1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

States, even if the Soviet failure is very clear in their minds. Despite the failure of the
Soviet leadership, the Socialist ideal still is very strong.
Q: Did Ukrainians – were their thoughts and their development in the post-Soviet period
paralleling what was happening, say, in Russia? It was sort of a post-Soviet development
rather than by different countries.
MILLER: What was a post-Soviet development?
Q: In other words, rethinking and the value of things and continuing the Socialist …
MILLER: Yes, it is post-Soviet throughout the former Soviet Union, definitely, because
up until the independence, the formal independence, December 25 th , 1991, and the
breakup of the Soviet Union, the end of the Soviet Union, the social infrastructure
systems worked, more or less. They worked best in Ukraine, compared to other parts of
the Soviet Union, for a number of reasons: Ukraine had more resources, it was always a
favored republic, and special attention was given because of its critical, strategic
importance, within the Soviet Union. A sizeable proportion of the Soviet leadership was
Ukrainian reflective of Ukraine’s importance within the Politburo and the Central
Committee. Ukraine’s importance was seen in the amount of effort that was made to
repair the damage of the second World War, which was greatest in Ukraine, more than
any other part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine lost more lives then any other republic, on the
fronts in Ukraine. I was very aware of the post-Soviet political and philosophical change
taking place. You could witness it in the former institute of philosophy which taught
Marxist, Leninist, Soviet philosophy. In Kiev, the Institute of Philosophy is still the main
place where bright students go to study philosophy, but they are now confronted with the
reality of the end of the Soviet Union and the necessity to deal with the emergence of a
new economic system, the requirement of building intellectual structures and structures
for daily life, and practical morality.
So what’s grown up alongside of this turmoil between Orthodox and radical new thinking
about the value of work, labor, contributions to society, what the social structure should
be, is the new new phenomenon of business, its management, reflected in a great,
flowering efflorescence of new western style business schools and management institutes.
Management for businessmen, being a really Western idea, is different, very different. Its
ideas about efficiencies and looking at the bottom line mentalities and end results. Social
purposes of work done in business are not a major part of the new management thinking.
You’re a manager, your task is to run an entity, trying to get a particular kind of work
done in a profitable way. How a business contributes to social well being or the stability
of the state, are secondary questions. So where is it that a comprehensive look at the new
Ukrainian society was taking place? Not many places. Legitimate profit; social
obligations of employers to workers; just taxation; what pensions should be paid to
workers by the state and by the employer; what benefits are the responsibilities of the
state as opposed to the individual; what is a just minimum wage; what is the composition
of the new class system since the classless society is no more. These are the issues that
202