Ukraine's Identity Crisis

It must be a confusing for an outsider to look at Ukraine these days. One day, there are stories of rabid nationalists in the western part of the country breathing fire and brimstone at Russia; the next, the communists in eastern Ukraine are dreaming about a resurrection of the Soviet Union. Can these diametrically opposed people actually live in the same country?When Ukraine declared its independence, it was inevitable that a battle would be fought between the leaders of these two Ukrainian traditions. Which way would the potential powerhouse go? Would it dust off its European aspirations like Poland, or shy away from dramatic change and sidle up, politically and militarily, to Russia?The past two months have gone a long way toward answering these questions. After two years of drifting since gaining independence, Ukraine, like Russia, is now defining itself as a political state. Its new definition, to which last month's parliamentary elections and this month's altercations in the new assembly gave form, means that,roughly speaking, Ukraine is evolving into a little Russia, not a large Poland.Short of doubt over Russia's ability to avoid collapse, the major question that will influence the entire region's long term development is what kind of state Ukraine will become.Ukraine's communists and their allies have won a controlling share in the country's parliament. Olexander Moroz, the head of Ukraine's Socialist party and a man so enamored of western political values that he has refused to meet with U.S. officials, was recently elected to the country's second most powerful political post: Chairman of the Supreme Rada, or parliament. His two vice speakers are also allied with the communists.Western Ukraine's democrats and nationalists are powerless. The leftist victory means that a country which balked at reform for two years now risks becoming openly hostile to it. Maybe ex-communists here, as in Russia, will prove to be as reformist as the reformers. Moroz himself has the reputation of being intelligent and capable. Whether his supporters are is another matter.Instead of implementing reform, Ukraine's eastern lobby will most likely view access to Russian markets as a short cut to creating wealth. The country's parliament will almost certainly lead Ukraine into an economic union with Russia. The economic union treaty itself is a nebulous document that includes not only fiscal and economic consultation with Russia but also unspecified political joint actions. Both are likely to engage the Russians deeply in Ukraine's economic and political life.An understanding concerning Ukraine's future may even calm the aggressive ethnic Russians in the Crimea. But it will also lead to Ukraine once again sliding back into Russia's sphere of interest. About 150 years after the first Russo-Ukrainian treaty, Ukraine became a province of the Russian empire. The process, it would seem, is beginning all over again, with support from the Ukraine's eastern elite.A Ukraine transformed into a suzerainty may not be a bad idea to some -- and if the Ukrainians want it, fine. It will certainly boost the economy, at least in the short term. However, it is worth remembering Zbegniew Brzezinski's words: Russia plus Ukraine is an empire, while Russia without, is not. If Ukraine's path returns it to a close orbit with Russia, then Ukraine will inevitably become less than a state. And Russia will become more than a country.When Ukraine was forced to declare its independence in 1991, the governing elite was ill-prepared. They had nothing to offer and were forced to turn to western Ukraine's former dissidents who provided the vision, albeit badly articulated, of an independent Ukrainian state.However, that was not the end of the story. Ukraine has always proved a headache for western politicians. Depending on where you are in the country, you will hear two versions of its history.Western Ukrainians, with their history of Catholicism and nation-state building on the European model, see Ukraine as another Poland -- Slavic, but Euro-centered.Eastern Ukrainians, with centuries of Russian cultural and political dominance, see themselves as an integral part of an east Slavic society. European-style nationalism is viewed with distrust bordering on hatred. After independence, the country's socialists and communists, who dominate the east, regrouped. Their cause was advanced by the bickering and incompetence of Ukraine's nationalists. The disenchantment with the status quo mounted.So, like Hungary, Poland and Lithuania, Ukraine has experienced a communist backlash. Unlike other states, it never had the reformist interregnum. The communist-led left inherit a country which is remarkably similar to the one they abandoned three years ago. Ukraine has come full circle with nothing to show for it.Ukraine has proved that it has neither the tradition nor the inclination to redevelop its uprooted democratic traditions or to adopt western capitalism or "democratic norms" as the Asian Dragons have. Like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Ukraine seems doomed to wander in no man's land. The mariner's purgatory was between life and death; Ukraine's is between communism and capitalism.If the Communists follow their program, change will be painfully slow. There will be no rush to the market. A better analogy of Ukraine's transition will be a resentful trudge across a boggy field weighed down with the historical equivalent of a large sack of potatoes. Russia has at least trundled a third of the way across. Ukraine is still wondering whether the journey will be worth the effort or whether it would not just be better to clamber back into Russia's sack.Robert Seely reports from Kiev for The Washington Post and The Moscow Times. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.