An Orange Revolution?

[stoutfellow]

What's going on Ukraine right now isn't quite as exciting - or, probably, as momentous - as the events of August 1991, but it's still a big story. A Fistful of Euros has been giving it a lot of coverage, as well as links to other sources (including blogs from within Ukraine itself).

As a small-d democrat, I have to root for Yushchenko and his supporters; the current administration is corrupt and may be criminal. However, to have a Western-oriented government take power in Ukraine would certainly anger the Russians, with unpredictable results. (Events in the former Georgian SSR already have them ticked off, and Ukraine is a much bigger prize.) There's already a conspiracy theory out there laying the crisis at the feet of Polish and American politicians, notably Zbigniew Brzezinski, aiming at simultaneously weakening Russia and creating a power base for Poland within the EU, countering the Franco-German axis.

I'm keeping an eye on this one.

Comments

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Ukraine, since the "fall" of Communism has been run, almost entirely, by former Communist Party hard-liners. Same old people, fresh coat of paint. Georgia is the most notorious example of such practice, with Edvard Schevernadze taking control there right after the break-up and staying in control until just recently (iirc). Ukraine was the same, top to bottom. Most of those guys were Russo-centric if not ethnic Russians outright, and much of the problem there and elsewhere has to do not with throwing off the vestiges of Soviet hegemony, but finally booting out the Russians, after umpteen billion years of control/influence/whatever.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Georgia is the most notorious example of such practice

More so than Belarus?

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

In a way, yes. Georgia is very distinct, ethnically, linguistically, culturally, from "Great Russia." Belarus... not so much. Not at all, really, and so for there to be such continuity and so much Russo-centrism there is... not at all surprising. Unlike all of the other former SSRs, they have almost no independent history to speak of, and striking out on their own has left them rudderless.

Ironically, Russia wants less to do with them than with other former SSRs, because they are, essentially, an economic drain. Little industry, nowhere near the agricultural production of Ukraine, few other natural resources, effectively making them a drain on the parent economy. One of the stresses that helped dissolve the Soviet Union in the wake of the August coup was a Russian feeling that they were supporting and protecting these border-land ingrates, and that Russia would be better off without them.

Putin certainly does not want to revive the Russian empire, nor the direct puppet control system of the Cold War, but he does want to maintain local economic hegemony and keep the states with promise (Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc.) as clients of Russia. Separate political axes, such as a revived Polish-Ukrainian (and Baltic? ), harkening back to when those two combined ruled Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages and to whom Russia was a client, is not in his interests at all.

On the other hand, as Andrew says, we'd all be doing well (perhaps Russia included) if there were such an axis to counter France and Germany in the EU.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I think we missed a connection here. I assumed that your "such practice" referred to the continued dominance of former CPSU hard-liners; surely Lukashenko is more of a throwback than Shevardnadze was. I agree that Belarus is pretty much an artificial construct, but such constructs can take on a life of their own - cf. Moldova. That Belarus hasn't done so was not a foregone conclusion.

As for Georgia - well, I take your point about its distinctness from Russia, but what then of Kazakhstan? The historical distinctness there is even greater, and Nazarbayev is a more thoroughgoing despot than Shevardnadze was. (Most of the Central Asian post-Soviet leaders are.) There'll be no Rose Revolution there, surely!

I personally would have put Georgia well down the "most notorious" list - ahead of the Baltics, but behind just about every other former SSR.