NID: USSR: UKRAINIAN POLITICS COME ALIVE

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06826796
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 26, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2019
• Publication Date: November 27, 1989

Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826796
olTherrekt...
Special Analysis
USSR: Ukrainian Politics Come Alive
Rukh, the Ukraine's fast-dereloping popular from, is raising national
amsciausness in the republic and rallying support for substantial
autonomy. l'Arainian nationalism does not yet pose a problem as
immediate as that Moscow faces in the Baltic's, but the trend is toward
greater assertireness, less control from Moscow. and in the western
(*Amine outright independence. If erents begin to more too quickly, new
Ukrainian party chief Irashka might switch from tacit cooperation and
attenipts at co-optation to tougher measures.
Rukh's leaders sa their immediate objective is that scheduled
republic and local legislative elections in March be fair and free. ThQ
plan to field a candidate for every scat available. Ultimately. Rukh
%%ants a molt ipart ss1etfl. religious freedom. ownership of private
propert. and Ukrainian economic self-management. It rejects
secession hut %%mild eliminate the constitutional article guaranteeing
the Communist Parts the "leading role� in Soviet society and
pi ii tics.
Thy I.ahor Connection
Rukh is courting elements of the independent labor movement, and
the miners arc being politicized.
Represent:ins es of strike committees in Donetsk. Kremcnchuk. and
Poltava attended Rukh's founding congress in September. The miners
niti support Rukh's social and ecological reform proposals but are
not interested at present in nationalist and secessionist issues. Many
Donetsk miners are either non-Ukrainians or Russified Ukrainians
shu ieportcdl same their ties to the USSR's other miners over ties
to Ukrainian nationalists.
Poland's Solidarit is influential with some Ukrainian activists. Rukh
has made contacts with Solidarity and has expressed interest in
emulating its organization. At Rukh's founding congress. a Solidarity
delegation ads ised striking miners to support Rukh. and miners in
the western Ukraine have hinted at forming a free union modeled
on Solidarity. Workers apparently copied Solidarity tactics in
successfully organizing last month's citywide 7rikes in L'Yor to
protest police brutality
New Party Leader Irashko
In an interview last month. lvashko called himself a reformer in
Gorbachev's mold. Ivashko met with the
organization's new leader three days before I yashko was appointed
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first secretary and agreed to support Rukh's proposals to liberalize the
republic's election and language laws. Many nationalists. however.
!whine that I vashko is still a son of old system and only a
temporal.> solution althouph an improvement over his hardline
predecessor.
Skepticism about hashko's commitment to reform has been
heightened by the brutal suppression of a nationalist demonstration
in L's-ov on I October and by the appointment of Ideology Secretary
Velchenko�a staunch opponent of nationalism who once said Rukh
would exist only over his dead body�to head a new department of
intereffinic relations. Nevertheless. lvashko probably svill continue to
cooperate with Rukh at least in the runup to the March elections.
which arc likely to sweep out many traditional party officials.
Outlook
The Ukraine has not experienced the interethnic conflicts that have
occurred elsewhere in the USSR: most differences there have been
between Ukrainians who see themselves as members of the larger
Russian nation. which includes their Russian and Belorussian
cousins, and those who do not. The Kharkov faction of Rukh recently
split from the parent group. accusing it of radical nationalism. The
faction's leader said his group will join the Kharkov People's Front. a
more moderate organization that seeks only to preserve Ukrainian
culture. The absence of widespread anti-Russian sentiment among
the eastern Ukrainian population probably will continue to moderate
Rukh's assertive nationalist agenda, but tensions between the western
and the eastern Ukraine and between the western Ukraine and
Moscow are likely to rise. Addressing Soviet students last week.
Gorbachev warned that Crimea and Donetsk might opt to join Russia
if the Ukrainian language is imposed exclusively in that Russified
area of eastern Ukraine.
Ivashko probabl> is hoping to co-opt some of Rukh's leaders by being
responsive to its agenda. At the same time, he is likely to try to
polarize and thus weaken the movement by sowing dissension among
its various factions. Moscow is not likely to tolerate prolonged unrest
in the USSR's second-largest republic but will he reluctant to use
force on a large scale. Flasbpoints will occur if Rukh presses its
demands for a multiparty system or an independent Ukrainian
Communist party or if demonstrations in the estern Ukraine
increase in size and frequency
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NVestern Ukraine: Drive for Independence
While the eastern Ukraine has been under Russian influence since the Czarist era, parts of
the western Ukraine. along with the three Baltic states and Moldavia. were annexed under
the secret terms of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. More than 90 percent of the
10 million people who live in the western Ukraine are Ukrainians. Political groups there�
like the Helsinki Union. Christian Union. Leva. and the recently created Christian
Democratic youth organization�arc openly advocating secession. Although party officials
have put pressure on Rukh to exclude these organizations from its ranks, individuals can still
join the popular front and arc among its leaders.
The banned Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) Church is also viewed by Moscow as a force for
independence At Friday's historic meeting between President Gorbachev and Pope John
Paul III Gorbachev will discuss legalization
of thc church, which was incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1946 because
of its alleged link to nationalism. Gorbachev and Foreign
Minister Shevardnadze have expressed concern about the nationalist aspect of the Ukrainian
Catholic Church whose estimated 5 million worshipers in the western Ukraine are the most
activist and well-organized group in the republic. Timed to put pressure on Soviet authorities
before Gorbachev's meeting on Friday. tens of thousands of Ukrainians demonstrated
yesterday in three western Ukrainian cities to demand legalization of the Uniate Church.
And Deputy Foreign Minister Adamishin said last week that legislation on religious freedom
plamed for early next year will allow Ukrainian Catholics to register.
Meanwhile. Ukrainian Catholic activists have already acquired more than 80 churches by
simply occupying empty ones or. in some cases. Orthodox priests have come over and
brought the church with them. This weekend, authorities in L'vov gave back a small church
to L'vov Catholics. which passed into Russian Orthodox hands after the Uniate Church was
banned in 1946.
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