1 INTRODUCTION East and West options exist. North and South cannot be the primary geopolitical orientations. They can be a useful complement to the European choice of Ukraine. Choosing the right option and transforming it into reality is a vital question for Ukraine. It is a choice for the future nature of the societal architecture/order, a choice of values (Weltanschauung), of political institutions, of an economic system, of the structure of social relationships, of the role of the individual in society/ of the nature and the control of power, of economic efficacy and social justice. In fact the choice may determine the very existence of Ukraine as a distinctive, sovereign, and free society. It is a question of to be or not to be. h t t p : / / w w w . j i - m a g a z i n e . l v i v . u a
There has been built a very ineffective form of bureaucratic capitalism in Ukraine. This is explained first by objective reasons, and only then by the errors made by the reformers. To mend the situation, it is necessary that the state machine ceases to cater to the benefits of the bureaucracy, thus becoming a means of achieving goals that are beneficial to the society. Further delay threatens the existence of the Ukrainian state.
THE STEPS AND THE DYNAMICS OF THE CHANGES Of all the post-Socialist states, the transformation of the planning type of economy into an economy of the market type is executed in the most complicated way which requires maximum expenditures in the productive and social spheres. The indices of economic decline are the worst among the member-states of the CIS states, including those that have endured armed conflicts. In the CIS countries, from 1991 to 1999 the average decrease of officially declared yearly gross product per capita amounted to 37 per cent,
2 THE EASTERN OPTIONS: CIS AND E.S.LJ. 1. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is not. the type of entity which is capable of acting as a genuinely integrative institution that could lead to the creation of a type of European Union, a Eurasian union comprising Eastern European, Eurasian and Central Asian states, in ail 12 republics of the former Soviet Union. All but one of these countries have been conquered by force, subdued to tsarist imperial and later to Soviet rule, integrated politically and economically to make them indissociable. Yet, they did dissociate. The CIS was seen by Ukraine as a friendly divorce procedure and not as a way to resuscitate the Soviet Union, which was dying peacefully. Ukraine is even now just an associate member of CIS. CIS can, at best, become an uncommon common market. 2. A Slavic Union: Is it an option? What are the driving forces/ advantages, and constraints? The only realistic Eastern option can thus be a Slavic Union. More correctly such an entity would have to be called E.S.U, i.e. Eastern Slavic Union. The
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while in Ukraine it was 53 per cent. Almost all CIS countries renewed their economic growth by 1997, but in Ukraine the very first signs of growth appeared only at the end of 1999. The share of Ukraine in the total CIS bulk production was reduced from 14.5 per cent in 1991 to 10.1 per cent in 1998. The drop of industrial and agrarian production as well as of the volume of transport services has exceeded 50 per cent. The living standards of the population have drastically declined. At the beginning of the nineties, most foreign experts considered Ukraine to be quite ready for implementation of a market type economy. It is obvious that the poor results cited above could be explained only by the particular economic policy of the past decade. In 1991-1992, being de facto within the common economic area with Russia, Ukraine had to duplicate the steps of the Ye. Gaidar government. From the end of 1992 to the end of 1994, there was a period of ‘reformers’ eclecticism’: along with the continuation of slow reorganization in the field of property and creation of market infrastructures. There were attempts to recreate the policy of rigid state control over the economics. The role of the traditional structures based on ministries and departments was reinforced, a strict system of state regulation of prices and of the currency market was implemented along with some elements