33 years ago, the Communist Party was first banned in Ukraine. But the communists quickly returned and hardly turned their coats. Thatʼs how it was

On August 30, 1991, the Ukrainian parliament banned the activity of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and its property was sealed and handed over to the state. All because the then leaders of the Ukrainian branch of the Communist Party supported the putsch of SCSE in Moscow. But already in 1993, the communists returned: they simply re-registered the party and did not even change the name — the “Communist Party of Ukraine” (CPU). Since then, the new old Communist Party remained almost the main flagship of pro-Russian politics in Ukraine for almost 30 years, until it was finally banned in 2022. Babel tells the story of the 1st ban of the Communist Party of Ukraine, briefly mentions the 2nd and hopes that the 3rd will not be needed.

At the end of the 1980s, communist regimes began to fall one after another in Europe. The USSR also survived the last years — the "parade of sovereignties" began in the Soviet republics. In July 1990, Ukraine, the second largest and most important republic of the Union, took the first step towards independence — it announced the Declaration of State Sovereignty. In October 1990, students started the Revolution on Granite in Kyiv. Among other things, they demanded nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

The head of the Soviet Union at the time Mikhail Gorbachev was spinning as hard as he could. In order to at least somehow protect the state from complete collapse, he pushed through two revolutionary amendments to the Constitution of the USSR. First, he abolished the article on the leadership role of the Communist Party and created a new highest position in the state — the president, who was to be elected by popular vote. And also agreed to reformat the USSR into a confederation of sovereign states. The corresponding "union agreement" was planned to be signed on August 20, 1991.

The day before the signing — on August 19, 1991 — the leaders of the party, the army and KGB tried to seize power in Moscow in order to prevent the reformation of the USSR, and at the same time to preserve their positions, status and influence. But in three days the rebels were defeated. These events went down in history as the August Coup (or SCSE).

The failed coup finally undermined confidence to CPSU and its regional branches, in particular, to the Communist Party of Ukraine. The leadership of the Communist Party tried to distance itself from the putschists and on August 22 condemned the "adventurous attempt of an anti-state coup by a group that embarked on the path of gross violation of the Constitution of the USSR, disregard of the laws of the Soviet state, and the creation of anti-constitutional authorities." But it didnʼt help. The leader of the “Peopleʼs Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction” organization Vyacheslav Chornovil was the first to set an example. At that time, he was the head of the Lviv Regional Council, so on August 23, 1991, he banned the activities of the Communist Party on the territory of the region and ordered its premises to be sealed.

The next day, August 24, 1991, at an extraordinary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament), in addition to the question of independence, the involvement of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the putsch was also discussed. Then the head of the presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk supported the idea of creating a special commission for investigation. On the other hand, the Communists denied everything, complained about "undemocratic" pressure and justified themselves by saying that they had no ties with Moscow for a long time.

"It seems to me that someone wants to focus on one issue: if the Communist Party is not destroyed at this session, there can be no talk of independence or democracy. Comrades! Constantly, after 30-40 minutes, the issue of banning the activity of the party on the territory of Ukraine is imposed....Today, the Communist Party of Ukraine is almost on the verge of being defined as an independent Communist Party — it is a matter of days. And I urge everyone to exercise moderation," the first secretary of the central committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Stanislav Gurenko addressed his colleagues at the Council meeting on August 24. At the end of that day, there were not enough votes to create a commission.

In two days — on August 26 — the commission was still created. It was headed by a former prosecutor from Kharkiv Yurii Haisynskyi. On the same day, the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada temporarily suspended the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine until all the circumstances were clarified. The report of the commission was considered at the evening session of the parliament already on August 30. The main piece of evidence against the Communist Party of Ukraine was a cyphergram signed by its chairman Gurenko and his deputies, which they sent to party regional committees throughout Ukraine. It stated that the SCSE putschists should be supported as the new "leadership of the country" and that all their actions "correspond to the mood of the overwhelming majority of workers and are consistent with the principled position of the Communist Party of Ukraine." As a result, at the same meeting, the presidium adopted a decree banning the activity of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Its property and assets were transferred to the balance sheet of the Supreme and local councils, and later nationalized it.

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"I knew our history very well and I really didnʼt want a ʼwitch huntʼ to start in our country, and even with my submission....I felt anti-communist sentiments. But I wanted this not to be allowed at the state level....The right-wing canʼt forgive me to this day that I didnʼt put anyone against the wall, and the left -wing canʼt forgive me, because I was the main initiator of the ban on the Communist Party," recalled the head of the commission Haisynskyi in 1997.

However, until recently, the representatives of the main and only party in the country were not going to surrender. In 1993, after several congresses in Makiivka and Donetsk, they informed about the creation of a new Communist Party led by a member of the Donetsk party Petro Symonenko. The first attempt to register the party in the Ministry of Justice failed because the "new" Communist Party declared itself the legal successor of the banned Communist Party of Ukraine, which was part of CPSU. It was necessary to change the statute and indicate that the party is not the legal successor of the Communist Party of Ukraine within CPSU, but “an association of citizens with an identical name that is in no way related to it”.

Already in the first parliamentary elections of independent Ukraine in 1994, the Communist Party won the most seats in the Verkhovna Rasa among all other parties — 89. And in 2001, it managed to get the Constitutional Court to cancel the 1991 decree banning the Communist Party of Ukraine. Communist leader Symonenko ran several times for the presidency of Ukraine, and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada until 2014. In 2006, the Communist Party together with the “Social Party” and the “Party of Regions” formed a parliamentary coalition, through which Viktor Yanukovych became the prime minister. And in January 2014, the communists unanimously voted for "Dictatorship Laws" against the participants of the Revolution of Dignity.

The new old CPU was banned in 2015 on the basis of laws on decommunization. Of course, the communists tried to challenge the ban, flooding the Ukrainian courts with lawsuits. And their leader Symonenko even tried to run in the presidential elections in 2019, but the Central Election Commission did not register him. Only in 2022, all court appeals of the communists were rejected, the Communist Party was finally banned, and their assets were handed over to the state. By that time, Symonenko had already fled to Russia.

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