The Last Empire (28 page)

The first impression was that the republican leaders did not mind Yeltsin's rapid accession to virtually dictatorial powers in the Union
to which they all still belonged. Experienced politicians raised in a tradition of party subordination and Byzantine intrigue, they voiced no disagreement with the now dominant Russian president, who was their traditional ally against the weakening center. They were also unanimous in condemning the coup that many of them had supported only a few days earlier. Nor did they voice any objection to Yeltsin's assault on the party to which they belonged. That day the leaders of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Tajikistan, Kakhahr Makhamov, resigned from the Politburo and the Central Committee of the party.
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But the republican leaders were not entirely on Yeltsin's side. While they were forced to surrender to Yeltsin on every issue and every government appointment he made, they also promised Gorbachev that they would cooperate in progressing toward a new union treaty. The official communiqué, published the next day in the central press, placed special emphasis on their interest in signing such a treaty. That day Gorbachev told the American ambassador, Bob Strauss, “As far as our federation is concerned, we have confirmed that we will proceed toward a Union treaty. Moreover, we have decided this time that we shall sign it together, all the republics, and not one by one.” Signing the new union treaty as a group, continued Gorbachev, meant that “some will have to wait a bit as compared with previously established deadlines. But Ukraine, for example, will have to make haste with its decision.”
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In fact, Leonid Kravchuk was not prepared to make haste. When Gorbachev, referring to George Bush's “Chicken Kiev” speech, told the Ukrainian leader that even the American president could see that Ukraine's drive for independence had no “historical prospects,” Kravchuk seemed noncommittal. He also refused to take the bait when Gorbachev tried to flatter Ukraine with the new prominence of its leaders in Union structures and play them against Yeltsin. When Gorbachev asked Kravchuk whether the Ukrainian prime minister, Vitold Fokin, would make a good head of the interim Union government—the position that Yeltsin wanted for Russia's prime minister, Ivan Silaev—Kravchuk responded evasively: Fokin was an excellent choice but probably would not want to leave Ukraine. Indeed, Fokin had said no to Gorbachev.
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What Kravchuk witnessed that day in Moscow must have made him more sympathetic to the idea of Ukrainian independence
than ever before. He went to Moscow determined to replace the all-Union government with a republic-dominated committee, but Yeltsin's success in removing Gorbachev's nominees from the new government and his sudden decision to suspend the activities of the Russian Communist Party changed the political landscape in Moscow no less than did his victory over the coup leaders two days earlier. Instead of Gorbachev's weak Union center, a strong center controlled by Yeltsin was emerging. Neither Kravchuk nor his colleagues in the Ukrainian government and party wanted any part of a Yeltsin-run Union. They did not think that a power-sharing agreement like that of Nikita Khrushchev's and Leonid Brezhnev's times could be restored; besides, during the last years of Gorbachev's rule they had become accustomed to a degree of freedom previously undreamed of. As they saw it, the center was bringing them nothing but uncertainty and trouble, now more than ever before. Kravchuk was now faced with an unexpected challenge that once again put his survival skills to the test.

During the coup the Ukrainian Speaker had first gained the reputation of a man who needed no umbrella: he could make his way between raindrops without ever getting wet. Twenty years later, asked about the validity of the joke, Kravchuk responded with uncharacteristic candor: “In principle, that's quite right: I am flexible and diplomatic; I rarely tell people the truth to their face; I very rarely open up. Experience teaches that there are situations in politics in which any frankness or openness can be used against you.” In this response he was more candid than one can expect of most politicians. On August 23, 1991, Leonid Kravchuk, the man who had walked between raindrops, was coming home from Moscow to face a flood. This time he might need not an umbrella but a life vest. It was anyone's guess whether he would find one.
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AS THOSE GATHERED AROUND THE
Ukrainian parliament on the morning of August 24 chanted, “Shame on Kravchuk!” the visibly shaken Speaker of parliament told the deputies—his words were transmitted live to those at the walls of parliament—that he had never recognized the legitimacy of the coup. He went on to propose a number of laws intended to strengthen Ukrainian sovereignty and advocated by the opposition. “It is imperative to adopt laws on the status of the armed forces now deployed on the territory of the republic,”
he told the deputies. “The interior forces, the Committee for State Security [[KGB]], and the Ministry of Internal Affairs must be subordinate to the head of the Ukrainian state. Moreover, they must not be involved in any all-Union structures. There can only be a question of coordinating activity. Appropriate laws on these matters must be adopted. The question of separating the party from the law-enforcement agencies of the republic must also be resolved.”
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The national democrats wanted more. Their parliamentary leader, the academician Ihor Yukhnovsky, demanded independence. Then the writer Volodymyr Yavorivsky read a brief text titled “Act of Declaration of Independence” and asked that it be put to a vote. Parliament was thrown into confusion. The chief communist of Ukraine, Stanislav Hurenko, asked for a break. Kravchuk went along, declaring a recess so that parliamentary factions could formulate their positions on the issue. Those most in difficulty were the communists.
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The principal author of the draft declaration of independence was Levko Lukianenko, the head of the Ukrainian Republican Party, by far the best-organized political force of the period. Lukianenko had spent more than a quarter century in the Gulag for his dedication to Ukrainian independence. He was an embodiment of Ukraine's sacrifice in the struggle for freedom, and the democratic deputies wanted him to be the first to read the declaration. It was only because of the commotion in the democratic ranks that the honor fell to Yavorivsky. A few weeks before the coup, during President Bush's luncheon with Ukrainian political leaders, Lukianenko had approached him and given him a note with three questions. Two of them dealt with the Ukrainian opposition, and the third, concerning Ukrainian independence, read (in shaky English) as follows: “Now that inevitable disintegration of the Russian empire is a fact, whether the government of the USA the most powerful state in the world can help Ukraine to become a full-right subject of international relations?”

On the flight back to the United States, Bush had dictated a memo to his Soviet expert, Ed Hewett, concerning Lukianenko's questions. “At the lunch in Kiev today,” read the memo, “Levko Grigorovich Lukyanenko very politely addressed first me, and then Chairman Kravchuk. He is a deputy in the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet. He spent twenty years in jail as a dissident, and now he represents the independence movement, Narodna Rada [[People's Council]].” Bush
asked Hewett to prepare a response. On the question of international recognition of Ukraine, Hewett's draft of August 5 gave the standard American position on the issue: a change in the structure of the USSR could “occur only through peaceful and good faith dialogue between the republics and all-union leaders.”
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Lukianenko no longer believed in dialogue. He did believe, however, that the defeat of the coup presented a huge opportunity to make a breakthrough to his goal. At a general meeting of democratic deputies on the morning of August 23, Lukianenko surprised his colleagues by proposing that the question of Ukrainian independence be placed on the agenda of the emergency session of parliament. “The moment is so unique that we should solve the fundamental problem and proclaim Ukraine an independent state,” he later recalled saying in his appeal to the deputies. “If we do not do this now, we may never do it. For this period in which the communists are at a loss is a brief period: they will soon get back on their feet, and they have a majority.”

Knowing how ephemeral their real power was, the democratic deputies accepted Lukianenko's argument and entrusted him with the task of drafting the declaration. “There are two approaches to the document that we can write,” said Lukianenko to a fellow deputy whom he had handpicked as a coauthor. “We can write it either as a long or a short document. If we write it as a long document, then it will inevitably prompt discussion; if we write a short one, then it has a chance of prompting less discussion. Let's write the shortest possible document so that we give them as little as possible to discuss about where to put a comma or what has to be changed.” And they did just that. It was not “quite the 4th of July,” joked the acting US consul in Kyiv, John Stepanchuk, later about the brevity of the declaration of Ukrainian independence. Nevertheless, when Lukianenko presented the freshly drafted text to his colleagues in the democratic caucus, they agreed with his reasoning. With few editorial changes, the text was approved for distribution among the deputies at the opening of the emergency session.
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While supporting Lukianenko's initiative to put the question of independence to a parliamentary vote, the democratic caucus was split concerning its proper place on the agenda. Some deputies, including the highest-ranking democrat in parliament, Deputy Speaker Volodymyr Hryniov, wanted voting for independence to take place
only after a vote on suspension of the activities of the Communist Party. Hryniov was concerned that unless the ban was approved first, Ukrainian independence would result in the creation of a communist-dominated state. His view was shared by some democratic deputies from Kyiv. But what were the chances of a communist-dominated parliament banning the party and then voting for independence? None, thought Lukianenko and others who supported him. They stood for independence first and decommunization second, even if it would take a while to bring about the latter. One deputy even said that he was prepared to spend ten years in prison as long as it was a Ukrainian prison. Not many of his colleagues had such resolve, but those who shared Lukianenko's opinion gained the upper hand in the caucus.
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Whereas the democrats came to the parliamentary session with a more or less consolidated position on independence, the communists were taken by surprise. The break in the session that Hurenko requested and Kravchuk granted allowed them to discuss the issue for the first time as a group. Traditionally staunch opponents of independence, they now found themselves in difficulty. Long gone were the times when the communist majority in parliament constituted a unified force. Kravchuk and the communist faction that supported him had long been pushing for sovereignty and were now prepared to embrace complete independence. As the nervous and disoriented communist deputies met in the cinema hall of the parliament building, their leader, Stanislav Hurenko, called on them to support independence or find themselves and the party in trouble.

The conservative members of the communist caucus knew that they had been all but abandoned by their leadership in Moscow, with Gorbachev resigning as general secretary earlier that day and the party leadership at a loss. As far as they were concerned, Yeltsin had declared open season on communists, and it was only a matter of time before the “witch hunt,” as Gorbachev called it, reached Ukraine. In fact, it was already there—the crowd of a hundred thousand around the parliament building was demanding independence and was ready to put them on trial. Would it be satisfied with independence alone? Many hoped that conceding independence might shield them from the anticommunist tsunami rolling in from Russia and leave them in charge of Ukraine.

Those still wavering abandoned their doubts when representatives of the opposition showed up at their meeting and suggested a compromise: the vote on independence would be confirmed by a popular referendum to be conducted on December 1, simultaneously with the presidential elections. That sounded to many like an ideal solution: a vote in favor of independence would give them immediate protection, while a referendum lay in the future and might not actually take place. The communists would therefore support Lukianenko's declaration.
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During the break Kravchuk called Moscow, seemingly following the long tradition of Ukrainian communist leaders seeking the elder brother's approval for even minor decisions. This time, however, the shoe was on the other foot. Kravchuk informed both Yeltsin and Gorbachev about the developments in the Ukrainian parliament and told them that the vote in favor of independence was inevitable. Yeltsin accepted the news calmly, but Gorbachev was clearly upset. He eventually told Kravchuk that it did not much matter what the Ukrainian parliament voted for, as the March 1991 referendum in Ukraine had shown overwhelming support for the Union. Parliament could not overrule the referendum results. Kravchuk agreed. After the phone call, he threw his weight behind the idea of ratifying a parliamentary vote on independence by a referendum. One referendum would thus be annulled by another. It seemed that the canny Kravchuk might again manage to satisfy all parties involved.
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With the one-hour break concluded, Kravchuk was prepared to put the declaration of Ukrainian independence to a vote. That day he became a strong promoter of the act, seeing in it a way out of the current political crisis. His patriotic inclinations should also be taken into account. “What did I feel as we worked on that historic document?” Kravchuk recalled later. “I simply felt happy.” He worked hard to convince those reluctant to vote yes. Knowing that the two main caucuses were split on the issue, he met with representatives of regional groups; as he later remembered, he told those from the west not to be disoriented by demands to disband the party first and vote for independence second. No one knows what he was telling the communists, but his message was clear: he wanted them to vote for independence.