Do Not Sing From A Strangers Voice

The political situation in Ukraine is not always clear, especially now with the presidential elections coming soon, this deserves a more serious analyses and not just a superficial one. There are allies of President Kuchma who owe their high government positions to him alone, and his so-called opponent of the moment, Victor Yushenko, who somehow is being supported by some communists, socialists and the block of Julia Timoshenko – in other words these forces are playing their cards closely to their chest and some are playing their cards to both sides.

But you cannot overlook the fact that the present president is on his last legs and is awaiting the end of 8 years of rule (ruining) Ukraine and is now ready to give over his reigns of power. Just to bring you only one catastrophic example to the readers – in the years of his rule, the population of Ukraine has dwindled from 51 million people to less than 48 million – this fact alone should be enough to try Kuchma in order to sentence him to his just desserts.

Leonid Kuchma is trying to hold on to power and is searching the road and method to remain in office for another year and then he shall see what is happening. He has enough finances and cronies that hang around him, who slavishly agree to all of his proposals and thus remain in power at the money well, trying to survive the break up of Kuchma’s tutelage and at the same trying to be in love with the forthcoming new president and thus survive their cushy jobs.

But the real rulers of Ukraine, the Americans are not happy with Kuchma and feel that he has outlived his usefulness to them and they are banking on the new boy on the block, Victor Yushenko, who is more capable of following orders and new US plans. In order to allay the fears of US and to get him again into their good graces, Kuchma has agreed and sent a Ukrainian contingent of soldiers to the occupation of Iraq. The Americans greeted his gesture favorably, but they did not back away in getting rid of Kuchma, since Americans know the attitude of Ukrainian people to Kuchma and they feel that this new protege might be able to reverse the trend.

As was reported by CC CPU Peter Symoneko, in one of the European countries there took place a meeting with the American representatives and President Kuchma, where Americans showed some documents to Kuchma about his gross financial manipulations. After this unexpected confrontation, another variant of Kuchma leaving the presidency came into the open. Kuchma will himself give up his presidency to Yushenko – but of course with a solid guarantee of no charges being laid against him – as was done by Putin for Yeltsin in Russia.

It is evident that the power behind all these intrigues are the Americans in order to make certain that Yushenko becomes the next president. Yushenko was the head of the Ukrainian National Bank and he had also made a few enemies who might blow this arranged compromise with Kuchma sky high. Then we have to guess as to how this will affect the elections.

In order to understand the post-Soviet Ukraine, it is necessary to understand that president Kuchma in all of those years, did not do very much for the Ukrainian people as a serious political leader. But, he managed to accumulate for himself the riches and property to rival the Czar’s lifestyle and also power. He got the power to nominate a Premier and the power to fire him or her at will, even though nominally the Premier is the head of the government. He nominates the Attorney General, all members of his cabinet, army, security etc., this is done without even consulting parliament or the elected deputies. Kuchma controls personally all aspects of the country, security, courts, finances, constitutional and Supreme Court.

He used trickery, lies, threats, buying off voters and deputies, even some of those that called themselves communists – all were bought through all sorts of manipulations. This allowed him to surround himself with yes men and women, who readily stamped and agreed to all of his laws, edicts and programs…thus making the Supreme Soviet government of Ukraine nothing more than a rubber stamping pad.

Therefore it is only logical and should be understandable, that one of the first tasks of the communists is not to allow Kuchma to be elected for a third term. Also, as long as Kuchma is in power people like Yushenko get accolades, pretending that they are dedicated democrats, bravely arguing against the rule of Kuchma and that all the problems of the Ukrainian people are due to only Kuchma and his regime, not to capitalism, but only the personal rule of Kuchma.

But this is not the only main question in front of the communists. The most important question is to take steps to change the present political system and not allow even more the personal dictatorship and to drastically curb the powers of a president. Communists should always fight for the democratization of the political system as a first step towards the liquidation of capitalism. Why? Because they will get much better conditions in which to struggle and fight for the interests of the working class, for the rebirth of socialism and the rebirth of the Soviet Union – this is such an axiom that for the truly dedicated communists, there is no need to prove this to be correct!

Here then is the splitting of the anti-Kuchma opposition forces, communists, socialists, the right block of Julie Timoshenko, having opportunistic waywardness by Viktor Yushenko. Why are these so-called opposition of Yushenko and Timoshenko blocking the laws towards remaking of Ukraine - from the President-parliamentary rule to Parliamentary-presidential rule.

Here then comes a complete split in tactics and understanding of how to struggle against the regime at this time of coming election. Communists in Ukraine never said or hinted that they will support Viktor Yushenko for president. But, this must be make known to the people as widely as possible.

Lastly, we have to speak about tactics of communists in the bourgeois elections – is it possible for communists to cooperate in an election block with rightwing forces? In order to answer this question, it is necessary for the moment to go back into history.

We could mention the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia that was successful in eliminating the Czar’s rule. At that time, against the last Czar, Bloody Nikolai, all of the political movements – from Bolsheviks to the reactionary Back Hundreds, and at the same time the abdication of the Czar was supported by Great Britain, USA and France. Everyone knew what the program of the Bolsheviks was, liquidation of the present regime, establishing a democratic republic, stopping the war, liquidating serfdom in the countryside, establishing an 8-hour work day and the control by the workers of the means of production.

But what did the bourgeois parties want? Getting rid of the Czar, establishing a constitutional monarchy or even declare Russia a republic, keep the war going to the end. What made these reactionary forces support the abdication of the Czar in cooperation with the Bolsheviks? Simply the fear that unless the Czar went, there would take place a revolution immediately and they thought that maybe the son of Bloody Nikolai might be put in as a constitutional monarch and head of state.

And, what did Great Britain, France and US want? They knew well that surrounding the Czar were reactionary elements with great German influence and also, if the Czar went, they might be able to get the resources available in the rich mineral wealth of Russia. They also feared that the Russian Czar would make peace with Germany and that millions of German soldiers would then be sent to the Western front to confront Britain and France – the US was still thinking of joining the struggle against Germany.

The Bolsheviks, looking at the correlation of forces involved in getting rid of Nikolai, they did not have to go at that time unto the barricades themselves.

Let us look at the historical fact a bit closer to our time, the pre Second World War events. What was the greatest danger facing the USSR and Stalin? The capitalist-imperialist forces were joining and organizing to dismember the Soviet Union from the West and from the East. The Imperialists wanted to liquidate their own economic and political problems at the expense of the USSR. What and how did the Soviet diplomacy counter these dangerous efforts by Imperialists? Stalin and the Soviet government knew that they must at all costs prevent the unity of the imperialist forces that were planning to liquidate the whole of the USSR. To the great credit of Stalin this was achieved, because the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, which brought on a situation where imperialist powers were forced to fight each other! It is enough to say that the greatest anti-communist in the world, Winston Churchill, was forced to admit that Stalin was a genius who was able to have the hands of one imperialist power beating another imperialist power.

Or should we have asked Stalin not to sign that non-aggression pact with Germany? Stalin knew that the Soviet Union will be attacked and that the USSR would join Great Britain and US in a joint effort against German imperialism. The same scenario was seen in Latin America where opposing forces joined to fight the main enemy.

In the block of Yushenko there are united the most reactionary forces in Ukraine, we are told by people who feel that this tactic of cooperation should not be attempted. This is true, but it is not the whole truth, besides, this is the propaganda of the Kuchma forces also. There are reactionary forces in both blocks. But the tactics are important in this situation and this temporary tactical union with Yushenko by the communists is relevant to defeat an enemy and then to take the next step towards defeating the pretender to the throne.

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