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

sense. There are Ukrainian nationalists who are ultras and hold a kind of monarchist
view. What they all shared, all Ukrainian nationalists, with very few exceptions, what
they all shared in 1991, '92, and '93 was the goal of independence from Moscow. Also,
they supported the idea of non violence. Of course, they all said they wanted a peaceful
life and positive change from the old system, even though Soviet Ukraine for the most
part had achieved a stability after all of the terrible wars, world wars, civil wars, famines,
and the gulag. Ukraine was settling into a kind of Soviet prosperity when the change and
collapse of the Soviet Union took place in 1991.
A substantial minority, of the Soviet government in Moscow was composed of
Ukrainians particularly from the Khrushchev period on. About 40 percent of the top
leadership were Ukrainian. This was also true in the military leadership. A substantial
minority in the security forces of KGB, the economists, every part of Soviet life had a
substantial Ukrainian component, that is, people of Ukrainian origin. So they were part
and parcel of the Soviet system that existed at the end of the '80s, beginning of the '90s.
Kuchma was an example par excellence of the Soviet system: village boy, young pioneer,
Komsomol, engineer, working for the nation, for the Soviet Union, succeeding and
climbing step by step to the top of the heap in the military-industrial complex. So he was
respected, a man of proven talent, not outspoken, not dynamic, but he was someone the
Ukrainian people thought who would have the needed experience and stability.
Kuchma was prime minister for a relatively short time, but then resigned under the
pressure of economic crisis. The collapse of the Soviet economic system had terrible
effect on all Ukrainians. The collapse, which included hyper-inflation of over 10,000
percent, reduced the wellbeing of Soviet citizens, within a year or two, to 40 percent of
the level that they were living under at the end of the Soviet Union. This trough, this
collapse, lasted for several years. The economy began to climb upward after 1998, but has
not yet approached the levels of 1991.
Kuchma was one of the Ukrainian leaders that were known to the public as a whole,
known to be Ukrainian, also known to be a top of the heap Soviet leader, and as a result,
he was seen as a natural leader in the transition democratically elected parliament. He was
also termed one of the “Red directors”, this class of people who managed the major
industries and factories of Ukraine. “Red directors” was a term used throughout the
Soviet Union, describing the managers of the military-industrial complex. They were a
very powerful group. They organized themselves into a lobby, something like the
National Association of Manufacturers here, the NAM. They called themselves the
Association of Entrepreneurs. By using a bourgeois word like “entrepreneur”, they
softened the Soviet image the “Red directors” had. The “Red directors”, were, in fact, in
the process of taking over ownership of the Soviet plants for themselves. The “Red
directors” were the new group of leaders of the new economy. It is in that role that I first
med Kuchma, as the president of the Association of Entrepreneurs – in his very elaborate
office on Kreshatik, the main street of Kyiv. I was impressed with his very bright staff of
former Komsomol leaders, including Dmitro Tabachnyk who became his chief of staff,
and a number of others who also were his key staff aides when Kuchma became
217