Alexandr Gorobets: In Ukraine, left-wing forces held a mass meeting, piqueting state offices, while anti-Communists held a hearing about the prohibition of the Communist Party

Yesterday, in Ukraine, as in previous years, traditional mass demonstrations devoted to Great October Socialist Revolution’s anniversary took place. Though, it should be noticed that they were the most scanty over the whole history of the Great October demonstrations.

The question is why the Ukrainian Socialist Party, headed by Alexandr Moroz, which regards itself as the left flank of today's political scene did not join theCommunists with red flags and portraits of Lenin. This breakup has lasted for some time, and now it has finished with the day when socialists did not come to the meetings. Instead, they organized a piqueting of the Cabinet of Ministers, demanding a moratorium for increasing utilities’ prices, while in the cities Belya Tserkov, Marganets. and some others, camps were set up in central squares, with demands to cancel overstated payments for heat, water, electricity, and other utilities. In the evening, in the art club “Poslednyaya Barrikada” (Last Barricade), the Socialist Party’s leaders carried out a dispute about the history and significance of the October Revolution for the fates of the planet and Ukraine. Representatives of students also took part in the dispute.

In Kiev, a column of demonstrators of about 3,000 people, after passing through central streets of the capital, carried out a 1.5-hour meeting in Yevropeiskaya Squar before the “Ukrainian House," where earlier Lenin’s museum was situated. At first, a small group of Socialist Party’s members were in the column that took part in the demonstration without permission of the party’s leaders. The Communist Party’s representatives, who spoke at the meeting, urged tje unification of the left-wing forces before the coming parliament election of 2002, to kep the right-wing and of pro-presidential parties from penetrating into the parliament. The communists’ leader Peter Simonenko, while speaking before the crowd, blamed the current powers for still continuing the disintegration of Ukrainian economy. “The powers carries out a policy of the people’s servitude. We blame Kuchma’s criminal regime,” Peter Simonenko said. He also accused the powers of servility before the International Currency Foundation and demanded US Ambassador Carlos Pasqual to be expelled from the country, as he is not supposed to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

Double barriers were set up around the demonstrators, while approaches to the square were being controlled by the police. According to law enforcers who gave a press conference in the evening, on this day, in contrast to previous years, no disorders were registered. Even in Lvov, where nationalists were expected to scuffle with left-wing groups, which is usual in recent years, excesses were avoided.

On November 7, in Kiev, in a building situated near Yevropeiskaya Square, were the left were celebrating October Revolution’s anniversary, the so-called international public trial of Communist Party of the Soviet Union took place and accused the party of crimes against Ukrainians on Ukrainian territory. The aim of the action, according to its organizers, was an attempt to forbid the Communist Party’s, which is supposedly organizes illegal actions and violates the Ukrainian constitution. Moreover, according to the organizers, the Communist Party’s members urge the annihilation of the Ukrainian state and the cancellation of fundamental law.

According to some observers, in previous years, the right has organized mass anti-October actions. However, with each passing year, they have been able to gather less and less people. And after Vyacheslav Chernovol’s death, these actions became very scanty. That was why, yesterday, such a spectacle was organized.

The “international” public was represented by a Pavel Sennik, head of secretariat of Ukrainian Nationalists’ Moscow Organization. Together with local activists of the movement for the Communist Party’s prohibition, Levko Lukyanenko and Les Tanyuk, he demanded that the authorities execute the left for its political position.

Alexandr Gorobets PRAVDA.Ru Kiev

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/08/33521.html

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