the European Union, some sort of associate membership in NATO…and this kind of stuff. I mean, what an incredible evolution of a person. But it is not just an evolution of a person, it is the evolution of the situation. I think there is a kind of dynamic that goes on when you are in the…you know… dynamic that goes on, complex dynamic called the “formation of a political class”. And that, I think, is Ukraine’s secret, that it did. And probably the other thing which is (00:12:00) very very, I think, under appreciated is the extent to which that political class could control the regions. I mean, … there were many conditions that could have been ripe for disaster.

What are some of the potential hot spots that you see?

Well, obviously, the potential hot spots were in east. In the east, what we know about Crimea…but that was the most important thing, in the east.

Can you recall specific events or times or decisions that were made or taken when it could have gone either way?

There was a whole battle, especially in 1990 and ’91, when the big problem at that time was that there was no instrument (00:13:00) —the Communist Party was disintegrating and there was no instrument— to enforce central government authority in the regions, and we had all kinds of groups in ’91 in Luhansk and in Donnetsk. Now, you still had this kind of naïve patriotism over there, and the minors after all were famous for coming up with blue and yellow flags, because that was the flag of social protest at that time as well. But there were very important pro Moscow elements of the regional ruling class which actively talked about separating those regions from Ukraine. And more importantly, well, equally…that of course did not happen…but the other thing was that they would not impose…they could absolutely not carry out decisions centrally made.

Kiev centrally made?

Yes, Kiev centrally made…decisions of the central government. That still remains a problem. For example, there were tensions over whether or not the (00:14:00) flag was going to be flown, you know, and symbols are pretty important. And the extent to which, through a whole series of compromises—not the least of which was to bring those people from the regions and put them into serious ministerial positions in the central government so that you kind of integrated powerful regional elites into the body politic, and I think that is a very very important thing that went on.

How much was Moscow controlling events from ’88 on, and how did that control change, lessen or increase, or change in nature over time from what you saw?

Well, their control…there was a certain amount of control that went through just because of bureaucratic inertia, but basically I think there was (00:15:00) a vast administrative and economic control until about 1991. Bear in mind that about 90 percent of Ukraine’s economy was controlled from Moscow…as long as it was state economy you had to go to Moscow to do these things. What it lost was control of the political situation. And …

Unintentionally, presumably…

Well, unintentionally, I think …it would be interesting to talk to the people in Moscow about this…but I think that they obviouslytotally underestimated what was going on in Ukraine…very, very seriously underestimated this.

Underestimated the nationalism?

Yeas, …underestimated the sense of national feeling and underestimated how wide spread that feeling was in the political class. I think they could probably understand writers feeling that way, but they had hard time understanding (00:16:00) that others would feel that way, especially in the state bureaucracies. But then the challenge was—when Ukraine became first sovereign, and that big period when Ukraine had proclaimed its sovereignty, but had not proclaimed its independence—was to start wrestling that control from Moscow. And I remember throughout ’91 the whole business of transferring subordination of enterprises from Moscow to Kiev. And that if you used to …your enterprise used to answer to Moscow, you used to have to go to Moscow to get all of these things done, you now slowly had to get to Kiev as sovereignty was imposed, especially economic sovereignty was imposed.

What do you mean by sovereignty?

(00:17:00) Well, it wasn’t independent, but it was… basically the level of the decision making went as far as Kiev and no further. That was sovereignty. And Kiev would then have a relationship with Moscow, and that relationship was then severed when Ukraine became independent. But this posed formidable problems for many of the industrial managers. I remember meeting a couple of them from Donetsk and they said, “look, we know the streets of Moscow very well, we know whom to bribe in what building, in what corridor and what office in Moscow, we’ve been to Kiev three times, and we don’t even know the situation over here…” and that was a period that lasted quite a while, it was very very important. (00:18:00) Remember the whole period of winning the loyalty of the army, the winning of the loyalty of the air force…so that was quite a fascinating period of construction, and it seems to me that you had a kind of interesting dynamic going on because, in sort of …to be patriotic… was the politically correct thing to be, and how many of these guys became patriotic—sometimes they did it in a fairly naïve way—but in order to prove the loyalties to the new state and to try to find their place in the political structures of the country.

In what kind of ways did they try to prove loyalty?

Well, sometimes they would just use very funny words…like one time I remember one industrialist from Donnetsk (00:19:00) who proclaimed his love of “Nenka Ukraina” which is kind of “little mother Ukraine”, I just thought it was hilarious coming out of this guy…the only Ukrainian word that he knew. But, all of this of course, then posted formidable challenges to state building, and it seems to me that, that for me was the…you know, when I got very much involved in these things. I was absolutely schocked by how hollow the state was…

Hollow?

Hollow in three senses: number one, there were no institutions. You remember Ukraine had no National Bank. Poland may have had a lousy National Bank but at least they had a National Bank. There was no Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations. Every hard currency operation in Ukraine was done through Moscow. (00:20:00) There was no Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Finance did not know what the budget of Ukraine was, because the statistical base was in Moscow. They had no idea about what was going on in the Ukrainian economy. In fact it was only one or two years ago when Ukraine finally could make its own budget, because it had no reporting bases. So you didn’t have any of these institutions. I remember for example when the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations…and first of all the enormous battle that that involved, because you had a unit of foreign economic relations from Moscow sitting over here, and whether or not you were going to transfer your hard currency through them or through somebody else, at issue was not just patriotism, but real jobs. And the kind of serious interbureaucratic battles in this case and in many other cases, as the old apparatus that was over here (00:21:00) was pushed aside by an up-and-coming group and of course the up-and-coming group would justify an interbureaucratic fight in the name of love of independent Ukraine. Of course, at issue was more than just love of a country. And then, to some extent you see how some of those guys were, the older group, was absorbed into this apparatus, and it was sort of … process of assertion and an absorption, but you had the sense in 1991, this was a country that was just moving by the seat of its pants. It had ministries that had six or seven people there. I remember when a high official in the ministry—he shall remain nameless—phones me up and asks me “What is the balance of payments?”. This is a person who has to put together a balance of payments. Of course, so that was another aspect of the hollowness of the state. It was not just the institutional (00:22:00) incompleteness, but you had very very few people who had any experience especially in economic matters of running a country. And it is not surprising that a myriad of mistakes were made. The third thing that I fond very, very surprising is how small the state actually was. You were basically…the entire central government at that time probably had around 5500 people, and that includes everybody, all the ministries. You know you had a Ministry of Health that had about 150 people, a Ministry of Justice with about seventy, Ministry of Education with about two hundred. Well, the province of Alberta’s Ministry of Education for a population of two and a half million had five hundred people. So those were very important things that had to be addressed. And obviously…imagine the (00:23:00) colossal social mobility that took place in that time, where you were basically taken…you know… if you knew a language especially, and had a kind of basic elementary notions of economics, how you were put into a position of importance. Look at some of the top people now, they began as assistants and researchers and commissions of parliament. And that was very important, because many people who worked in commissions of Parliament at that time were put into government, because in that period government was not the place to be. All of the action, the most important action, was done through Parliament, and thorough the commissions of Parliament. That was the institution that had the most amount of prestige, that was the institution that was listened to, and the head of Parliament was almost like Ukraine’s head of state… (00:24:00)