On “comparative political philosophy” of Ukrainian leadership
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Borys Kolesnikov, Vice-Premier and Minister for the Infrastructure, said he favored the US system and compared the “Donetsk clan” to the “Chicago team.” Besides, the Ukrainian politician drew a parallel between the Party of Regions and the US Republican Party.
Here are a few quotations.
“The spread of the Donetsk clan across the country does not differ at all from what happened in the US after Obama had come to power. This is the law of life. Obama comes from Chicago, as does his whole team.”
“The Party of Regions hopes to resemble the Republicans in Washington. They are more than 80 years old. They are eternal. The only difference is that the Party of Regions has no rivals – there are no eternal Democrats who would offer it competition.”
Let us note two things. Firstly, the word “clan.” Attaching such labels to themselves, representatives of the current Ukrainian leadership may compare themselves to anyone they like, but, nevertheless, they will hear no words of praise from the international community. Secondly, Kolesnikov says the “Regionnaires” want to resemble the Republicans but, at the same time, he tries to justify the spread of the “Donetsk clan” in Ukraine by analogizing it with the Democrats’ “Chicago team.”
Incidentally, the Ukrainian-language version of Google Translator used to mistranslate the name of the coal miners’ capital from English into Ukrainian – whenever you typed the word “Donetsk,” the word “Chicago” popped up.
There really are some similarities between the 1920s Chicago and the 1990s Donetsk, such as growth of organized crime, emergence of notorious gangsters, popularity of underworld culture, etc. Kolesnikov even points out in the interview that “the role of oligarchs in Ukraine is a copy of the American model, with perhaps a hundred years delay.” The question is why the president of the ice-hockey team Donbas chose to indirectly remind the US magazine of what is not the best page in the history of Donetsk. If he finds those times “romantic” or even tries to justify in this way the coming of the “Donetsk clan” to power, the civilized world is unlikely to understand him.
Nor is it likely that they will believe him that there is “the only difference” between the US Republican Party and the Party of Regions. If I were a Republican, I could even take offense at these words.
On the whole, Kolesnikov’s parallels between the “Donetsk clan” and the “Chicago team,” the Regionnaries and the Republicans, are very dubious because they concern the form but utterly disregard the content. And the content is democratic values which are still of great theoretical and practical importance in the political activity of the two chief US parties – by contrast with the Party of Regions.
What effect did the Ukrainian vice-premier think his comparisons would produce? The “minimum goal” may be to boost the image of Viktor Yanukovych’s team on the international arena. The “maximum goal” may be to find a common language simultaneously with the Democrats (in terms of “clan status”) and the Republicans (in terms of “party line”) in the context of equal chances of the leaders of both political groups in the US presidential elections. The Ukrainian leadership’s motivation looks rather down-to-earth in this case – the fear of personal sanctions which the US may find it easier to impose than the European Union might for geopolitical considerations.
The warning signal for Yanukovych and his inner circle has already sounded. Last September the US Senate passed a resolution on the liberation of Yulia Tymoshenko and sanctions to be imposed on those involved in her imprisonment. The US parliament’s upper chamber urged the State Department and the OSCE to apply a unified multiple diplomatic pressure on President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko. The Senate also called on the Department of State “to institute a visa ban against those responsible for the imprisonment and mistreatment of Ms. Tymoshenko.”
Like it or not, it is better for the Ukrainian president’s team that Barack Obama won in the US presidential elections because he made it clear during his first term that Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, was on the fringe of his interests. This message for Yanukovych is: the fewer fixed looks, the fewer problems.
Whatever the case, the moral of this story is: do not measure “the laws of life” by your own yardstick, and to imitate somebody in words does not yet mean to win favor.
The Day asked some US experts to comment on Vice-Prime Minister Borys Kolesnikov’s views that he expressed in an interview with Time magazine.
1. Does the spread of the Donetsk clan in Ukraine really not differ from what happened in the US after the coming of Barack Obama?
2. Is the role of oligarchs in Ukraine really a copy of the US oligarchic model, with a perhaps a 100 years delay?
3. Is there any similarity between the Party of Regions and the US Republican Party?
4. What is your attitude to Kolesnikov’s statement that he would like Ukraine to achieve what the US did in the Lincoln era? And, in general, what should the Ukrainians think about such parallels with none other than the US?
“LINCOLN WOULD HAVE BEEN ASHAMED…”
Alexander MOTYL, professor of political science, deputy director of the Division of Global Affairs, co-director of the Central and Eastern European Studies Program, Rutgers University, USA:
1. “This comparison shows complete ignorance of the US. Yes, presidents invite their friends and acquaintances to assume important offices in the Administration, but they are much fewer in number than in the case of President Yanukovych. Moreover, the Americans who come to Washington thanks to the president do not try to control the city and, hence, the country. They do not expect to hold their offices for good. And, finally, they do not take advantage of the office for their own enrichment.”
2. “Like the American ‘robber barons,’ the oligarchs are merciless capitalists who are ready to bend or even break the law whenever it pleases them and to affect the political life through buying votes and politicians. The main difference between oligarchs and ‘robber barons’ is that American oligarchs 1) acquired their capital in the conditions of merciless capitalism rather than by plundering the state-owned property, 2) invested their capital in the construction of the country, cities and the infrastructure, 3) were involved in charity on a mass scale, and 4) were not linked with organized crime. It will still take Ukrainian oligarchs a certain time to be able to fully resemble ‘robber barons.’”
3. “In reality, the Republicans have a political and economic program for America. They represent ‘big business,’ but they also draw support from a large number of ordinary people who accept their political and economic policy. If the Party of Regions wants to be similar to the GOP, it should, like any other normal political party, 1) drop the claim to being eternally in power, 2) get rid of the numerous violent cutthroats in its ranks, 3) stop being only the source of its own enrichment, and 4) really develop a true political and economic vision for the entire Ukraine. As a matter of fact, the Party of Regions resembles not the GOP or any other normal Western parties but one of the ‘party projects’ hyped by authoritarian third-world rulers.”
4. “If Kolesnikov were sincere, he would know that Lincoln pursued two main goals in his lifetime: to ensure unity of the state and to abolish slavery, which could thus promote social equality. The Party of Regions has done its best to promote disunity of Ukraine, polarization of the nation, and impoverishment of the people. Lincoln would have been ashamed for Kolesnikov’s comparison.”
“THE PARTY OF REGIONS’ OVERALL STRATEGY IS TO MAKE UKRAINE GEOPOLITICALLY IMPORTANT FOR WASHINGTON”
Taras KUZIO, Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University:
“This is an old theory which Yurii Boiko and Kostiantyn Hryshchenko propagated in 2004-05, when they led the Republican Party of Ukraine swallowed by the Party of Regions in 2006. Hryshchenko regularly visited Washington, where he lobbied his party as Ukrainian counterpart of the Republic Party (GOP). US diplomats and political analysts laughed at this comparison at the time, and they will be doing the same now.
“As for parallels between the oligarchs, it is the Party of Regions’ overall strategy to make Ukraine geopolitically important for Washington, which includes giving preferences to US energy companies in Ukrainian biddings as well as lobbying a new image of Viktor Yanukovych as a ‘Ukrainian patriot’ who defends the interests of Ukraine in its face-off with Russia. Kyiv wants Washington to view Ukraine in the same geopolitical dimension as it does Russia which is being criticized for human rights problems but, at the same time, it is not being punished and to which no sanctions are being applied.”
“Money always influences politics, and vice versa, but in the US it is subtler and less direct than in Ukraine”
Dr. Matthew ROJANSKY, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA:
“1. It’s always true that political victory comes with some ‘spoils’ but it’s an exaggeration to say the Donetsk clan and Obama’s Chicago team are not different. Money always influences politics, and vice versa, but in the US it is subtler and less direct than in Ukraine.”
2. “I think this is not far from the truth. Do not forget that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – the American Gilded Age – powerful American oligarchs behaved in ways very similar to today’s Ukrainians, and I include Andrew Carnegie in that list – along with Rockefeller, Stanford, JP Morgan and other famous names. All of them had their hands in government at the local, state and federal level, they competed ruthlessly to crush competitors, and they built palaces, and enjoyed the kind of ‘gold plated’ lifestyle that would be familiar from Ukraine today.”
3. “The only similarity is in the nominal position of ‘business friendly’ policies. In reality, if the Party of Regions is to become anything like a modern US political party, it will take a long time – maybe another 100 years.”
4. “I don’t doubt Kolesnikov’s sincere desire, and I wish him success. Ukraine has huge potential, but it suffers from some severe challenges, including internal division, underdevelopment, and insecurity, which are familiar from the US history as well. The big difference that I can see now is that in Ukraine, people have become deeply cynical about the political system, whereas in the US, the faith of the population in rule of law and institutions was growing even during the Gilded Age of oligarchs, so that by the early part of the past century, Americans became not only a successful and functional federalized democracy on their own, but became the leading defenders of democratic institutions globally. I don’t see Ukraine in that role any time soon.”
Interviewed by Mykola SIRUK, The Day
