Socialist Party of Ukraine
Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox political party The Socialist Party of Ukraine (Template:Langx, abbreviated SPU) was a social democratic<ref name="Nordsieck">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and democratic socialist<ref name="Nordsieck"/> political party in Ukraine. It was one of the oldest parties in Ukraine and was created by former members of the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine in late 1991, when the Communist Party was banned.<ref name=ZN.UAbio>Template:Cite news</ref>
Involved in a number of popular protest movements in the early 2000s, it was third and fourth largest party in parliament during its time in parliament. The party entered government for the first time as part of a coalition with Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc in 2005, but its decision to form a government with the opposing Party of Regions and the re-founded Communist Party of Ukraine in 2006 caused significant damage to the party's credibility.<ref name=Anders/> Despite historically strong support in the central regions of Ukraine, it failed to pass the 3% threshold to enter parliament in the 2007 parliamentary elections. From then onwards, the party's electoral results became increasingly marginal and it failed to win any seats in subsequent elections.
The party's founder, Oleksandr Moroz, was elected Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, in 1994 and played a key role in the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine. He led the party for more than 20 years until his resignation in 2012, after which the party became embroiled in a long-lasting leadership struggle. In 2017, the party was taken over by a former member of the far-right Right Sector, Illia Kyva. It participated in the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections without any success.
The party was suspended in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and banned by a court decision on 15 June 2022.<ref name="SPU80005"/>
History
Creation
Following Ukraine's independence on 24 August 1991,<ref name=Magocsi>A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples by Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press, 2010, Template:ISBN (page 722/723)</ref> Leonid Kravchuk as the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) signed several important documents among which was the disbandment (26 August) and later the prohibition (30 August) of communist parties. This led to the collapse of the communist-majority faction, informally known as the "group of 239", led by Oleksandr Moroz.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Four days after the prohibition of communist parties, Moroz called on communists to unite in a new left-wing party. The founding congress of the party was held in Kyiv on 26 October 1991 and Moroz was elected leader. The party's programme, approved at a second congress held in November 1992, emphasised the party's status as the successor to the Communist Party of Ukraine and proclaimed the party's goal of achieving socialism through "people's democracy".<ref name="ZN.UAbio" />
1990s
In 1993, the party experienced a mass exodus of members when the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU), which claimed to be the direct successor of the Soviet-era Communist Party, was formed in June. The situation was so severe that several of the party's regional organisations had ceased to exist and the continued existence of the party was put into question at an extraordinary congress, but those who supported merging into the Communist Party remained in the minority.<ref name=ZN.UAbio/> In total, some 40,000 members, or half the party's membership, left for the refounded KPU.<ref name="Wilson2" />
In December 1993, the party entered the opposition to the administration of prime minister Leonid Kuchma and president Leonid Kravchuk,<ref name=LigabioSPU>Template:In lang Short bio, Liga.net</ref> but by this point Kuchma had already resigned as prime minister.
In March 1994, the party participated in the country's first parliamentary election since independence and won 14 seats, becoming the fourth-largest party in the Verkhovna Rada behind the Communist Party, People's Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), and the Peasant Party of Ukraine (SelPU).<ref>Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century by Richard Crampton and Ben Crampton, 1997, Routledge, Template:ISBN, page 277</ref> By mid-1994, the party controlled a parliamentary faction of 25 deputies,<ref>Political parties of the world by Alan J. Day and Henry W. Degenhardt, 2002, John Harper Publishing, Template:ISBN, Page 479</ref> as deputies from other parties, especially those from the Peasant Party of Ukraine (SelPU) opted to sit with the Socialists, and Moroz was elected Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (speaker of parliament) with the support of Communist deputies.<ref name="ZN.UAbio" />
In the 1994 presidential election held in June, Moroz was the sole left-wing candidate and received the support of both the Communist Party, and the Peasant Party, but garnered just 13.3% of the vote and failed to advance past the first round of voting. Moroz himself did not endorse either Kravchuk or Kuchma in the second round,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the party's central leadership left the decision of who to endorse for the presidency to individual branches. Most followed the Communist Party in supporting Kuchma, the eventual winner.<ref name="ZN.UAbio" /> During the election, Moroz campaigned for transforming Ukraine into a parliamentary republic, prohibiting the sale of land, and a "state-regulated market".<ref name=Anders>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Over the course of Moroz's term as chairman, relations between himself and Kuchma became increasingly strained. The duo notably clashed on the issue of constitutional reform; Kuchma favoured increasing the power of the presidency and transforming Ukraine into a unitary state, while Moroz and the left-wing in parliament sought to empower parliament and advocated decentralisation. The adoption of a temporary, Template:Ill in June 1995 did not ease tensions, and Moroz repeatedly rebuffed efforts to pass "pro-presidential" drafts of a basic law. The semi-presidential republican constitution, a compromise, was eventually adopted by parliament with the necessary two-thirds majority in June 1996.<ref name="ZN.UAbio" /><ref name="Anders" />
In February 1996, Nataliya Vitrenko was expelled from the party over disputes with Moroz and the rest of the leadership concerning the party's political programme which she believed deviated from socialist ideals.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> She and Volodymyr Marchenko, who was also expelled from the party, founded the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine a month later in April 1996.<ref name=ZN.UAbio/>
In the run up to the 1998 parliamentary election, attempts to form a coalition with the Communist Party had failed<ref name=ZN.UAbio/> and the party instead contested alongside the Peasant Party of Ukraine in an electoral alliance called For Truth, For the People, For Ukraine (Za pravdu, za narod, za Ukrainu), later known as Left Center.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="sdnet">Template:In lang Соціалістична партія України, sd.net.ua (4 September 2009)</ref> The bloc managed to secure 8.55% of the votes, 29 proportional seats, and 5 constituencies out of 450 in the Verkhovna Rada.<ref name="ZN.UAbio" /> The bloc gained the position of Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (speaker of parliament) when Peasant Party chairman Oleksandr Tkachenko was elected to the post.<ref name="LigabioSPU" /><ref name="UUPAnie2">Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, Template:ISBN, page 86</ref> The Peasant Party later started its own parliamentary faction with 15 deputies in the autumn of 1998 but disbanded in 2000<ref name="UUPAnie">Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="PSTRSol">Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition by Roman Solchanyk, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001 Template:ISBN</ref> as many of the Peasant Party's deputies followed their faction leader Template:Ill into the newly formed pro-presidential Solidarity led by Petro Poroshenko.<ref name=TKSolPor>Ukrainian Political Update Template:Webarchive by Taras Kuzio and Alex Frishberg, Frishberg & Partners, 21 February 2008 (page 22)</ref>
For the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election, Moroz was a member of the "Kaniv Four", an alliance of presidential hopefuls that included former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Marchuk, Mayor of Cherkasy Volodymyr Oliynyk, and the Peasant Party's Oleksandr Tkachenko. The four agreed to support Marchuk as the joint candidate after protracted negotiations, but the alliance fell apart when Moroz abruptly announced his decision to stand for election.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Despite being considered the most likely candidate to defeat Kuchma, Moroz failed to advance past the first round of voting, having come third with only 11.29% of the vote. Plagued by allegations of electoral fraud,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhy Yekelchyk, Oxford University Press, 2015, Template:ISBN, page 87</ref> Kuchma also faced accusations of having funded the Progressive Socialist Party in order split the left-wing vote.<ref>Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, Template:ISBN, page 87</ref>
2000s
During the 2000s, the party was member to a series of protests and conflicts in opposition to the presidency of Kuchma and pro-Kuchma parties. It opposed the 2000 Ukrainian constitutional referendum called by Kuchma with the intention of expanding the powers of the presidency and decreasing that of the Ukrainian parliament. While the amendments were approved by voters, their implementation was obstructed when Kuchma was implicated in the Cassette Scandal, also known as Kuchmagate. Moroz publicly accused Kuchma of being involved in the disappearance and murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, who had been found decapitated in Kyiv. He played select recordings that supposedly proved Kuchma ordered the abduction of Gongadze to journalists using a cassette player, which earned the scandal its name.<ref name="LigabioSPU" />
The resultant Ukraine without Kuchma (UBK) protest campaign ended when it was violently dispersed by the Militsiya, the national police force, in March 2001.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> One of the party's members who gained national prominence as a result of his involvement in the protests, Yuriy Lutsenko, would later become the minister of internal affairs under the government of Yulia Tymoshenko as well as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Separately, a group of former party members consisting of Template:Ill, Template:Ill, Template:Ill, and Vasyl Aresto, founded the splinter All-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice" in April 2000.<ref name="ZN.UAbio" /> As members of the Socialist Platform, they had been expelled for their opposition to Moroz's reforms within the party.<ref name="Wilson2" />
During the election campaign for the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, opposition parties and candidates were afforded little media access,<ref>Ukraine's election frontrunners, BBC News (28 March 2002)</ref> and the party's youth wing endorsed the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), a member of the pro-Kuchma alliance led by Viktor Medvedchuk.<ref name="LigabioSPU" /> Nevertheless, the party managed to secure 6.9% of the popular vote, and 20 proportional seats seats, and 3 constituencies. The Union of Young Socialists was founded as the party's new youth organisation the same year and led by Oleksandr Starynets, a former first secretary of Komsomol of Ukraine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The party was a participant in the Rise up, Ukraine! protests which called for early presidential elections.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The party was a participant in the Orange Revolution in 2004, a series of protests sparked by the fraudulent results of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Moroz had been the party's candidate but shifted his support to Viktor Yushchenko after garnering just 5.82% of the vote in the first round. The election's initial result, which gave the victory to Kuchma-supported Viktor Yanukovych was contested by international observers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Yushchenko was declared the winner of the re-run, and Yanukovych resigned as prime minister to allow for the appointment of a new coalition government led by Yulia Tymoshenko, which counted the Socialist Party alongside Our Ukraine, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, and the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine. The government's inauguration was the first time the party held power as part of the executive branch of the central government. It received three ministerial portfolios, with Stanislav Nikolaenko assuming the position of Minister of Education and Science, Yuriy Lutsenko as Minister of Internal Affairs, and Oleksandr Baranivsky as Minister of Agrarian Affairs. The coalition was replicated at the regional level, with the party gaining the position of chairman of the regional state administration in two oblasts, as well as the appointment of Valentyna Semenyuk-Samsonenko as director of the State Property Fund of Ukraine.<ref name="LigabioSPU" /> The party retained its position in the succeeding Yekhanurov government, which had come to power in the aftermath of a power struggle between the head of the National Security and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, who was dismissed as prime minister as a result.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2005, the Ukrainian Party of Justice - Union of veterans, handicapped, Chornobyl liquidators, and Afghan warriors merged into the Socialist Party.
The party and Moroz played a key role in the 2006 Ukrainian political crisis. Negotiations to re-form an "orange" coalition after the March 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election between the Socialist Party, Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc were complicated by mutual distrust and disputes over the allocation of positions in government;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Moroz supported Tymoshenko's claim to the premiership, and she in turn supported Moroz's candidacy as chairman of the Verkhovna Rada,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but Tymoshenko herself was unpopular among Socialist Party members,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while Our Ukraine held counter negotiations with Yanukovych's Party of Regions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Three months of negotiations seemed to close to an end after Moroz announced he would no longer seek the chairmanship and promised to support Our Ukraine's presumptive candidate, Yury Yekhanurov,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> paving the way for the coalition's confirmation on 21 June.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> However, when Petro Poroshenko was revealed as Our Ukraine's candidate, Moroz submitted his own candidacy and was elected with the support of deputies from the Socialist Party, Party of Regions, and the Communist Party,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which formed the basis for the creation of the Anti-Crisis Coalition. Moroz would justify the turnabout by claiming Our Ukraine had intentionally engineered the coalition's breakup by nominating a candidate it knew the party couldn't accept, and had planned to use that as their justification for entering into an alliance with the Party of Regions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The party's decision to walk back on its agreement with its erstwhile "orange" allies proved controversial and had a lasting impact on the party's image, as it was now seen as traitorous and corrupt.<ref name=Anders/> High-ranking members including then-minister for interior affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, who would go on to lead Yuriy Lutsenko's People's Self-Defense,<ref name="LigabioSPU" /> party first secretary Yosip Vinsky, who would go on to join Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna, as well as Halyna Garmash, a member of the party's political council, all resigned from the party in its immediate aftermath. Furthermore, a study conducted by the Gorenshin Institute in November 2006 showed that the party had lost much of its support in its traditional heartland in central Ukraine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When a power struggle between Yanukovych and Yushchenko led to the 2007 Ukrainian political crisis<ref>Q&A: Ukrainian parliamentary poll , BBC News (1 October 2007)</ref> and a snap election in September the same year, the party's vote share collapsed. It received just 2.86% of the national vote, 0.14% short of the minimum 3% threshold for entry into parliament.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Much of the criticism for the poor electoral result within the party was directed against Yaroslav Mendus, who was in charge of the party's campaign during the election, and the party's "grey cardinals".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Others in the leadership such as Valentina-Semenyuk and Mykhailo Melnychuk were similarly targeted.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Their critics included well-known members of the party such as Volodymyr Boyko, a red director and a major financial contributor to the party,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> youth leader Yevhen Filindash, and former ministers Stanislav Nikolaenko, and Oleksandr Baranivsky.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, no changes were ultimately made to the composition of the party's leadership in that year's congress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Continued dissension within the party culminated in the expulsion of Nikolaenko and Baranivsky, who alongside Mykola Sadovy, were branded "schismatics" by Moroz. Both Nikolaenko and Baranivsky had previously put forward a programme to reform the party at a congress in April 2008, advocating the introduction of a two-term limit for both the party's leader and head of the central control commission, the party's disciplinary body. They also proposed introducing secret ballots for elections, purportedly with the aim of removing Moroz from the leadership. The two would go on to join the splinter "Justice" party along with some 300 members in March 2009. Other critical figures such as Yevhen Filindash left the party in April 2008. Mykola Sadovy was handed a reprimand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In a press conference in November 2009, Moroz stated he had no regrets about joining the Anti-Crisis Coalition, saying: "I'm not ashamed but proud of the fact that I managed to halt the crisis of power. The economy operated normal and, the parliament adopted 80% of the laws [it considered] by a constitutional majority of votes. We were close to the decentralization of power. That's why Tymoshenko and Yushchenko's supporters forced the president to dismiss the parliament and remove me and my political forces illegally".<ref>Moroz says he was responsible for formation of anti-crisis coalition with Regions Party and Communist Party, Kyiv Post (30 November 2009)</ref>
2010s
The party nominated Moroz as their candidate in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and garnered just 0.4% of the vote. The election was eventually won by Viktor Yanukovych.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Moroz stepped down as leader in July 2010 and was replaced by Vasyl Tsushko, the incumbent minister for the economy in the Azarov government. Moroz was made the party's honorary leader.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The other candidates included Mykola Rudkovsky, one of the party's financers holding the position of first secretary of the political council, Viktor Subotin, the general manager of Turboatom, and Valentina-Semenyuk.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The party's electoral misfortunes continued in that year's local elections, where just 38 councilors from the party were elected across 11 oblasts and three city councils. It performed the best in the Chernihiv and Poltava Oblasts where the party won 11% and 5.8% of the votes respectively.<ref>Template:In lang Results of the elections, preliminary data, on interactive maps by Ukrainska Pravda (8 November 2010)</ref>
Tsushko himself resigned as leader in July 2011, citing the difficulty of combining his position in government as head of the Anti-Monopoly Committee with party responsibilities. Sources within the party claimed the true reason was Tsushko's deteriorating health.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the leadership election held afterward, Moroz, who ran on a platform of bringing the party into opposition to the Azarov government, managed to defeat Rudkovsky, who was alleged to have the backing of the ruling Party of Regions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
That same month, the party was reported to have been expelled from the Socialist International for failing to comply with "the fundamental values and principles of the International".<ref>Template:In lang Партію Мороза виключили з Соцінтерну, Ukrainska Pravda (3 July 2011)</ref> However, the minutes of the meeting where the decision was undertaken showed that the party had been expelled "due to not being actively engaged in SI activities, having no representation, or not having paid membership fees for some time".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Rudkovsky left the party in December 2011 after a planned merger of 11 left-wing parties failed, accusing Moroz of sabotaging the unification process to maintain his cult of personality.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The party had been member to an agreement announced in November that year which would have seen ten other left-wing parties merge into the Socialist Party, whereupon it would adopt a new name. This plan fell apart when the party's political council refused to ratify the merger agreement and demanded the other parties merge into the Socialist Party without any conditions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Only five parties agreed to do so; the Peasant Party of Ukraine, Socialist Ukraine, Children of War, "Children of War" People's Party of Ukraine, and Cossack Glory,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while the remaining five parties opted to merge and form the United Left and Peasants.<ref>Template:In lang Мороз і Ніколаєнко не можуть домовитися про єдину партію, Ukrainska Pravda (16 December 2011)</ref><ref>Template:In lang Ніколаєнко очолив "об'єднаних лівих", Ukrainska Pravda (17 December 2011)</ref> In January 2012, the Ministry of Justice declared the merger between the Peasant Party and the Socialist Party illegal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Rumours that Moroz would resign as leader amid reports of his deteriorating health appeared in April 2012 ahead of that year's party congress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Petro Ustenko was elected the party's leader after being nominated by Moroz, winning 267 votes out of 342. He previously served as the party's first deputy chairman responsible organisational work as well as head of the party's election headquarters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party failed to win any representation. It garnered just 0.46% of the party list vote and failed to win in any of the 58 constituencies it contested in.<ref>Template:In lang Candidates, RBC Ukraine</ref><ref name="Ukrelct2012resCECU2">Template:In lang Proportional votes Template:Webarchive & Constituency seats Template:Webarchive, Central Election Commission of Ukraine</ref>
The party's poor performance in the parliamentary elections as well as Ustenko's failure to secure the party's finances culminated in a crisis in 2013. That year's congress was postponed from July to October, as Rudkovsky was readmitted after winning a seat in parliament as a self-nominated candidate in 2012. He reportedly held several meetings with members where he promised to provide funding for the party. At this point, Rudkovsky was a member of the Party of Regions' parliamentary faction. Sources close to the party described the situation as an "internal struggle" between Moroz and Rudkovsky.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The resultant congress adopted a new party statute and created two new positions; leader, which would be held by Ustenko, responsible for the party's organisation, and chairman, by Rudkovsky, who would be responsible for the party's political direction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Valentina-Semenyuk was touted as a possible contender for the leadership but withdrew when nominated, as did Moroz.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Political scientist Andrey Zolotarev considered Rudkovsky's election to be part of a plan by the ruling Party of Regions to weaken the popular support of its erstwhile Communist ally.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In the aftermath of the Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity, which saw the overthrow of Yanukovych and the dismissal of the Party of Regions-led government, acting president Oleksandr Turchynov ordered the Ministry of Justice to open investigations against the Communist Party for "anti-state activities" in May 2014, putting its continued existence into doubt. The Socialist Party, being the country's oldest left-wing party, found itself in a position where it was likely to inherit a sizable portion of the Communist electorate in the upcoming 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, increasing its political and monetary value immensely. In that context, a congress was held on 21 June where the decision was made by a majority of delegates present to return to the party's previous statute, whereupon Rudkovsky was elected the party's sole leader. Ustenko contested the legitimacy of the congress and its results, hiring a security firm to raid the party's offices, resulting in a protracted legal battle. Both Ustenko and Rudkovsky accused each other of intending to sell off the party.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The State Register's refusal to register the results of the party's congress left it unable to participate in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election; its members were part of the electoral list of the Bloc of Left Forces instead. The party won 0.08% of the vote and returned no deputies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For similar reasons, the party couldn't participate in the 2015 Ukrainian local elections.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Citing "unsatisfactory health", Rudkovsky stepped down as leader and fled the country in 2015. He was replaced by Mykola Sadovy at the second stage of the twentieth congress held in August.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In June 2017, the Administrative Court of Cassation confirmed the Kyiv District Administrative Court's 2015 decision that the results of the 2014 congress were to be implemented in full and that the State Register's refusal to do so was illegal.<ref>ВИЩИЙ АДМІНІСТРАТИВНИЙ СУД УКРАЇНИ Справа № 826/17436/14 Рішення № 67402971. 13 June 2017.</ref>
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In July 2017, Illia Kyva announced that he had been elected as the party's chairman on his Facebook page. The former leader of the far-right political party Right Sector in eastern Ukraine, Kyva's election was described by Moroz as an attempt by Ustenko's faction to nullify the administrative court of cassation's decision. Ivan Bokyi, a former chairman of the party's parliamentary faction, described Kyva's election as a government-linked raid against the party.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ustenko later admitted that Kyva's election was part of an agreement with internal minister Arsen Avakov, to whom Kyva was an advisor; he was to help the party prepare for future presidential and parliamentary elections.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref>
The same month, the State Register was updated and listed Kyva as the party's chairman and Ustenko the leader.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In response to Kyva's election, Sadovy's faction opted to elect Serhiy Kaplin as their leader. Kaplin was a people's deputy linked to Avakov's rival, politician and oligarch Serhiy Lyovochkin. This faction subsequently agreed to enter into a coalition with Kaplin's Social Democratic Party (SDP) as well as the Party of Pensioners for upcoming elections.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In January 2018, Ustenko and his faction's members were removed from the State Register. Ustenko accused Kyva of being responsible and announced his expulsion from the party.<ref name=":1" /> In an appearance on Espreso TV, a Ukrainian news organisation owned by Avakov's wife Inna Avakova, Kyva denied reports of his expulsion and alleged that Ustenko had been in contact with individuals linked to Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russian organised crime to negotiate funding for the party, further claiming that they had been expelled from the party the previous month as a result.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In response, Ustenko launched a lawsuit to nullify the changes made to the State Register.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In March 2018, Kyva's faction approved a new programme where it adopted an outwardly pro-European Atlanticist attitude, advocating for the Ukrainian membership in the European Union and NATO.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It also adopted a new logo, a yellow fist on a crimson background, and nominated Kyva as its candidate for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He won just 0.03% of the vote and was replaced as the party's leader by Serhiy Cherednychenko.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This faction nominated candidates for two constituencies in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Cherednychenko in the 144th district and pro-Russian oligarch Oleksandr Onyshchenko in the 93rd district. It also co-operated with the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life, with Kyva being elected as a member of its closed list.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In January 2019, Kaplin's election as chairman of the Sadovy faction was nullified, and the party opted to support Moroz's candidacy in the presidential election instead.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, Moroz withdrew from the race four days before the first round of voting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Russian invasion and banning
On 24 February 2022, Russia launched an invasion into Ukraine. On 6 March, Kyva was charged with high treason after making a number of statements justifying the invasion and blaming it on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He had fled to Russia a month prior to the invasion.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The SPU was one of several political parties suspended by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine as a result of the invasion, along with Derzhava, Left Opposition, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Opposition Platform — For Life, Party of Shariy, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Leftists, and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.<ref name="ukrinform-22">Template:Cite web</ref>
On 15 June 2022, the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned the party and all of its property was transferred to the state.<ref name="SPU80005">Template:Cite web</ref> Vikor Zaika, who was also the director of the Illia Kyva Charitable Foundation "Liberation", was the party's official leader at its banning. The Security Service of Ukraine and Ministry of Justice cited the party's alleged anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activities, statements of its previous leaders, as well as Kyva's continued influence over the party as its justifications.<ref name="7352630SPU">Template:In lang The court banned the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Ukrayinska Pravda (15 June 2022)</ref> On 18 October 2022, the final appeal against the party's ban lodged by Sadovy's faction was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine.<ref name=SPU5349ban>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ideological development
Template:Socialism in Ukraine While the party was founded at the initiative of reformists within the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, the rank-and-file membership who answered the appeal for the formation of a new left-wing party were significantly more radical than its leadership and many who had participated in the party's founding had sought to recreate the banned Communist Party under a new name. This had a significant impact on the party's early positions; while it adopted a compromise on the national question, positioning itself as a supporter of Ukrainian statehood, but one based on the equality of all individuals regardless of nationality, and advocated for unity with former Soviet republics, it fiercely opposed any and all reforms to the country's economic system, with Moroz decrying the "unprecedented, uncontrolled profiteering of Western monopolies in the economical and spiritual space of Ukraine".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It also adopted the view that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was caused by the failure of the state-bureaucratic system rather than the result of a crisis of socialism.<ref name=Wilson1>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Wilson2>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The party's poor performance in the 1994 parliamentary elections, where it won fewer seats than the refounded Communist Party, as well as Moroz's election as parliamentary chairman, which necessitated compromise with the executive, provided the some impetus for the party to begin adopting a more moderate position. In a post-election congress held in April 1994, Moroz publicly complained about the attitude of some of the party's membership, who had tried to "transfer the party organisation over to the Communists" upon its refoundation in 1993. Instead, he argued that with the party free of its defectors—some 40,000 party members had left for the Communist Party in between 1993 and 1994—it could now adopt a more centrist approach. The party's leadership thus adopted a less antagonistic attitude towards the government's reform programme and accepted the principle of private ownership, if only for the service and retail trade industry. Moroz's supporters also began to talk of emulating the Democratic Left Alliance of Poland, whose electoral success in the 1993 Polish parliamentary election allowed it to form a coalition government; that following the "Polish route", the party should build a broad coalition of left-wing parties with democratic and progressive-patriotic forces.<ref name=Wilson1/>
During this time, the party also attempted to affirm its Ukrainian character by claiming the legacy of non-Soviet socialists such as Mykhailo Drahomanov and Volodymyr Vynnychenko, as well as early nationalist figures within the Ukrainian SSR, such as Vasyl Shahkrai, Mykola Skrypnyk, Christian Rakovsky, and Alexander Shumsky.<ref name=Wilson2/>
The party's right-ward shift resulted in a split in 1995, when the head of the party's theoretical council and author of its political programme, Natalia Vitrenko, was expelled from the party's faction in parliament, and finally expelled from the party proper alongside Volodomyr Marchenko in 1996. With the possibility of another large-scale defection, as much of the party's rank-and-file's sympathies laid with the rebels, a special congress in February 1996 reverted to a more hardline stance. However, the party's move toward the centre was renewed with the adoption of a "New Course" in its June 1998 congress, held in the aftermath of that year's parliamentary elections, where the party won just 34 seats compared to the Communists' 124. Moroz opened the party to other social and political movements and deemphasised Marxism-Leninism as the party's theoretical base, while abandoning ideas such as the dictatorship of the proletariat and class struggle entirely. The party further sought to broaden its appeal to include the emerging middle class and "honest" industrialist. While the congress had been compared to the Social Democratic Party of Germany's 1959 Godesberg Congress, the changes it introduced were more analogous to Robert Hue's modernisation of the French Communist Party, from which Moroz took inspiration.<ref name=Wilson2/>
The adoption of an explicitly democratic socialist programme at the party's May 2000 congress was preceded by another two waves of expulsions in December 1999 and February 2000 of members of the Socialist Platform.<ref name="Wilson2" /> The document, which classified the party as centre-left, consisted of a minimum programme, which called for the elimination of the oligarchic clan system and establishment of a transitionary government, and a maximum programme, which called for the establishment of democratic socialism in Ukraine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The party also advocated European integration as well as Ukrainian membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States, but opposed membership in NATO and its expansion into Eastern Europe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In its 2006 pre-election programme "We will build Europe in Ukraine", the party promoted itself as a European social democratic party and proposed a referendum on Ukrainian membership in NATO. In contrast, its 2007 pre-election programme lacked the previous year's social democratic character, did not mention NATO, and advocated closer relations with both the European Union and Russia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Election results
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Government | ||
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| 1994 | 895,830 | 3.3% | 14/338 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Increase 14 | Template:Partial | |
| 1998 | For Truth, for People, for Ukraine | 8.8% | 14/225 | 3/220 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Increase 3 | Template:No2 |
| 2002 | 1,780,642 | 7.1% | 20/225 | 2/225 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Increase 5 | Template:No2 |
| 2006 | 1,444,224 | 5.7% | 33/450 | N/A | Template:Composition bar | Template:Increase 11 | Template:Yes |
| 2007 | 668,234 | 2.9% | 0/450 | N/A | Template:Composition bar | Template:Decrease 33 | Template:No |
| 2012 | 93,081 | 0.5% | 0/225 | 0/220 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Steady | Template:No |
| 2014 | Did not participate | 0/225 | 0/198 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Steady | Template:No | |
| 2019 | 1,990 | 0.01% | 0/225 | 0/199 | Template:Composition bar | Template:Steady | Template:No |
| Presidency of Ukraine | ||||||
| Election year | Candidate | First round | Place | Second round | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
No. of overall votes |
% of overall vote | |||
| 1994 | Oleksandr Moroz | 3,466,541 | 13.3 | 3 | ||
| 1999 | Oleksandr Moroz | 2,969,896 | 11.8 | 3 | ||
| 2004 | Oleksandr Moroz | 1,632,098 | 5.8 | 3 | ||
| 2010 | Oleksandr Moroz | 95,169 | 0.4 | 11 | ||
| 2014 | Olha Bohomolets (endorsed by the SPU) | 345,384 | 1.9 | 8 | ||
| 2019 | Illia Kyva<ref name="UP7197183SP">Template:In lang The Socialists held a congress and sent Kivu to the presidency by Ukrainska Pravda (3 November 2018)</ref> | 5,869 | 0.3 | 29 | ||
See also
- Communist Party of Ukraine
- Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)
- List of political parties in Ukraine
- Politics of Ukraine
References
External links
Template:Communist Party of Ukraine Template:Left-wing parties in Ukraine Template:Socialist Party of Ukraine Template:Ukrainian Political Parties
- Pages with broken file links
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- Socialist Party of Ukraine
- 1991 establishments in Ukraine
- 2022 disestablishments in Ukraine
- Banned political parties in Ukraine
- Banned socialist parties
- Defunct social democratic parties in Ukraine
- Former member parties of the Socialist International
- Parliamentary factions in Ukraine
- Political parties disestablished in 2022
- Political parties established in 1991
- Political parties in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Russophilic parties