In those febrile days of August 1991 when the hard-line communists made their attempt to oust Mikhail Gorbachev and re-impose the Soviet order, Ukraine shuddered. Many of her most vocal freedom-loving politicians, scientists, and artists had already shown their cards.
Seeing the cracks appear in the socialist edifice, they had stridden out into the light and now there was every chance that the brief glimmer of sunshine would be extinguished with horrendous personal consequences.
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It was not to be. The conservative coup failed on Aug. 22 and before another attempt could materialize, Ukraine grabbed its chance and declared independence on Aug. 24. In December that year, it would be ratified by an overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian population.
Western leaders at that time remained terrified of a disintegrating Soviet Union leading to mayhem, even rogue nuclear weapons. Uppermost in their thoughts, they did not want to be seen to be aiding and encouraging the end of the Soviet empire for fear that this apparent internal meddling would be interpreted as a direct attack on the Soviet Union itself.
It was within that hesitation, a diffidence which Ukraine has lamentably had to bear to the present day, that Western leaders did their best to distance themselves from independence.
On Aug. 1, 1991, US President George Bush spoke to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in Kyiv, and it is worth revisiting some of his words.
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“For those who love freedom,” he said, “every experiment in building an open society offers new lessons and insights. You face an especially daunting task. For years, people in this nation felt powerless, overshadowed by a vast government apparatus, cramped by forces that attempted to control every aspect of their lives.”
Then Bush probed the meaning of the word ‘freedom’ and to that complex question, he said that when Americans think of freedom: “…we refer to people’s abilities to live without fear of government intrusion, without fear of harassment by their fellow citizens, without restricting others’ freedoms. We do not consider freedom a privilege, to be doled out only to those who hold proper political views or belong to certain groups. We consider it an inalienable individual right, bestowed upon all men and women.”
But after that invocation, one which still resonates, Bush took a different turn, and one that might have seemed disappointing, even contradictory, to those listening:
“Yet freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”
His insistence that it is a poor bargain to replace the chains of a distant power with a local tyranny was undoubtedly true. His fear that the kick-back against decades of Soviet domination and brutality would lead to a particularly rampant revanchist nationalism is perhaps not completely unreasonable, at least seen from the viewpoint of a Western leader cautious of what he might ignite in the corridors of Moscow with a more jingoistic message of support.
Freedom is not the same as independence. This is undoubtedly true. In fact, one might say that it is trivially the case. Many nations that have degraded into autocracy have been independent. Dictatorship often emerges most effectively in nations that isolate themselves from the rest of the world, like North Korea in the present day. Authoritarianism can sometimes be the product of too much independence, too much separation from the rest of humanity.
It is through the mechanisms of international trade, political discourse, and all the interdependent links that emerge from these processes that we maximize our choices and freedoms. When we let go of a little of our independence, we often gain enormous advantages in political and economic liberty.
So, independence does not automatically create freedom, but surely it is the case that freedom cannot exist without independence. And this second truth is hardly one that needs explaining to Ukrainians.
Even within the most benevolent empire, if you are forever beholden to the goodwill of your master, no matter how generously they treat your history and culture, you are as good as enslaved. For at any time, they can withdraw their goodwill and impose draconian rule. It is the mere possibility, the implicit threat, of this coercion that shackles the mind.
I happened to be in Poland in January 1989 as a 21-year-old undergraduate on the evening that General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the communist party leader, announced that talks would begin to end the communist monopoly on power.
The following morning, the atmosphere had noticeably transformed. People spoke with an ease and a cheeriness that I had not seen before. The cautious looks and sideways glances had gone overnight. Of course, this was not national independence, Poland already had that, but it was independence of a sort, an independence from monopolistic state power reinforced by a distant overlord.
Something milder struck me when I was in Moscow on a secondary school trip to the Soviet Union in 1984, a month after Soviet leader Yuri Andropov had died. Even before Gorbachev, one could sense a frisson of something stirring beneath the rigid monolithic exterior of the communist state.
Yet again, I experienced the same phenomenon when I arrived in Ulaanbaatar at the end of July 1990 to lead a zoology expedition across the steppes and deserts of the Mongolian People’s Republic. That happened to be two days after the first free elections, liberating the country from 69 years of communism. All these experiences stand out as the most interesting of my student days and they certainly influenced my political views.
Liberation is as much about psychology as it is about political decisions, which is why freedom can emerge from independence surprisingly quickly.
No number of reforms from Gorbachev, no elaboration of respect for Ukraine’s historical trajectory would have been sufficient to numb that enthusiasm for liberty that came into bloom on Aug. 24, because freedom cannot find its fullest expression when ringfenced by political and economic dependence.
In August of a different year, 1947, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave a famous speech on the cusp of Indian independence. He declared: “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”
There is no hyperbole in his ‘tryst with destiny’ speech. He too recognised the rapidity with which a free mind can emerge from a state of independence.
It seems to me that this is also what Ukraine celebrates today. Not only the political fact of independence, but that flight of spirit, the freedom that cannot be expressed and is subdued, even when political independence is achieved, if the watchful eye of a foreign power remains. This is what Ukraine fights for now.
To give Bush his due, on that significant afternoon in 1991, he paraphrased Taras Shevchenko with his words about independence, which were prophetic in the light of what was to occur a mere three weeks later. Shevchenko’s poem remains striking and especially relevant today:
Do not try to seek
Do not ask in foreign lands
For what can never be
Even in heaven, let alone
In a foreign region.
In one’s own house: one’s own truth
One’s own might and freedom.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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