To Draw a Proper Lesson from the Defeat

Parliamentary elections in Ukraine have ended with a quite expected outcome and, compared to the recent Presidential elections, they created an impression of almost being a model of bourgeois democracy. The absence of any type of threat to the modem masters of post-socialist Ukraine from left forces, first of all communists, led to the result that the main clans of oligarchs could act this time not as a forced united front, but as several political blocs, which fought this time for domination in the future Parliament. These were "Regions of Ukraine", presenting the might clan of Donetsk, also, representing "orange" forces of the bloc of Yulia Timoshenko and the so-called people's union "Our Ukraine" which Victor Yushchenko supported almost openly. During the "orange" coup, "Our Ukraine» stepped out as a united front, however, after Yushchenko's victory they fought viciously over their kill.

It must be noted, that all at least moderately serious and relatively objective observers reviewed as the worst and the least desirable option unconditional victory of either the regionalists ("Regions of Ukraine? or of Timoshenko (even the most devoted fans of Yushchenko did not hope for his victory this time, since all of his practical actions as the President of Ukraine demonstrated' his complete professional incapability and by the beginning of the Parliamentary elections his was sitting on the ashes of his recent popularity).

As for the results of the elections per se, the winner of the elections, as was expected, but not receiving the majority of seats in the Parliament, was "Regions of Ukraine" who according to the final results received 186 seats (for the simple majority, at least, in the Ukrainian Parliament a party of a bloc must have 226. seats and for the constitutional majority 300). The runner-up with 129 seats is Yulia Timoshenko's bloc. The third is bloc "Our Ukraine" with 81 seats.

As to the left parties, among those who won the necessary minimum of 3% were the socialists who have completely slid on the social-democrat tack – they got 33 seats – and communists who came in only fifth and had to be satisfied with only 21 seats, while after the last election the communist group consisted of over 50 seats.

The result of today's elections, during which none of the main right-reactionary forces achieved success, which one could foresee anyway, made many in Ukraine sigh with relief. Should the result be different, a pretty sad future would await the country because each of the three main, at this moment, political forces anticipated .with unconcealed longing the upcoming three years without elections (the next presidential election will take place in 2009 and the next Parliamentary elections in 2011). They counted on destroying any remnants of socialism in the country through unpopular methods (this means without taking the electorate into consideration) and by this to try and prevent any "communist revanchism", and to gain something or make some profit at the same time, including at the expense of their competitors. Instead, any coalition, no matter who it will consist of, will have to face the presence of serious opposition in the Parliament. Right now very cynical bargaining is taking place, the key of which is the fact that all the "orange" forces (BYT – Yulia Timoshenko Bloc; NSNU – "Our Ukraine" and the socialists), in principle, gained sufficient minimum of votes (243 seats), which is enough to form their "orange" government. However, the Yushchenkites under no circumstances want to see Yulia Timoshenko as Prime Minister because those who know her do not doubt that should she become Prime Minister, she will try to grab into her clutches maximum, if not all, power in the country. As for BYT, they do not compromise and demand the position of Prime Minister for Yulia Timoshenko as the only and exceptional condition for participating in the joint project with Yushchenko. BYT also understand that without this condition being met they will be merely second-rate assistants to the more lucky colleagues of theirs within the coalition to be formed.

Socialists are leaning towards supporting Timoshenko because only with her they can count on not only preserving their already humongous slice of the power pie, which is much larger than their real power, and which they received as a compensation for the support of "orange" coalition, but they also count on getting one of the three highest positions in the state.

In the occasion that the negotiations within the "orange" group will get into a dead end, an option of union with regionalists is possible. "Regions of Ukraine", not without cynicism, have hastily declared their readiness not to insist on implementing their loudest and most appealing pre-electoral promises to strive to achieve Ukraine's joining not NATO, but United Economic Territory; to conduct not pro-NATO and pro-American policy, but a policy which is friendly towards Russia; to insist on recognizing the Russian language as the second official language in Ukraine.

Extremely expensive electoral campaign, which cost poverty-ridden Ukraine between one and five billion dollars (depending on a source of estimate) allowed to maintain the image of democratic choice, by which today's "orange" power pleased its double-faced masters in the USA and NATO who, in their turn, like to achieve their darkest and most miserable goals while preserving the democratic entourage. Of course, the ones who lost, and that's 40 out of 45 members of the electoral marathon, are shedding tears about the colossal distortions of the electoral results,' which undoubtedly were there, but where and in which bourgeois country have honest elections ever happened?

As for the falsifications during the recent elections, the communists suffered from them the most. Even more so, in the territory of the regionalists in Donetsk during the elections was killed first secretary of one of the district committees of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In the same area, as in all of Ukraine, were registered cases of beatings of communists and their supporters. Only a lazy person would not mention the theft of votes from the communists, this also relates to those deputes who lost in the previous election and do not belong to the left camp. Groaning and lamentations are not going to help because the elections, in the course of which the bourgeoisie will passively observe the transition of power to communists with all consequences of such transition for the bourgeoisie and for its property, will not happen and cannot even be anticipated in the foreseeable future.

This is why, even though it may sound like a paradox, we can make the bourgeoisie follow the electoral law in case there is a threat of the election results unfavorable to it, only by applying force. And the communists of the post-socialist countries must become such force because there is absolutely no alternative way. The alternative simply does not exist in nature!

Certainly, second in a row twofold decrease of the number of people's deputies-communists after the recent elections cannot be seen in any other way than a serious failure. However, should we really see this result as a tragedy? The real tragedy happened in 1991 when the system of state socialism was liquidated, the USSR was liquidated and the CPSU was first destroyed from within and then dismissed without the slightest resistance on the part of the majority of communists. In another scenario, we could talk about much smaller tragedy, if the communists did not get into Parliament at all, and consequently, lost the opportunities the Parliamentary group presents for the party's work. Luckily, this did not happen and now the problem is only one: will all the communists and the leadership of the Communist Party understand where the true reasons of this chain of failures lie and where to look for solution? All these reasons are obvious. Among the reasons are: overly excited involvement with Parliamentary activity, which became almost a foundation in the party's work and absence of ties with the working class, labouring peasants, youth and trade unions. All of this has been caused, to a large degree, by literally scandalous negligence of the Marxist-Leninist theory and not paying heed to the priceless experience of the struggle of the glorious Bolshevik period of our party.

Today many tirelessly repeat great Lenin's words: defeated armies learn well. This is true; however, one condition is a must: the defeated learn well, if they are able to learn from their mistakes and draw correct lessons from their failures, which were caused by these mistakes. Otherwise, even more smashing failures are awaiting us in the near future!