Nothing but the truth: At Kravchuk’s funeral

Tomorrow the funeral of Leonid Kravchuk will take place in Kyiv.  “It’s either good about the dead, or nothing but the truth,” the ancients said. The last part of this statement is often forgotten, but that's the point. One can hardly say much good about the recently deceased first president of Ukraine. But it would be wrong not to say anything. He played a significant role in history. And if so, we will speak only the truth.

Leonid Makarovich was born in 1934 into a peasant family. The native village of the future president was located in that part of Volyn, which was then part of Poland. By origin, Kravchuk belonged to the Ukrainians or, more correctly, to the Little Russians. That is, to the ethnic group that was considered a national minority in Poland. In no case could he count on a brilliant career if, five and a half years after his birth, Poland had not ceased to exist. Western Volyn, together with other regions of Western Ukraine, became part of the USSR.

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It was only later, in his declining years, that Kravchuk would begin to call the Soviet period of Ukrainian history “occupation.” Previously he had a different opinion. During the “Soviet occupation,” Leonid Makarovich lived quite well. He graduated from the best university in the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev University. For six months (according to other sources – a year and a half) he worked as a teacher at a provincial technical school. And then he began to pursue a Communist Party career. Starting as an ordinary propagandist, Kravchuk moved up the party line to the position of second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In 1990, from the Communist Party majority in the Verkhovna Rada, he was nominated for the post of its chairman. And thus he became the highest official in the then Soviet republic.

During the so-called “putsch” of August 19-21, 1991, Leonid Makarovich took a wait-and-see position, quite loyal to the “putschists”. And although he later said that in protest against the “coup” on August 20 he wrote a statement about leaving the Communist Party, he did not announce this “statement.” Even a few days later, he still took part in a meeting of the Communist Party Politburo. And only when he was convinced that the defeat of the Communist Party was irreversible, he suddenly “remembered” his exit from it. And he immediately initiated a ban on this party.

After the failure of the “putsch,” he passed through the Verkhovna Rada the decision to declare the independence of Ukraine.

On December 1 of the same year, Kravchuk confidently (already in the first round) won the first presidential elections in Ukraine. This is understandable. Compared to other real candidates (yesterday's dissidents) Leonid Makarovich was considered a moderate politician. And his Communist Party past seemed to voters a sufficient guarantee against radical change.

It didn't turn out that way at all. Having become president, Kravchuk actually began to implement the program of his yesterday's election competitors. It was he who began forced Ukrainization. It was he who slowly but surely alienated Ukraine from other former Soviet republics (primarily from Russia). It was he who supported the attempt to liquidate the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine, replacing it with a kind of surrogate - the “Kyiv Patriarchate”, which had nothing to do with the Church, but was “nationally oriented”.

At the same time, there was a complete collapse of the Ukrainian economy. Having promised before the elections to turn the country into a second France, Leonid Makarovich quickly reduced it to the state of the most backward African states. The standard of living of the population fell rapidly. Naturally, this caused mass indignation, which resulted in an all-Ukrainian miners' strike in 1993.

To reassure the people, Kravchuk agreed to early elections of parliament and president (parliament first!). True, later, when the parliamentary elections were already scheduled, Leonid Makarovich tried to cancel the presidential elections. But the heads of the security agencies could not guarantee him that they would be able to ensure order in Ukraine in the event of popular unrest.

Kravchuk had to go to the polls. He still hoped to falsify their results, but something went wrong. Even many members of his administration refused to support him. Leonid Makarovich lost the elections to Leonid Kuchma.

This would have been the end of his political life, but, as people say, people like that don’t drown. Kravchuk entered parliament at the next by-election. He became the informal leader of the “national democrats” who were going to become the opposition to the pro-Russian (as many thought) course of the new president.

However, it soon became clear that Kuchma was just as “pro-Russian” as Kravchuk. “National Democrats” began to run over to him. Kravchuk turned out to be a “general without an army.” But he didn’t drown here either.

He was picked up by the Social Democratic Party (United). With this party he served in parliament for two more parliamentary terms. And then, as a former president, he began to play the role of a sage, an adviser to the authorities.

The most interesting thing is that the direction of development of Ukraine, set by Kravchuk when he was head of state, ensured the steady degeneratization of power. Each new president turned out to be worse than the previous one. In accordance with this trend, Kravchuk could be considered the best against the general background. True, this did not provide him with popular love. Many would like to see him in the dock. Did not work out.

_{Now he faces another trial. More fair. And Leonid Makarovich cannot avoid this trial.}