Content uploaded by Volodymyr Ishchenko
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Volodymyr Ishchenko on Apr 17, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
Chapter 23
Ukraine
Volodymyr Ishchenko
Ukraine has suffered one of the severest economic declines in the world since 1990,
and the largest among post-socialist states. As part of the USSR, the country had
possessed powerful heavy industry which either degraded after the Soviet collapse
or was appropriated by ‘oligarchs’ who exploited selective preferences from the
corrupt state for rent-seeking without investing in economic modernisation. The
grievances of the country’s impoverished population were high, while nostalgia for
Soviet times was strong, especially in the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern
and southern regions. Moreover, Ukrainian politics have been unstable. Most notably,
successful anti-government protests shook the country in 2004 and 2013–2014, in
the last case leading to the war in the Eastern Ukrainian Donbass region that escalated
into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Similarly, Ukraine’s constitution
has changed three times. However, it has always assigned significant power to the
legislature. The election laws have also been changed a number of times. Yet, at least
half of the seats in the parliament have almost always been elected on a proportional
basis with a 3–5 per cent threshold benefiting medium and large parties.
After independence, the only real parties in the parliament were the Communist
Party of Ukraine (KPU), the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), and other Communist
successor parties, on the one hand, and a moderate nationalist People’s Movement
of Ukraine, on the other. In the early 1990s, the radical left mass membership parties
had only weak right-wing competitors. However, as the party system formed in the
1990s, governments relied on amorphous patronage networks of ‘sofa parties’ and
non-partisan MPs from single-member districts. By the beginning of the 2000s, two
party blocs had formed along regional lines: the Party of Regions (supported by
majorities in south-eastern regions and fronted by the regimes of Leonid Kuchma
V. Ishchenko (B
)
Institute for East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: volodymyr.o.ishchenko@gmail.com
© The Author(s) 2023
F. Escalona et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56264-7_23
665
666 V. Ishchenko
and Viktor Yanukovych) and the ‘orange’ parties of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia
Tymoshenko (supported by majorities in western and central regions). The blocs
were largely the electoral machines under the influence of oligarchs. This chapter
explains how in this context, the left parties came to be excluded from parliament,
repressed, and marginalised.
Mapping the Radical Left Family in Ukraine
History
For all the relevant radical left parties in contemporary Ukraine, the legacy of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS, usually rendered in English as
CPSU) was by far more important than any other left tradition. Prior to the Soviet
era, a number of strong and popular social-democratic, left narodniki (socialist-
revolutionaries), anarchist, national-communist parties, and movements had emerged
on the territories of contemporary Ukraine, but by the 1930s all of them had been
exterminated or forcefully merged with the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine
[KP(b)U], established in 1918 as a regional organisation of the Russian Communist
(Bolshevik) Party [RKP(b)]. The KP(b)U became the Communist Party of Ukraine
in 1952, while the RKP(b) became the All-Union Communist (Bolshevik) Party in
1925 and the CPSU in 1952.
Even compared with other CPSU regional organisations, the Communist Party
of Ukraine was among the most rigid. However, when it was banned following the
failed coup d’état in the USSR in August 1991, the overwhelming majority of its
2.7 million members accepted the fact quietly. Many of the leaders integrated into
the political elite of the new independent Ukrainian state. It was the middle-rank
Communist apparatchiks who became the driving force behind the party’s revival.
In October 1991, the SPU was established and led by Oleksandr Moroz (the
former leader of the communist majority in the first Ukrainian parliament convened
in 1990) and absorbed former members of the Communist party eager for its revival.
This became legally possible in June 1993 when the KPU was (re)established. Petro
Symonenko, the former Second Secretary of the CPSU Donetsk oblast organisation,
was elected as the First Secretary of the new party’s Central Committee. The majority
of more orthodox SPU members left for the revived KPU (Haran & Maiboroda, 2000,
p. 48). In the 1990s, the KPU was the largest party in Ukraine, claiming 142,000
members by 2000 (p. 49, but see Section 2.1.2).
SPU membership declined to 12,500 by 1997, however, at the same time, it got
a chance to reform into a less orthodox party open to different left-wing traditions.
The moderation of SPU positions led to the split of the Progressive Socialist Party
of Ukraine (PSPU) in April 1996. Led by economist Natalia Vitrenko, the PSPU
was a vivid and populist phenomenon of the 1990s sharply criticising both the SPU
and KPU, splitting the left electorate and, as many believed, covertly exploited in the
23 Ukraine 667
interests of Ukraine’s president Leonid Kuchma (Haran & Maiboroda, 2000; Wilson,
2002). Nevertheless, all three major radical left parties maintained their formal alle-
giance to the Soviet Marxist-Leninist tradition, although after 1998 the SPU grad-
ually drifted towards centre-left social democracy. It was also more supportive of
Ukrainian state independence, while the KPU and PSPU were calling for resurrecting
the union with ex-USSR states.
The post-Soviet economic crises and the weakness of only recently formed right-
wing parties helped the very rapid electoral resurrection of the Ukrainian left. In May
1994, after the parliamentary elections on a majoritarian basis, the left parties got
approximately 21.8 per cent of votes (Wilson, 1997, p. 1307) and controlled 43 per
cent of MPs (KPU—84 MPs, SPU—25, and left-of-centre Peasant Party of Ukraine
[SelPU]—36) (Haran & Maiboroda, 2000, p. 92). The SPU leader Oleksandr Moroz
was elected as the speaker of the parliament. In the next parliamentary elections in
1998 under a mixed proportional-majoritarian system, the left repeated its success.
The KPU got 27 per cent of the seats, the bloc of SPU with SelPU—8 per cent, and
PSPU—4 per cent (p. 123). After two months of exhausting voting, the parliament
elected SelPU leader Oleksandr Tkachenko as the speaker and communist Adam
Martyniuk as his deputy. Despite this strong electoral performance, the KPU elec-
torate as well as its membership were concentrated in mostly Russian-speaking and
more industrial eastern and southern regions of Ukraine with only weak support in
Western Ukraine. Conversely, the SPU found a stronghold in the central Ukraine
rural areas.
However, 1999 marked the beginning of the decline of Ukrainian radical left
parties. They failed to agree on a single opposition candidate for the elections against
the increasingly authoritarian president Leonid Kuchma. Although in the first round,
the three radical left candidates all together performed better than Kuchma (he got
36.5 percent of the vote, Petro Symonenko from KPU came second with 22.2 per cent,
Oleksandr Moroz from SPU came third with 11.3 per cent, and Natalia Vitrenko from
PSPU came fourth with 11.0 per cent), in the second round the incumbent president
easily beat the communist candidate with 56.3 against 37.8 per cent, mobilising not
only anti-Communist and nationalist voters in Western Ukraine but also winning
significant support in South-Eastern regions. After the presidential election failure,
the left lost their leadership positions in the parliament to a newly formed pro-Kuchma
right-wing majority.
Principal Contemporary Radical Left Parties
In the 2000s, the major cleavage in Ukrainian politics shifted from the conflict
between the emerging competitive semi-authoritarian regime of Leonid Kuchma
and the left opposition to the conflict between two camps—one supported by pro-
Western neoliberals, Ukrainian nationalists, and some ‘oligarchs’ with the electoral
stronghold in western and central Ukrainian regions and another uniting most of the
major Ukrainian ‘oligarchs’ with electoral support in more ‘pro-Russian’ eastern
668 V. Ishchenko
and southern regions. The Ukrainian radical left failed as an independent political
force in opposition to both camps becoming, on the contrary, effectively reduced to
minor partners of either the ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’ camp. The defeat of the ‘Eastern’
camp after the Maidan uprising in 2013–14 against the president Viktor Yanukovych
became a disaster for the Ukrainian left.
It is questionable whether one can characterise the SPU and PSPU of the 2000s
as radical left parties at all. The SPU moderated its programme in 2000, describing
itself as a ‘left-of-centre’ party, and from 2004 to 2011 was a consultative party in
the Socialist International. Unlike the communists, the SPU sided with pro-Western
neoliberal and Ukrainian nationalist opposition protests against Leonid Kuchma. In
2000–2001, the SPU was one of the initiators and the backbones of the ‘Ukraine
without Kuchma’ campaign and later supported the ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004
against elections stolen by Kuchma’s successor Viktor Yanukovych. However, after
the parliamentary elections in 2006, pro-Western parties failed in negotiations with
the SPU after it had won 5.7 per cent of the vote and, against the expectations of the
SPU’s electorate, the latter preferred a coalition with Yanukovych’s Party of Regions
(PR) and the KPU. It was a disastrous move, resulting in the SPU being kicked out
of the parliament in the next elections in 2007 and effectively destroying the party
base.
If the SPU was transforming into a social-democratic party, the populist PSPU was
moving towards stronger Russian nationalist and culturally conservative positions.1
PSPU leader Natalia Vitrenko fully embraced the rhetoric of ‘civilisational conflict’,
prioritising a pro-Russian geopolitical orientation and defence of ‘Eastern Slavic
Orthodox civilisation’ against Western imperialism over class conflict. After the
2002 parliamentary elections when the PSPU failed to enter the parliament with 3.2
per cent of the vote, the party became marginalised. Since 2012 the PSPU has not
even been able to form a party list for the elections.
Ideologically, the KPU was gradually moving in the same direction, as it increas-
ingly appealed to ‘civilisational’ rhetoric, though not to such an extreme extent
as the more authoritarian and leader-driven PSPU. Nevertheless, the KPU strug-
gled to retain its electoral stronghold in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. In the first
part of the 2000s PR—a political representative of some of the richest Ukraine’s
‘oligarchs’ with a far stronger clientele network, support from the executive, and
control over popular media—replaced the KPU as the most popular political party
of Southern and Eastern regions. The latter three times chose to join a coalition with
PR, regarding allegedly ‘pro-Russian’ oligarchs as a lesser evil against pro-Western
national-liberals (Haran & Belmeha, 2010, p. 19).
These developments contributed to the crisis that the KPU and the Ukrainian
radical left faced after the Euromaidan revolution of 2013–2014 (also called ‘Revo-
lution of Dignity’ by its supporters). Though hesitant in the beginning, the KPU
supported President Yanukovych, as it argued that anti-Communist actions and the far
right were becoming more prominent among the Euromaidan protesters (Ishchenko,
2016b, pp. 27–32). The Euromaidan supporters saw the KPU as a part of the deposed
government, as agents of Russian aggressive politics, and also as the successors of
the Soviet heritage perceived as a fundamental problem for Ukrainian development.
23 Ukraine 669
KPU party organisations and the parliamentary group became the object of state
repression and far-right attacks on an even greater scale than the major former ruling
Party of Regions (pp. 84–86). That said, the KPU leadership’s position regarding the
Anti-Maidan protests and the following separatist uprising in the Donbass conflicted
with the expectations of many members and supporters for a radical struggle against
the post-Euromaidan neoliberal-nationalist government. The KPU failed to get into
the parliament in October 2014 with only 3.9 per cent of votes. This was the first
Ukrainian parliament where no left-wing party, not even a single leftist MP, was
elected.
The so-called ‘decommunisation’ laws passed by the Ukrainian parliament in
April 2015 raised repression against the Ukrainian radical left to a new level. The
KPU did not comply with the requirements of laws banning any propaganda and
symbolism of the Communist regime. On 16 December 2015, a court decision
suspended the party’s activities. In June 2015 in expectation of the ban, the KPU
formed the Left Opposition coalition with the PSPU, the very small Workers Party
of Ukraine (Marxist-Leninist), RPU(ml), a party founded by more orthodox Marxist,
class-oriented ex-KPU members, and a range of marginal Russian nationalist parties
and civic organisations. One of the technical parties in the Left Opposition coalition
called Nova derzhava (the New State) was used by the KPU to participate in the
local elections in 2015 despite the Ministry of Justice ban, although all the commu-
nist candidates together received just 1.3 per cent of the votes (Ishchenko, 2016b,
p. 89). Nevertheless, the KPU leadership did not take much interest in developing
the coalition with the marginal left (Vitrenko, 2016).
Poor electoral results, repression, and suspension of the party activities all exac-
erbated internal strife within the KPU. It has decreased protest and media activity
and has lost membership, party cells, business sponsors, and resources to support the
party apparatus. A number of disloyal regional leaders and local organisations were
expelled and disbanded by the leadership. Some former KPU and SPU members have
joined a social populist Union of Left Forces (SLS) which was one of the several
projects, sometimes initiated or controlled by the oligarchs, competing for the old
left constituency and electorate (Table 23.1).
The Extra-Parliamentary Radical Left Galaxy
Re-establishing the KPU in 1993 marginalised more extreme, Stalinist groups and
parties like the Union of Communists of Ukraine and the Ukrainian branch of the
All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Although some scholars believed that
they could have been a factor preventing the social-democratic moderation of KPU
in the 1990s (Wilson, 2002, pp. 48–49), by the 2000s they were usually little more
than small circles of elderly people distributing irrelevant press and connected more
with their Russian comrades than with Ukrainian reality. Among all the alternative
communist parties only the Communist Party of Ukraine (renewed) founded with
support from Kuchma’s administration and with the main aim of distracting KPU
670 V. Ishchenko
Table 23.1 RLPs in Ukraine in 2019
Name of the
party
Ideological
profile
Participation in a
bigger coalition
European
affiliations
Score at the latest
general elections
(%)
KPU Conservative
communist
Left Opposition
(2015–2016)
UCP-CPSU 3.9 (2014)
PSPU Left populist,
Russian
nationalist*
Left Opposition
(2015–2016)
–1.3 (2007)
SLS Left populist* – – –
RPU (ml) Conservative
communist
Left Opposition
(2015–2016)
– –
Source Author
*As noted in the text, it is increasingly difficult to classify these as ‘radical left’
voters, polled over 1 per cent in the 2002 general elections. Those that survived until
the Euromaidan revolution were required to terminate activities together with the
KPU.
The younger extra-parliamentary left radicals that appeared in the late perestroika
years were also very weak in Ukraine compared with Western European analogues.
The overwhelming majority of the organisations, groupuscules, and networks were
very volatile and usually short-lived, frequently splitting and re-uniting in a different
configuration. All together they have never been able to claim over 1000 activists.
In the 2000s before Euromaidan they possessed a ‘new left’ identity. Despite all
the conflicts, ideological and tactical differences between Marxists and anarchists,
reformists and revolutionaries, intellectuals, labour activists, and antifascist street
fighters, they usually perceived each other as parts of the same ‘genuine’ left field in
opposition t o bureaucratic, ‘Stalinist’, ‘sold-out’ ‘old left’ parties. The later were seen
as minor partners of the oligarchs, culturally conservative, and not critical enough to
Russian politics and Russian nationalists (Ishchenko, 2011). Usually, the ‘new left’
resisted cooperation with the ‘old left’.
The Euromaidan revolution and the following war in Eastern Ukraine had largely
negative consequences for the ‘new left’, just as they had for parliamentary left
parties (Ishchenko, 2016b, 2020b). The ‘new left’ split into pro-Euromaidan (pro-
Ukrainian), anti-Maidan (pro-Russian or pro-separatist), and ‘non-campist’ groups.
The whole field was greatly reshuffled with some organisations repressed and
destroyed, others disoriented, and some breaking with the radical left movement
completely. For example, activists from one of the most prominent ‘new left’ organ-
isations—Borotba (‘Struggle’)—went underground or emigrated. Borotba was a
product of the evolution of the most radical elements in KPU-affiliated organisa-
tions—the All-Ukrainian Union of Workers (VSR) and the Komsomol, i.e. Lenin’s
Communist Union of Youth of Ukraine (LKSMU). Borotba strongly supported the
Anti-Maidan protests after the government changed in February 2014, becoming
one of the most active groups in mobilisations in Kharkov and Odessa afterwards
23 Ukraine 671
and supporting the pro-Russian separatist uprising in Donbass. Some of its activists
even joined the separatist militia. Others, particularly, a group around the Liva
(‘Left’) web-magazine, edited by a well-known leftist journalist Andrii Manchuk,
were somewhat more hesitant in support of the pro-Russian puppet states. Borotba
abandoned all public activities in Ukraine expecting repression. Some ex-Borotba
activists managed to set up educational activities in separatist-controlled Donetsk
(Avrora Marxist-feminist collective).
Another, intellectual group, that evolved from the radicals splitting from KPU-
affiliated organisations, has been the circle led by Vasyl Pikhorovych. His pupils
published the ‘Propaganda’ and ‘Spinoza’ web-magazines and tried to develop the
legacy of a famous Soviet Marxist philosopher Evald Ilienkov, who is mostly known
for his works on the dialectical logic problems. Overall, however, the development of
Marxist circles (kruzhki) and YouTube channels in post-Euromaidan Ukraine did not
match their expansion in Russia and Belarus i n the same period, where they could
benefit from a stronger renaissance of neo-Soviet identity and a more permissive
political context for the left.
Many Ukrainian anarchists actively supported Euromaidan. It helped them to
avoid repression but ultimately not splits, disappointment, and disorientation. The
Priama diia (‘Direct action’) student union used to be one of the liveliest left-
libertarian organisations, for example, it was able to lead a mobilisation of over
10,000 students against the introduction of paid services in public universities in 14
Ukrainian cities in 2009. However, by the time the Euromaidan protests started it had
lost its position in the student movement and failed to make any significant impact
on the Euromaidan student mobilisation agenda or to oppose the post-Euromaidan
neoliberal reforms in higher education (Ishchenko, 2017, 2020b).
The general impotence of the radical left during the most massive mobilisations
in Ukraine’s contemporary history pushed some radical leftists to reconsider their
strategy. One of the products is the Sotsialnyi Rukh (‘Social Movement’) initiative to
find a new bottom-up left party. The initiative initially united a few representatives of
independent union organisations, post-Trotskyists, and left intellectuals. However,
the prospects of actually registering a radical left party without external support
compromising its independence look quite bleak considering the decline of ‘new
left’ activism after Euromaidan, a significant increase in the registration fee, and non-
democratic developments of the political regime since 2014 (Ishchenko, 2018b). In
the post-Euromaidan context, the new left did not turn into a distinct political voice
in Ukraine’s public sphere, despite the collapse of the ‘old left’ opening a niche on
the left flank of Ukrainian politics. Instead, converging with the pro-Western middle-
class civil society, the new left failed to play a leadership role and split the compact
left-liberal milieu from the more influential right-wing and nationalist public. Some
anarchist groups, such as Nihilist, have been increasingly abandoning left-wing social
criticism of Ukraine’s realities for nationalist identity politics (Ishchenko, 2020b).
The only political organisation among the alternative left which showed at
least a temporary rise of public activity after Euromaidan was Avtonomnyi opir
(‘Autonomous Resistance’). This group made a huge evolution from the extreme
right to a kind of radical left Ukrainian nationalism active mostly in Western Ukraine.
672 V. Ishchenko
Avtonomnyi opir participated in attacks on governmental buildings in Lviv in the last
days of the Euromaidan uprising and took an active part in local protests against
privatisation of public space and in defence of labour rights. Since 2017, however,
the organisation has been in decline like other ‘new left’ collectives.
The radical left’s—both ‘new’ and ‘old’—cooperative links with labour unions
have been usually limited to individual local organisations, since the post-Soviet
successor official trade union institution—the Federation of Trade Unions of
Ukraine—was typically loyal to the government, while relevant independent unions
usually cooperated with the right-wing opposition (Gorbach, 2019;Varga, 2014). At
the moment of writing, Zakhyst pratsi (‘Defence of Labour’) used to be the only
trade union in Ukraine under the leadership of ideological left activists. The union
cooperated with Avtonomyi opir and Sotsialnyi Rukh.
In terms of think-tanks and media, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation has been
supporting semi-academic and activist analysis on Ukraine’s socioeconomic prob-
lems and possible anti-neoliberal policy alternatives as well as several left-leaning
web-publications. Among the latter, Spilne (‘Commons’), a journal of social criti-
cism, used to be, for a certain period of time after Euromaidan, the most significant
voice in the country for a left-wing position against rival nationalisms and imperi-
alisms in the conflict within and about Ukraine. While some of the publications, such
as Spilne, attracted usually 20,000–40,000 users per month that reached out beyond
the sphere of radical left activists, on a national level their readership remained small
(Table 23.2).
The Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU)
Party Structure and Environment
The Party Organisational Model
In the context of a weak party system in a recently established democracy, the
KPU, ‘the most disciplined party in Ukraine’ as it was often called (Haran &
Maiboroda, 2000, p. 49), was for many years distinctive in having a mass and ideo-
logically committed membership. Other major Ukrainian parties were usually little
more than electoral machines based around charismatic leaders or business groups
(Kudelia & Kuzio, 2014). However, in comparison to most European RLPs, the KPU
had remarkably little room for internal democracy.
The KPU inherited the democratic centralist tradition of the former Soviet ruling
party. The KPU’s structure consisted of primary organisations, local (district and
city) organisations, regional organisations, and regular party congresses to be called
once per three years (KPU, 2016b). The local organisations proposed candidates
to the Central Committee which is then elected by the party Congress every three
years. Subsequently, the Central Committee elected a party leader (First Secretary)
23 Ukraine 673
Table 23.2 Radical left ‘galaxy’ in Ukraine in 2019
Political
organisations
Trade unions/professional
organisations
Social movements Think tanks,
foundations
Prominent intellectuals Newspapers and other media
(KPU, RPU(ml) as
Tab l e 23.1)
Sotsialnyi rukh
Avtonomnyi opir
(inactive)
Borotba
Priama diia (inactive)
Zakhyst pratsi
–Rosa Luxemburg
Foundation in
Ukraine
Spilne
Vasyl Pikhorovych’s
circle
Avro ra
Spilne web-magazine and
journal
Spinoza and Propaganda
web-magazines
Liva web-magazine
Nihilist web-media
Source Author
Note The table does not present a comprehensive list of all radical left groups, which have often been very small and short-lived, but only some typical
representatives in the period of 2014–2019.
674 V. Ishchenko
and the decision-making and executive bodies including the Presidium. The party
Congress also elected parliamentary candidates by voting on a list proposed by the
party leadership. While selection processes might appear to give key choices to the
party Congress, the KPU’s statutes highlight a clear hierarchy between the party
organisations which allows the higher-level committees to cancel the decisions of
the lower-level committees and organisations’ conferences, disband the lower-level
organisations and their executive bodies, and dismiss their secretaries. Moreover,
the changes introduced into the KPU’s statutes in 2011 allowed only the higher-
level committees to propose a candidate for First Secretary positions in lower-level
organisations and to exclude a party member without his or her primary organisation’s
decision (KPU, 2015, p. 78).
In the second half of the 2000s, the party leadership was increasingly worried
about the KPU’s drastically weakened electoral performance. Party ‘modernisation’
was the topic of the KPU’s congresses in 2008 and 2011 (KPU, 2011a, 2011c).
The new edition of the party programme approved in 2011 stated that the neces-
sary conditions for the ‘modernisation’ included strengthening organisations and
links with the masses, discipline and ideological commitment of party members,
radicalising party activities, and also internal democratisation of the party (KPU,
2011a, p. 231). However, almost nothing of the sort happened. Essentially, the only
way for the rank-and-file membership and primary organisations to influence crit-
ical political decisions was reduced to electing the delegates to the higher-level
party organisations’ conferences and to the procedure of the internal referendum.
According to the KPU’s statutes, the Central Committee could be the only initiator
of the referendum (KPU, 2016b). The referendum procedure was used only once in
the KPU’s history in January 2014 to legitimate support of the communist MPs for
the state budget proposed by the PR government and obstructed by pro-Euromaidan
opposition (Symonenko, 2013a).
Unlike the renovated communist parties in Western and Southern Europe
(Tsakatika & Lisi, 2013, pp. 9–11), the KPU did not introduce procedures to promote
bottom-up or participatory democracy (Table 23.3). The party’s poor electoral perfor-
mance and weak protest mobilisation potential in the second half of the 2000s turned
the attention of the leadership to the weakness of its organisation (Symonenko, 2010,
2013a). However, the ‘strengthening’ of the party on the ground was perceived in
terms of increasing the efficiency of its electoral, propaganda, and protest activities
rather than providing opportunities for participation or including other movements
within its organisation. The selection of more able party cadres, discipline, ideo-
logical education, a probation term for new members, and networking events like
party summer camps were seen as solutions rather than expanding participation in
decision-making. Efforts to include the party’s supporters within its organisation and
meetings were rare (Symonenko, 2013b).
The party’s lack of engagement with e-democracy partially resulted from the tech-
nological illiteracy of its ageing membership. As late as i n 2013, KPU leader Petro
Symonenko was complaining that 20 per cent of local organisations still had not
used e-mail, meaning that they could not receive higher-authorities’ decisions and
23 Ukraine 675
Table 23.3 Participatory
linkage of the KPU Direction Strength Range
Top-down/democratic centralism High Members
Source Author
information on time (Symonenko, 2013b). However, as the fate of different opposi-
tion groups within the party shows (see Sect. ‘Intra-Party Life’), the party leadership
around Petro Symonenko was also not ready to give up power and allow institution-
alised procedures for voicing dissent. This likely resulted from both their author-
itarian interpretation of Leninist principles and their economic interest in holding
on to leading positions (see Sect. ‘Party Faces: On the Ground; in Public Office; in
Central Office’). Symonenko’s ability to remain leader from 1993 until the moment
of writing can be explained as a result of the cleansing of any real opposition within
the party and its ability to survive through patronage networks. Outside of the party,
he was criticised as being uncharismatic and his personal ratings in opinion polls
were generally lower than those for the party.
Party Membership
The party membership card was introduced only in 2001 and membership re-
registration demonstrated much smaller numbers than the 142,000 members claimed
by the KPU in 2000 (Haran & Maiboroda, 2000, p. 49). Reliable statistics started
only in 2002 and the latest published data are from 1 December 2014 before the 49th
Congress.
Despite widespread expectations that the KPU as a ‘party of pensioners’ would
simply die out, the party showed generally positive membership dynamics and growth
of more than 30 per cent between 2002 and 2014. This membership growth seems
puzzling as electoral support for KPU declined in the middle of the 2000s (see Table
23.6). However, as I will explain in Sect. ‘Electoral Support’, the latter resulted
from the combination of the electoral regional polarisation and declining clientelistic
power of the KPU in favour of the ‘oligarchic’ PR. It did not touch the core of KPU
supporters and the party structure was resistant to the splits of disappointed radicals
who were almost never able to take a significant number of party members with
them. The only exception was the split with a part of Crimean party organisation led
by Leonid Hrach after the KPU had entered the government coalition with the PR in
2010 (see Sect. ‘Intra-Party Life’).
During 2014 the membership declined by at least 13,000 members after the
loss of KPU organisations in annexed Crimea, the increased repression of the post-
Euromaidan government, the far-right attacks, and the loss of parliamentary repre-
sentation and resources. By October 2016 Petro Symonenko reported that less than
50,000 members remained in the party (Symonenko, 2016) (Table 23.4).
Unlike the KPU electorate, the party membership was not skewed to Russian-
speaking south-eastern Ukrainian regions. In a 1997 article, Andrew Wilson called
676 V. Ishchenko
Table 23.4 KPU
membership, 2002–2014 Years2Membership figures (% of the electorate in
brackets)3
2002 85,585 (1.7)
2003 88,053
2004 92,941 (6.7)
2005 95,872
2006 99,280 (10.7)
2007 99,021 (7.9)
2008 103,154
2009 108,332
2010 114,467 (13.1)
2011 111,323
2012 107,097 (4.3)
2013 110,677
2014 112,130 (18.3)
1 Dec 2014 104,490 (17.1)
Source KPU (2011b, p. 27), KPU (2014, p. 41) and Central
Electoral Commission
KPU ‘a proxy party of ethno-linguistic ‘minority’ protest’ (1997, p. 1301) and indeed
raising the status of the Russian language in Ukraine was always an important demand
in all KPU programs, while communist MPs often used Russian when speaking in
the parliament and in the media. However, by 2000 the ratio of ethnic Russians
among KPU members roughly corresponded to their ratio in the total population
of Ukraine—28.7 per cent (Haran & Maiboroda, 2000, p. 49) and henceforth this
decreased to 17.4 per cent in 2011 and then to 12.7 per cent in 2014 (calculated
without annexed Crimea and Sevastopol) (KPU, 2011b, p. 37, 2014, p. 49). By the
end of the 2000s the proportion of KPU members coming from south-eastern regions
(45.2 per cent) was slightly lower than the regions’ population as a percentage of the
Ukrainian population overall (47.3 per cent). Counterintuitively, by 2014 the central
regions and more rural and Ukrainian-speaking areas from the West and South were
overrepresented in the KPU’s membership rather than those in the East (the most
Russian-speaking and urbanised regions).4
Moreover, KPU organisations in western and central regions also had
younger memberships than the communist organisations in south-eastern electoral
strongholds. For example, by 1 January 2014, 32 per cent of KPU members in the
western regions were under 40 and 27 per cent were over 60 compared with 21
per cent and 46 per cent, respectively, in the eastern regions. Women also appear
to be underrepresented in the party membership, accounting for around 35 per cent
of members in 2011. The ageing membership was always a concern for the KPU
leadership. However, in the years before the Euromaidan revolution the party had
a positive rejuvenating dynamic: by 2008 17 per cent were under 40 and 42 per
23 Ukraine 677
cent were over 60 but by 2014 already 25 per cent were under 40 and 38 per cent
were over 60. What explains this? Despite weak electoral performance in 2006 and
2007, the KPU remained the only relevant left party in Ukraine. It was also gradu-
ally ‘modernising’, as it started to work as a more efficient organisation (see Sect.
‘Party Faces: On the Ground; in Public Office; in Central Office’). However, the party
leadership was concerned about the ideological education of the younger members
‘raised under capitalism, unaware of even basics of Marxism-Leninism and norms of
party life’ (Symonenko, 2013b). The newly recruited younger generation’s loyalty
and commitment to the party cause seemed to be weaker than that of the ‘old guard’.
Many of the former left the party after its sustained repression in 2014.
Environmental Linkage
The KPU leadership often repeated ritualistic phrases about the party’s need to
develop strong ‘links to the masses’. However, no change happened in democratising
relations or including civil society organisations in party decision-making processes.
The KPU worked in a typical post-Soviet context of weak civil society with the
predominance of small (neo)liberal NGOs often dependent on Western donors and
only loosely connected to their respective communities (Howard, 2003; Narozhna,
2004). The largest protest campaigns in Ukraine (the ‘Orange Revolution’ and Euro-
maidan) also had a significant far-right presence (Ishchenko, 2016a, 2018a, 2020a;
Katchanovski, 2020) combined with anti-Communism, while the labour movement
has been weak and left-libertarian ‘new’ social movements around post-materialist
or identity issues have been almost non-existent until recently.
In this context, because of its elderly membership and ideology, the KPU most
substantially cooperated with WWII and Soviet Afghanistan war veterans’ organisa-
tions, Chernobyl disaster ‘liquidators’ (as those involved in the immediate clean-up
of the disaster are known) and pensioners, i.e. with the social groups dependent
on social payments from the state. In events directed against Ukrainian nation-
alism and Western international institutions, the KPU often cooperated with Russian
nationalist organisations (Ishchenko, 2016b, pp. 24–25). The party also supported
the Anti-Maidan movement—a massive counter-mobilisation in spring 2014 against
the Euromaidan ‘coup’ in Kiev and the new ‘fascist junta’ government that replaced
Viktor Yanukovych, for autonomy and even separation of south-eastern Ukrainian
regions—whereas in Kharkov and Odessa, the communists played a comparable or
even more important role than Russian nationalists. When the pro-Russian sepa-
ratist revolt started in Donbass, the KPU leadership distanced itself from it, against
the expectations of many of the local communists who in various ways supported
the separatists and the institutions of the new unrecognised ‘people’s republics’,
even joining the militia (pp. 54–62). However, the activities of the newly established
communist parties in Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were quickly reduced
to ritualistic and humanitarian activities in the closed political regimes of pro-Russian
puppet states.
678 V. Ishchenko
Table 23.5 Environmental
linkage of the KPU Direction Strength Range
Top-down High Broad and exclusive
Source Author
As explained in Sect. ‘The Extra-Parliamentary Radical Left Galaxy’, the links
between the left and labour unions in Ukraine were generally weak. This is why
the KPU created its ‘own’ labour organisation—VSR—that concentrated the most
radical wing of the KPU and ultimately was expelled from the party in 2009. At the
same time, the KPU leadership relied on a range of organisations to establish influence
in other social groups and around other issues that were either intentionally founded
by the KPU and/or controlled by prominent KPU members. Among them were
the Antifascist Committee of Ukraine—a coalition claiming to unite more than 30
parties and NGOs against Ukrainian radical nationalism; the Veterans’ Organisation
of Ukraine and the All-Ukrainian Union of Soviet Officers; Ukraine’s Intelligentsia
for Socialism and the Union of Communist Students; the Union of Working Women
‘For the future of Ukrainian Children’. Note the absence of any organisation around
any ‘new politics’ issue; even the women’s organisation had a traditional, not a
feminist agenda. The most important and the largest among these ‘transmission
belts’ was the youth organisation (LKSMU)—both for protest mobilisation and also
because it was perceived by the KPU leadership as the main source for young party
cadres. However, its membership was always lower than 10,000 people and many
young communists held overlapping membership of the party and LKSMU.
These organisations conducted educational events, charity and community organ-
ising, and mobilisation for protests. One of the most important functions of these
‘front’ organisations was to mobilise (or imitate) electoral support for the KPU and
its candidates. However, while they have been active, they failed to reach out to the
masses (Table 23.5). The organisations’ leaders were often included on the party
electoral lists but when its support shrank in the 2000s they could not usually expect
to be elected. When the leaders of these organisation split from the party, as happened
with the VSR leader Oleksandr Bondarchuk or with the women’s organisation leader
Kateryna Samoilyk, their organisations also broke with the KPU.
Intra-Party Life
From its very establishment, the KPU did not allow intra-party factions with their
internal discipline and structure but only discussion platforms for the period before
a party decision was made (KPU, 2005, p. 34). Moreover, in the 2011 revision
of the party statutes following the split with the ambitious leader of the Crimean
communists Leonid Hrach, the party banned criticism of party decisions outside the
party press (KPU, 2016b).
The KPU’s support for Viktor Yanukovych and for becoming the minor partner
in PR governing coalitions was expectedly met with internal criticism. The absence
23 Ukraine 679
of channels for expressing intra-party opposition meant that such criticisms usually
ended in splits and did not trigger reform. In 2005 the most radical elements from
VSR and LKSMU split from the party having criticised the KPU’s de facto support
of Viktor Yanukovych in the ‘Orange Revolution’, and its pro-Russian and culturally
conservative positions. In 2009, the VSR leader Oleksandr Bondarchuk was expelled
from the party, while the KPU demanded that all party members leave the VSR (KPU,
2011a, pp. 231–233). At the end of 2010, a conflict with the leader of the Crimean
KPU organisation Leonid Hrach reached its peak and he was expelled from the party
together with the majority of Crimean communists (pp. 337–342). The Crimean
organisation was the largest in the KPU and Hrach had been perceived as a potential
contender for the party leader position. In 2010, he demanded that the KPU leave the
government coalition with the PR amid growing discontent with its policies and the
KPU’s weak position in the Crimean legislative body. After the split, Hrach became
the leader of the more orthodox Communist Party of Workers and Peasants. This
party, however, like other organisations and parties that have split from the KPU,
remained small and on the margins.
Repression and electoral defeats after the victory of Euromaidan exacerbated
the KPU’s internal conflicts. The internal criticism focussed on the figure of Petro
Symonenko—the KPU’s irremovable leader since the party’s (re)establishing in
1993 despite all the talks about the party’s rejuvenation. The harshest criticism was
voiced by Spiridon Kilinkarov, a popular leader of the Lugansk regional organi-
sation, supported later by some other prominent communist leaders in Kharkov,
Zaporozhie, and Kherson. He criticised Symonenko for failing as a party leader: he
took a defensive and indecisive position at a difficult time for the party, his personal
rating was far below support for the party, and he destroyed the strongest local cells
for disloyalty and did not give enough support to repressed rank-and-file members.
However, despite launching many personal attacks and seemingly fair appeals to
rejuvenate the leadership, Kilinkarov did not put forward any concrete proposals for
substantial changes in the KPU’s positions or politics. The leadership responded in a
typical way, excluding dissenters from the Central Committee, dismissing them from
party offices, and finally expelling them from the party and dissolving several local
organisations for ‘anti-party’ and disruptive actions (Ishchenko, 2016b, pp. 89–90).
Electoral Support
Age and region have been the most important characteristics of the KPU electorate
(see Table 23.7). In all elections, the overwhelming majority of communist voters
were over 50 (that is why they were also less educated) and concentrated in southern
and eastern Ukrainian regions (including Donbass and Crimea). In the 1990s, the
KPU was almost the unchallenged leader in these regions but later it lost primacy
to Yanukovych’s PR. In the 2002 parliamentary elections, the KPU for the first
time did not win the plurality of votes for the party lists, coming second with 20.0
per cent after the pro-Western electoral bloc of Viktor Yushchenko. It also lost the
680 V. Ishchenko
crucial Donetsk region to the pro-Kuchma bloc ‘For United Ukraine!’. In consecutive
elections between 2004 and 2010, support for the KPU in parliamentary elections and
for party leader Petro Symonenko at presidential elections fell drastically to 3–5 per
cent; only in the 2012 parliamentary elections did the party somewhat regain positions
to 13.2 per cent (see Table 23.6). Tentative explanations (Zimmer & Haran, 2008,
p. 557) point to the PR’s higher capacity both to provide clientelistic benefits and to
harass with administrative pressure the state-dependent elderly voters and business
people. The former ‘red directors’ (managers of the Soviet enterprises) supported
by the KPU in the 1990s were gradually switching to the new ‘party of power’
around Leonid Kuchma. At the same time, the regional polarisation of Ukrainian
elections pulled voters to stronger representatives of south-eastern regions against
Ukrainian nationalist and pro-Western parties, especially after KPU leader Petro
Symonenko had proved to be unable to win against Leonid Kuchma in the 1999
presidential elections when the latter had been supported predominantly in western
and central regions. The regional polarisation also explains the surprisingly improved
performance of the KPU in the 2007 and 2012 elections. Both results occurred after
it had participated in PR-led governments. Voters disappointed with the dominant
governing party were switching not to the parties of the West and Centre but to the
major competitor for the PR in the East and South—the KPU. So, despite predictions
of the deminise of the KPU’s electorate, the party increased support among younger
and higher educated voters in 2012 (Bekeshkina, 2012, p. 50).
However, in the 2014 snap elections after the Euromaidan revolution victory, the
KPU failed to enter the parliament for the first time in its history. Crimea was annexed
by Russia, while large parts of Donbass were controlled by pro-Russian separatists,
excluding large parts of the KPU’s traditional electorate from Ukrainian elections. At
the same time, many people who opposed the neoliberal-nationalist post-Euromaidan
government did not vote at all with voter turnout being the lowest in the history of
Ukrainian parliamentary elections. The KPU was not allowed to participate in the
general elections (both for the president and the parliament) in 2019 based on the
‘decommunisation’ law.
Table 23.6 KPU electoral
results, 2000–2019 Year National elections
Vo t e s , % (N)Seats, N (%)
2002 20.0 (5,178,074) 65 (14.4)
2006 3.7 (929,591) 21 (4.7)
2007 5.4 (1,257,291) 27 (6.0)
2012 13.2 (2,687,269) 32 (7.1)
2014 3.9 (611,923) 0
2019 Banned from participation 0
Source Central Electoral Commission
23 Ukraine 681
Table 23.7 Sociology of the KPU electorate, 2000–2014 (per cent)
2002 2006 2007 2012 2014
National share of votes 20.0 3.7 5.4 13.2 3.9
Region5
Wes t 3.9 1.1 1.5 3.7 0.8
Kiev 9.0 3.0 4.6 7.2 2.8
Centre 15.3 4.4 5.2 10.5 2.7
South 28.4 4.6 7.1 19.6 9.0
East 31.8 5.2 8.0 20.2 7.4
Donbass 33.2 3.6 6.9 20.9 10.6
Crimea 33.7 4.6 8.1 21.1 –
Gender
Male 22.0 4.2 6.3 12.1 2.9
Female 24.8 2.7 4.0 10.8 2.5
Age
18–29 8.5 0.9 1.8 5.7 0.6
30–39 12.7 1.1 2.1 6.7 1.6
40–49 17.4 2.2 3.8 9.3 1.8
50–59 25.0 3.6 5.6 14.2 2.3
60+ 36.2 8.3 10.3 17.3 5.8
Education
Unfinished secondary 33.2 6.5 5.2 15.0 4.9
Secondary 23.3 3.4 5.2 13.3 3.0
Professional secondary 19.9 3.1 4.5 12.6 2.6
Higher or unfinished higher education 14.8 2.7 5.5 8.9 2.3
Type of settlement
Urban 23.3 3.2 5.3 14.0 3.1
Rural 17.4 3.8 4.4 8.6 2.0
Source Votes in the regions are the author’s calculations based on the Central Electoral Commission
data; other distributions are the National exit-poll data published in Bekeshkina (2012, p. 51) and
Mishchenko (2014)
The Party Within the Party System
Party Faces: On the Ground; in Public Office; in Central Office
An important part of KPU ‘modernisation’ since the second half of the 2000s was
the professionalisation of the party apparatus, which entailed putting the secretaries
of the local organisations on a pay-roll combined with their party training. It was a
top-down process with yearly attestations of the secretaries by the higher party bodies
and a relatively high (13–16 per cent each year in 2010–2013) level of rotation as
682 V. Ishchenko
a result (Symonenko, 2013b). However, the core of the leadership represented in
the highest party’s executive body—the Central Committee’s Presidium—was very
stable, while the First Secretary of the Central Committee Petro Symonenko has held
his office since the party’s foundation. According to the party statutes, its activities
should have been directed by the Presidium and it was supposed to report to the
Central Committee (KPU, 2016b). However, in the 1990s, the KPU’s parliamentary
group had already began to solidify control over the party. Since 2000 over two-thirds
of the Presidium members were MPs themselves.6 The core of the party leadership
and of the parliamentary group were almost the same people.
The KPU obtained a poor election result in 2006; however, when the ‘orange’
bloc of parties failed to form a coalition, this opened an opportunity for the Party of
Regions to form a coalition with the SPU and the KPU. It was not surprising that the
KPU joined the governing coalition in 2006 given many of those that formed and led
it had governing experience (at least at the local level) in Soviet times.
The coalition with the oligarchic PR and SPU in 2006 was, however, short-lived,
ending in political crisis and snap elections the following year which the pro-Western
parties won. When Yanukovych was elected president in 2010 and via bribery and
threats established control over the majority of MPs, the KPU entered a coalition with
the PR and the minor centrist Lytvyn Bloc. The coalition with the PR survived elec-
tions in 2012 and ended only after the Euromaidan victory (Table 23.8). As a condi-
tion for supporting Yanukovych during the elections, the KPU signed a ‘platform of
practical activities’ with him that Yanukovych was obliged to implement after being
elected as president (KPU, 2011a, pp. 265–272). Together with the usual pro-Russian
cultural and international agenda, the platform included an extensive list of rela-
tively progressive policies on socioeconomic issues and called for political reform.
However, the KPU was quickly disappointed with the Yanukovych government’s
failure to implement the platform; which instead proceeded to privatise strategic
enterprises and to prepare the association agreement with EU (up to November 2013).
The 49th KPU Congress in December 2014 named it a ‘serious tactical mistake’ that
the KPU, while criticising the government and being an ‘internal opposition’ within
the coalition, had not left it in a timely fashion (KPU, 2015, p. 140).
Table 23.8 KPU power
participation, 2000–2019 Years Power/opposition Type of participation
2001–2006 Opposition –
2006–2007 Power Coalition with PR and SPU
2007–2010 Opposition –
2010–2012 Power Coalition with PR and Lytvyn
Bloc
2012–2014 Power Coalition with PR
2014–2019 Opposition Extra-parliamentary
opposition
Source Author
23 Ukraine 683
Like other major Ukrainian parties, the KPU has been criticised for including
businesspeople on its electoral lists in return for financial and other support. The
most often mentioned KPU ‘sponsor’ was Russian-Ukrainian billionaire Konstantin
Grigorishin (Haran & Belmeha, 2010, p. 7) whom the party allegedly thanked by
supporting privatisations of the regional energy companies and property rights for
other enterprises. Grigorishin’s support was confirmed by the dissenting leader of
Crimean communists Leonid Hrach (Gordon, 2016) and by Grigorishin himself
(Musaieva-Borovik & Sheremet, 2015), although it was always denied by Petro
Symonenko (Obozrevatel, 2009) and has never been discussed in party documents.
Nevertheless, part of the reason for the relative 2012 electoral success was an
evidently expensive electoral campaign. Besides, some transfers to the KPU are
mentioned in the ‘black cashbook’ of the Party of Regions found and published
by Ukrainian investigative journalists after Euromaidan (Leshchenko et al., 2016).
Symonenko himself has often been accused of owning ‘non-communist’ property
and a luxurious lifestyle.
In office, the KPUs influence over policy was limited but it benefited from blocking
the ‘orange’ parties from entering government which it saw as pro-Western and
anti-Communist. The KPU’s position in government also presented opportunities to
engage in patronage. The offices the communists gained in coalition with PR had
limited political power or symbolic significance but were particularly relevant to
business and finance. A businessman Ihor Kalietnik, elected on the KPU’s list and
even included in the Central Committee’s Presidium, was appointed as head of the
Customs Service; other KPU figures were appointed to the offices of heads of the State
financial services and the State property fund; Symonenko’s son was appointed as a
deputy head of the State agency on investment and development (Haran & Belmeha,
2010, p. 19). Following the Euromaidan victory and repression of the KPU, there
were signs that these practices were unravelling. In the spring and summer of 2014,
a dozen MPs left the KPU parliamentary group, including Ihor Kalietnik and his
cousin Oksana Kaletnyk, the richest woman in parliament (KPU, 2015, p. 55).
Relationships with Other Parties
The KPU has usually adopted a competitive approach to other left parties but some-
times engaged in tactical cooperation. After the left parties failed to agree on a
common candidate and were defeated in the presidential elections in 1999, the SPU
leadership proposed cooperation in a ‘Popular-patriotic front’ to the KPU, other left
parties, and parties opposed to Leonid Kuchma. The KPU rejected the proposal, not
agreeing to dissolve the party in such a broad coalition (KPU, 2005, pp. 477–80). The
KPU leadership might have feared their party would lose its leading role on the left
to the SPU. Indeed, at the 2006 election, the KPU received fewer votes than the SPU.
However, competition between the KPU and SPU remained limited because their
electoral bases differed: KPU voters were concentrated in the eastern and southern
regions, while the SPU scored better in the central regions of Ukraine (Wilson, 2002,
pp. 49–51).
684 V. Ishchenko
After the SPU ‘betrayed’ its electorate’s expectations and switched to the coalition
with the PR and KPU, it became marginalised, leaving the KPU t he unchallengeable
dominant force on the left. Before the 2010 presidential elections, the KPU started the
‘Bloc of left and left-of-centre parties’, which was joined only by marginal parties,
while both the SPU and PSPU ignored it. The PSPU’s leaders fiercely criticised the
KPU, although the parties sporadically cooperated in protest events at the local level.
On three occasions, the KPU had joined national coalitions with the PR but it
tried to keep a critical distance from the party of big capital and only rarely cooper-
ated with it at the grassroots level (which PR virtually lacked, being little more than
an electoral machine). At the same time, the KPU harshly criticised the neoliberal-
nationalist ‘orange’ parties as ‘extreme’ nationalists, ‘Western puppets’, and repre-
sentatives of comprador capital. Nevertheless, there were several instances in which
the KPU parliamentary group provided seemingly inconsistent support for the Yulia
Tymoshenko government in 2007–2010 as it faced critical votes of confidence. Critics
usually connected this to Grigorishin’s influence on the party, thus amplifying the
image of the KPU leaders’ lack of political integrity.
As expected, the KPU entered confrontation with Ukrainian far-right nation-
alists and, particularly, the Svoboda (‘Freedom’) party. There were regular phys-
ical confrontations with the nationalists, especially on the anniversaries of Soviet
and nationalist holidays, but also sporadic skirmishes and attacks on party offices.
Usually, the elderly communists were the victims of younger aggressive national-
ists. The regional councils in Western Ukrainian regions where the Svoboda party
had dominated since local elections in 2009–2010 attempted to ban KPU and PR
activities at the peak of the Euromaidan protests in 2014, though such ‘bans’ did
not have legal consequences at that time. Later far-right attacks intensified with
arson of KPU offices, beatings of activists, and dismantling of Soviet-age monu-
ments, combined with increased state repression against the communists who were
suspected of support of separatist activities (see Sect. ‘Environmental Linkage’). At
the same time, communist MPs were ridiculed in parliament, the KPU parliamentary
group was dissolved in June 2014, and in April 2015 the parliament passed ‘decom-
munisation’ laws forbidding public rejection of the ‘criminal, totalitarian nature’ of
the Communist regime, symbols of the USSR and Soviet-allied countries, public
quotation of Soviet leaders, etc. The Ministry of Justice did not allow the KPU to
participate in local elections in 2015 (though communists participated under a tech-
nical ‘New State’ party) (Ishchenko, 2016b, pp. 83–90) as well as in the general
elections in 2019. As noted above, on 16 December 2015, the KPU’s activities were
suspended by a court decision.
Party Programme
The KPU adopted its first party programme in 1995 (KPU, 2005, pp. 149–184) and
then in 2011 adopted a quite different ‘new edition’ (KPU, 2016a). The need for the
new edition was clear. In 1995, the remnants of the Soviet institutions in Ukraine were
23 Ukraine 685
still quite strong as the pace of neoliberal reforms was slow. The communists usually
objected to accusations that they wanted just to go back to the USSR. However, the
old programme largely focussed on stopping ‘capitalisation’ after the collapse of
the Soviet Union and restoring things as they were before. The 2011 edition of the
party programme, however, diagnosed a new situation in which Ukraine was seen
to be on the periphery of the capitalist world with other countries extracting its raw
materials. Instead of rolling back seemingly reversible post-Soviet changes, the KPU
now suggested a minimum programme focussed on state-led development, including
the nationalisation of natural resources and strategic enterprises, creating a strong
public sector, along with preferential credit and taxation rules for high-technology
private businesses. The changes that were introduced to the party programme were
an attempt to update the party’s positions in light of the changes that had taken place
in Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The changes also followed the
party’s poor electoral results in 2006 and 2007 and may represent a partial (and
hitherto unfulfilled) attempt to ‘modernise’ its appeals.
The programme did mention the abolition of private property and the final goal
of communism (while Soviet socialism is seen to be the first stage of communism)
but beyond setting out a minimum programme of economic development the party’s
commitments were quite vague and abstract. While the party programme identified
Marxism-Leninism as the basis of the party’s ideology, the party’s interpretation of
this was not really developed. The social policies outlined in the party’s minimum
programme had similarities to the Soviet welfare model and the party prioritises full
employment, solid social guarantees, social housing, infrastructure development, and
free healthcare and education.
The KPU strongly opposed loans from international financial institutions as
it argued that the conditions attached were ‘discriminatory’ and limited state
sovereignty. It aimed to fund economic development and expansion of welfare provi-
sion from internal sources (not foreign investment) including the profits of the nation-
alised enterprises, state monopolies, progressive taxation, and the return of Ukrainian
oligarchs’ offshore wealth (although it did not specify how this would be done).
The KPU was typically criticised for ‘rejecting’ Ukrainian independence because
of its demand to restore the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as was outlined in its
1995 programme (KPU, 2005, p. 175). However, even there, the USSR was supposed
to be revived on ‘new grounds’ and only following the sovereign will of all the
‘fraternal’ peoples. In reality, the KPU heavily exploited patriotic rhetoric and often
expressed concerns about threats to Ukrainian state sovereignty. This is not a paradox
as the KPU appealed to the ‘Eastern Slavonic’ version of Ukrainian national identity,
in which ‘Russian’ and ‘Soviet’ are not seen as antithetical to Ukrainian, unlike in the
Western Ukrainian, anti-Russian, and anti-Soviet version of Ukrainian national iden-
tity (Riabchuk, 2015). Tellingly, the party has seen the imperialist threat coming only
from the West, particularly, from the US, but not from the East. The KPU strongly
opposed any cooperation with NATO and supported a new non-bloc European secu-
rity system. The party also strongly preferred economic union with Russia, Belarus,
and Kazakhstan as more equal partners for Ukraine instead of European integration,
which was perceived as increasing Ukraine’s dependency. The party dismissed any
686 V. Ishchenko
imperialist threat from Russia. It combined this with other demands like elevating
the status of the Russian language (the preferred language of communication for
roughly half of Ukraine’s population) and giving more power to the regions (and
federalisation), alongside an uncompromising rejection of even moderate forms of
anti-Russian nationalism. Such demands, even when substantively democratic, gave
the KPU a strongly pro-Russian image among the pro-Western liberal and nationalist
segments of the Ukrainian public.
Any post-materialist, ‘new politics’ issues were completely absent even from
the new edition of the KPU programme. Environmental problems received scant
attention and only in the context of pensions for Chernobyl disaster liquidators. The
party said little about immigration because it was not a major issue in political debates
in Ukraine given that Ukraine found itself as simply a transit country for migrants
entering the EU. Instead, the party mentioned the problem of mass emigration from
Ukraine. While the KPU declared that it opposed all forms of xenophobia, it was
generally a culturally conservative party and controversial articles on issues of race
and sexuality sometimes appeared in the party press, although these were not found
in the party programme.
Gender inequalities were only mentioned in the context of social security for
mothers and children. Moreover, the party’s cultural conservatism found expres-
sion in concerns about youth morality and the party criticised the ‘debauchery’
propagated in Americanised mass culture. One of the party’s most exotic policy
positions (not included in the party programme but regularly included in electoral
programmes) which s et it apart from most other communist parties has been its
support for the ‘canonical’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church (subordinated to the Moscow
Patriarchate) against the rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate
(since 2019 recognised as the ‘Orthodox Church of Ukraine’ and subordinated to
the Constantinople Patriarchate) and against the Catholic Church and Protestant
denominations.
Overall, the KPU combined Marxist-Leninist rhetoric with the immediate
programmatic policies of state-regulated capitalist development, restoring Soviet
welfarism, pro-Russian geopolitical orientation, cultural conservatism, defence of
the ‘Eastern Slavonic’ version of Ukrainian national identity, and the rights of the
Russian-speaking population.
Conclusion
The KPU was transformed from being the most popular party in the 1990s which
defended Soviet identity and resisted neoliberal reforms, into a minor partner of the
‘Eastern’ bloc of Ukrainian ‘oligarchs’. In comparison to the latter, the KPU was
more radical not only in economic and social policy but also in pro-Russian positions.
The KPU was damaged when the ‘Eastern’ bloc was defeated in the Euromaidan
revolution. Could the party have mobilised opposition to the ‘oligarchic’ regime
rather than siding with it against pro-Western neoliberals and Ukrainian nationalists?
23 Ukraine 687
The SPU’s failure after it broke with its path of transforming itself into a minor
social-democratic partner in the ‘Western’ bloc highlighted the risks in trying to find
a middle path in Ukraine’s regionally polarised politics.
This still does not explain why the KPU failed to sufficiently respond or adapt
to the terminal threat. It made some moves towards ‘modernisation’ by developing
more efficient and professional top-down structures. However, it faced several chal-
lenges. It attracted younger members and voters, but found that they had lower levels
of commitment. More radical members were disappointed with its participation in
‘oligarchic’ politics and were regularly expelled from the party. The core Commu-
nist supporters loyal to the party leadership were ageing. The party’s ‘transmission
belts’ to the masses did not include real movements or provide access to large social
groups. Moreover, most militant communists joined the separatist uprising against
the post-Euromaidan ‘fascist junta’, thereby excluding themselves from Ukrainian
politics.
The KPU’s leaders also played an important role in this process. For over 20 years
they had been able to convert support for the party into political careers, a stable source
of income for themselves, and found opportunities to promote the economic pref-
erences of the party’s sponsors and relatives. When this situation was threatened in
2014, the party leadership chose to keep a low profile in order to avoid losing every-
thing. This is why the KPU became such an easy scapegoat after the Euromaidan
victory (Ishchenko, 2015). Although, according to the polls, ‘decommunisation’ was
neither demanded nor supported by the majority of Ukraine’s citizens, it was a part
of nationalist radicalisation promoted by the nationalist civil society. It served as a
symbolic break from the past, which compensated for the lack of fundamental ‘revo-
lutionary’ change after the Euromaidan revolution (Ishchenko, 2018b; Ishchenko &
Zhuravlev, 2021).
Before the outbreak of the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the
KPU was focussed on its organisational survival, informing other radical left parties
about developments in Ukraine, and fighting court cases against anti-communist
repression. Not allowed to participate in the 2019 presidential elections, the KPU
sought to mobilise support against the incumbent president Petro Poroshenko, who
balloted on a polarising nationalist platform, and for a politically inexperienced come-
dian Volodymyr Zelenskyi with relatively unifying and conciliatory rhetoric (KPU,
2019a). However, Zelenskyi’s landslide victory did not improve the KPU’s situation.
In summer 2019, the Constitutional Court confirmed the legitimacy of the ‘decom-
munisation’ law, and the publication of the main party newspaper was suspended
by another court decision. During the parliamentary elections of the same year, the
KPU effectively called for voting for the successor parties of the PR that opposed
pro-Western and nationalist developments after Euromaidan (KPU, 2019b). In sum,
the KPU’s strategy was to sit back and lay low and wait for regime change or for the
suspension affecting it to be lifted. The Venice Commission and the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights strongly criticised the ‘decommunisa-
tion’ law, particularly, the parts permitting the ban of parties (Venice Commission &
OSCE/ODIHR, 2015).
688 V. Ishchenko
After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the KPU was ultimately banned
together with other parties labelled as ‘pro-Russian’, including almost all nominally
left-wing parties in the country (Ishchenko, 2022). Some communist and other left-
wing public figures and activists suffered further repression. The outcome of the
war will certainly affect the prospects of the KPU’s remaining structures, activists,
and leaders. However, it does not seem likely that they will get any opportunities
for public activities or capacity for underground work in the foreseeable future on
the territory under the control of the Ukrainian government. The more tech-savvy
young activists in Marxist circles may be more suited to continue political activity
in the face of increased repression. In the Russia-annexed territories of Ukraine, the
KPU’s organisations may likely join the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, many of the ‘new left’ activists have joined Ukrainian military
efforts against the invasion or humanitarian initiatives. It remains to be seen whether
the destruction of the economy, escalating militarisation, nationalism and political
restrictions in Ukraine will leave them any political opportunities and how such
developments will affect their evolution.
Chronology
1918: The Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine was founded as a
constituent part of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
1991: The KPU was banned after the failed coup d’état in the USSR. SPU is
established.
1993: The KPU is re-established as a new party.
1994: The first parliamentary elections in independent Ukraine after which
the KPU forms the largest group in the parliament and helps to elect
SPU leader Oleksandr Moroz as parliamentary speaker.
1998: The KPU wins a plurality in the parliamentary elections and helps to
elect another left-wing speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko.
1999: The Communist leader Petro Symonenko gains the highest support
among left candidates at the presidential elections but loses in the
second round to Leonid Kuchma.
2000: A right-wing pro-presidential majority is formed in the parliament.
2000–2001: ‘Ukraine without Kuchma’ campaign initiated by the SPU but not
supported by the KPU.
2002: For the first time the KPU does not win parliamentary elections.
2004: The ‘Orange Revolution’ against the stolen elections by Viktor
Yanukovych was supported by the SPU but not the KPU.
2006: SPU U-turn and coalition with PR and KPU.
2007: The KPU remains the only left-wing party in the parliament.
2010: The KPU supports Viktor Yanukovych in the presidential elections and
joins a coalition with PR.
2013: Maidan uprising starts, not supported by the KPU.
23 Ukraine 689
2014: The KPU supports the Anti-Maidan movement; individual members
and organisations join the separatist uprising in Donbass. For the first
time, no left-wing party gets into the Ukrainian parliament.
2015: The ‘decommunisation’ law is passed by parliament. The KPU’s
activities are suspended by a court decision.
2022: The KPU is banned together with other parties labelled as ‘pro-
Russian’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Notes
1. The main issues for Russian nationalists in Ukraine were cultural interests of the ethnic Russian
minority and Russian-speaking population and foremost the status of the Russian language.
They also often demanded greater autonomy or even separation of Russian-speaking regions
from Ukraine or re-establishing the union of Ukraine and Russia.
2. The figures are for 1 January of each year if a different date is not indicated.
3. For some reason the KPU published total membership figures for 2012-2014 excluding organ-
isations in Crimea and Sevastopol that were annexed by Russia only in March 2014 (KPU,
2014). All together, the Crimea and Sevastopol organisations had 5,315 members on January
1, 2011 (KPU, 2011b, p. 26).
4. According to author’s calculations based on KPU official statistics in (KPU, 2011b, 2014).
5. Ukrainian macro-regions are defined as follows: We s t —Volynska, Rivnenska, Lvivska, Ivano-
Frankivska, Ternopilska, Chernivetska, Zakarpatska oblasts; Kiev—Kiev city; Centre—Zhyto-
myrska, Khmelnytska, Kyivska, Cherkaska, Kirovohradska, Chernihivska, Sumska, Poltavska
oblasts; South—Odeska, Mykolaivska, Khersonska oblasts; East—Kharkivska, Dnipropetro-
vska, Zaporizka oblasts; Donbass—Donetska and Luhanska oblasts; Crimea—Autonomous
Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol city.
6. Author’s calculations based on the party’s lists of the Presidium members (using KPU 2011a,
pp. 392–397; 2011c, p. 292).
References
Bekeshkina, I. (2012). Partiini Vybory v Ukraini: Stabilnist i Zminy. In Natsionalnyi ekzyt-pol:
ParlamentskiVybory’ (Kiev: Fond ‘Demokratychni Initsiatyvy Imeni Ilka Kucheriva’), pp. 47–54.
Gorbach, D. (2019). Underground Waterlines: Explaining Political Quiescence of Ukrainian Labour
Unions. Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 84, 33–46.
Gordon, U. A. (2016). L. Hrach: U Simonenko Bylo dva Istochnika Deneg – Partiia Regionov i
Grigorishin. Rech Idiot o Desiatkakh Millionov Dollarov. Available at: http://lgrach.ru/index.php/
component/content/article/11-2/-2/7741-l-grach-u-simonenko-bylo-dva-istochnika-deneg-par
tiya-regionov-i-grigorishin-rech-idet-o-desyatkakh-millionov-dollarov. Accessed 14 September
2016.
Haran, O., & Belmeha, V. (2010). Livi ta Livotsentrystski Partii v Ukraini. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Ukraine Office.
Haran, O., & Maiboroda, O. (2000). Ukrainski livi: Mizh leninizmom i sotsial-demokratiieiu.KM
Academia.
Howard, M. M. (2003). The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-communist Europe. Cambridge
University Press.
690 V. Ishchenko
Ishchenko, V. (2011). Novi livi yak suspilnyi rukh u suspilstvi, shcho transformuietsia: na prykladi
Ukrainy (Doctoral dissertation). (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv).
Ishchenko, V. (2015). Kiev Has a Nasty Case of Anti-communist Hysteria. The Guardian.
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/18/ukraine-communist-party-ban-
hysteria. Accessed 20 November 2022.
Ishchenko, V. (2016a). Far Right Participation in the Ukrainian Maidan Protests: An Attempt of
Systematic Estimation. European Politics and Society, 17(4), 453–472.
Ishchenko, V. (2016b). The Ukrainian Left During and After the Maidan Protests: Study Requested
by the DIE LINKE Delegation in the GUE/NGL. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/204
45056/The_Ukrainian_Left_during_and_after_the_Maidan_Protests. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Ishchenko, V. (2017). The Ukrainian New Left and Student Protests: A Thorny Way to Hegemony.
In M. Wennerhag, C. Fröhlich, & G. Piotrowski (Eds.), Radical Left Movements in Europe
(pp. 211–229). Routledge.
Ishchenko, V. (2018a). Denial of the Obvious: Far Right in Maidan Protests and Their Danger Today.
Vox Ukraine. Available at: https://voxukraine.org/en/denial-of-the-obvious-far-right-in-maidan-
protests-and-their-danger-today/. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Ishchenko, V. (2018b). Nationalist Radicalisation Trends in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine. PONARS
Eurasia, Policy Memo 529. Available at: http://www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/nationalist-radica
lization-trends-post-euromaidan-ukraine. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Ishchenko, V. (2020a). Insufficiently Diverse: The Problem of Non-Violent Leverage and Radi-
calization of Ukraine’s Maidan Uprising, 2013–2014. Journal of Eurasian Studies, 11(2),
201–215.
Ishchenko, V. (2020b). Left Divergence, Right Convergence: Anarchists, Marxists, and Nationalist
Polarization in the Ukrainian Conflict, 2013–2014. Globalizations, 17(5), 820–839.
Ishchenko, V. (2022). Why Did Ukraine Suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ Parties? Al Jazeera.Avail-
able at: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-
parties. Accessed 20 November 2022.
Ishchenko, V., & Zhuravlev, O. (2021). How Maidan Revolutions Reproduce and Intensify
the Post-Soviet Crisis of Political Representation. PONARS Eurasia, Policy Memo 714.
Ava ila b l e at : https://www.ponarseurasia.org/how-maidan-revolutions-reproduce-and-intensify-
the-post-soviet-crisis-of-political-representation/. Accessed 18 November 2022.
Katchanovski, I. (2020). The Far Right, the Euromaidan, and the Maidan Massacre in Ukraine.
Journal of Labour and Society, 23(1), 5–29.
KPU. (2005). Komunistychna Partiia Ukrainy v Rezoliutsiiakh i Rishenniakh Zizdiv, Konferentsii i
Plenumiv TsK, 1992–2005.s.n.
KPU. (2011a). Komunistychna Partiia Ukrainy v Rezoliutsiiakh i Rishenniakh Zizdiv, Koferentsii i
Plenumiv TsK, 2005–2011. ADEF-Ukraina.
KPU. (2011b). Ot 42-go k 44-mu Siezdu. Informatsionnyie Materialy. s.n.
KPU. (2011c). Sorok Chetvertyi Zizd Komunistychnoi Partii Ukrainy, 18–19 chervnia 2011 r.
Stenohrafichnyi Zvit. Biznespolihraf.
KPU. (2014). Ot 44-go k 49-mu Siezdu. Informatsionnyie Materialy.s.n.
KPU. (2015). Sorok Deviatyi Siezd Kommunisticheskoi Partii Ukrainy, 27 dekabria 2014 goda.
Stenograficheskii Otchet. Biznespoligraf.
KPU. (2016a). Programma Kommunisticheskoi Partii Ukrainy. Avai l able a t :http://kpu.ua/ru/page/
programmakpu. Accessed 17 September 2016a.
KPU. (2016b). Statut Komunistychnoi Partii Ukrainy. Available at: http://kpu.ua/ru/page/statute.
Accessed 26 August 2016b.
KPU. (2019a). Pro Pidsumky Pershoho Turu Vyboriv Prezydenta Ukrainy. Zaiava Prezydii Tsen-
tralnoho Komitetu Kompartii Ukrainy. Available at: https://kpu.ua/ru/92559/pro_pidsumky_
pershogo_turu_vyboriv_prezydenta_ukrajiny_zajava_prezydiji_tsentralnogo_komitetu_kompar
tiji_ukrajiny. Accessed 2 April 2020.
23 Ukraine 691
KPU. (2019b). Vidnovyty Konstytutsiini Prava Kompartii Ukrainy. Prypynyty Peresliduvannia
Prohresyvnykh syl. Available at: https://kpu.ua/ru/93367/vidnovyty_konstytutsijni_prava_
kompartiji_ukrajiny_prypynyty_peresliduvannja_progresyvnyh_syl_zajava_prezydiji_tsentraln
ogo_komitetu_komunistychnoji_partiji_ukrajiny. Accessed 2 April 2020.
Kudelia, S., & Kuzio, T. (2014). Nothing Personal: Explaining the Rise and Decline of Political
Machines in Ukraine. Post-Soviet Affairs, 30(6), 250–278.
Leshchenko, S., Marchuk, A., & Musaeva-Borovik, S. (2016). Rukopisi ne goriat. Chernaia
bukhgalteriia Partii regionov: familii, daty, summy. [Online]. Available at: http://www.pravda.
com.ua/cdn/graphics/2016/05/black-pr/. Accessed 14 September 2016.
Mishchenko, M. (2014). Elektorat Parlamentskykh Vyboriv u Demohrafichnykh Vymirakh. In
Natsionalnyi Ekzyt-pol: Parlamentski Vybory (pp. 23–34). Fond ‘Demokratychni initsiatyvy
imeni Ilka Kucheriva’.
Musaieva-Borovik, S., & Sheremet, P. (2015). Konstantin Grigorishin: Pravitelstvo Yatseniuka
Vozglavliaiet Korruptsiiu. Ava i labl e a t: http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2015/09/29/708
2971/. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Narozhna, T. (2004). Foreign Aid for a Post-euphoric Eastern Europe: The Limitations of Western
Assistance in Developing Civil Society. Journal of International Relations and Development,
7(3), 243–266.
Obozrevatel. (2009). Simonenko Utverzhdaet, chto Grigorishin ne Finansiruet KPU. Ava ila b le at:
http://obozrevatel.com/news/2009/2/18/286915.htm. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Riabchuk, M. (2015). ‘Two Ukraines’ Reconsidered: The End of Ukrainian Ambivalence? Studies
in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 15(1), 138–156.
Symonenko, P. (2010). O Povyshenii Roli Pervichnykh Organizatsii v Borbe Partii za Sotsializm.
Available at: http://www.kpu.ua/o-povitshenii-roli-pervichnih-partijnih-organizatsij-v-borbe-
partii-za-sotsializm-d-o-k-l-a-d-pervogo-sekretarja-tsk-kompartii-ukraini-pn-simonenko-na-ple
nume-tsk-kompartii-ukraini-12-ijunja-2010-goda. Accessed 27 August 2016.
Symonenko, P. (2013a). Biudzhet – na Vnutripartiinyi Referendum. Available at: http://kpu.ua/ru/
65617/petr-simonenko-vse-sudbonosnye-voprosy-po-vole-naroda-byudzhet-na-vnutripartijnyj-
referendum. Accessed 27 August 2016.
Symonenko, P. (2013b). Boesposobnost Pervichek – Zalog Nashei Pobedy. Available at: http://
www.kpu.ua/ru/56021/boesposobnost-pervichek-zalog-nashej-pobedy-doklad-pervogo-sekret
arya-ck-kompartii-ukrainy-p-n-simonenko-na-majskom-2013b-goda-obedinennom-plenume-
ck-i-ckk-kpu. Accessed 27 August 2016.
Symonenko, P. (2016). O Deistviiakh Kompartii Ukrainy v Chrezvychainykh Usloviiakh Osushch-
estvleniia Natsistskim Rezhimom Dekommunizatsii. Available at: http://kpu.ua/ru/85108/o_dejs
tvyjah_kompartyy_ukrayny_v_chrezvychajnyh_uslovyjah_osuschestvlenyja_neonatsystskym_r
ezhymom_dekommunyzatsyy_doklad_pervogo_sekretarja_tsk_kpu_pnsymonenko_na_vneoch
erednom_52_sezde_kompartyy_ukrayny. Accessed 24 January 2017.
Tsakatika, M., & Lisi, M. (2013). Zippin up My Boots, Goin’ Back to My Roots’: Radical Left
Parties in Southern Europe. South European Society and Politics, 18(1), 1–19.
Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR. (2015). Joint Interim Opinion on the Law of Ukraine on
the Condemnation of the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) Regimes and Prohibition of
Propaganda of Their Symbols. Available at: http://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?
pdf=CDL-AD(2015)041-e. Accessed 7 July 2022.
Varga, M. (2014). Worker Protests in Post-communist Romania and Ukraine: Striking with Tied
Hands. Manchester University Press.
Vitrenko, N. (2016) Deiatelnost ‘Levoi Oppozitsii’ kak Politicheskoi Alternativy Ukrainskoi Vlasti
i Kursu Reform Razvalivaet Lider KPU Petr Simonenko. Zaiavlenie Prezidiuma TsK PSPU.
Ava ila b l e at : http://www.vitrenko.org/32460. Accessed March 30, 2020.
692 V. Ishchenko
Wilson, A. (1997). The Ukrainian Left. In Transition to Social-Democracy or Still in Thrall to the
USSR. Europe-Asia Studies, 49(7), 1293–1316.
Wilson, A. (2002). Reinventing the Ukrainian Left: Assessing Adaptability and Change, 1991–2000.
Slavonic and Eastern European Review, 80(1), 21–59.
Zimmer, K., & Haran, O. (2008). Unfriendly Takeover: Successor Parties in Ukraine. Communist
and Post-Communist Studies, 41, 541–561.
