Україна та Польща
Ukraine and Poland

25 Years of Post-Communist Transit (Comparative Analysis)

Summary/Abstract: The key trend in the development of central Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 20th century was the destruction of the communist system based on the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, communist ideology, an authoritarian regime and a planned administrative economy. Like Poland, Ukraine underwent these transformations for 25 years. However, the course and results of these transformations were fundamentally different in Ukraine. These differences were due to various historical, political, social, economic and spiritual factors, different forces of infl uence on these transformational processes, as well as external and internal factors. The agenda for social change in Ukraine is much more complicated than in Poland, where the process of establishing democracy was primarily due to an external factor. The process of joining NATO and the European Union allowed Poland to compensate for the lack of a consolidated elite and the mass support from broad social strata. The very idea of membership of NATO and the EU has become the subject of consolidation of these elites. Ukraine has lost the possibility of such external support for democratic processes, at least in a certain historical period. Ukraine needs to take account of these historical, mental and geopolitical specifi cs. Thus, the historical priority tasks faced by Ukraine are: de-Sovietisation, decolonisation, de-Russifi cation, democratisation, de-oligarchization, Europeanisation and the formation of a powerful intellectual opposition, a consensus of the elites on the model of the future of Ukraine, and the development of a clear strategy for social change. Obviously, Ukraine itself should undergo the second round of transformations from authoritarianism and kleptocracy to democracy if it wants to remain an independent sovereign state and be preserved as a full Ukrainian nation.

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