The Socialist Party of Ukraine (, abbreviated SPU) was a social democratic and democratic socialist 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.
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. 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.
History Creation
Following Ukraine's independence on 24 August 1991,A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples by Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press, 2010, (page 722/723) 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. 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".
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. In total, some 40,000 members, or half the party's membership, left for the refounded KPU.
In December 1993, the party entered the opposition to the administration of prime minister Leonid Kuchma and president Leonid Kravchuk, Short bio, Liga.net 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).Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century by Richard Crampton and Ben Crampton, 1997, Routledge, , page 277 By mid-1994, the party controlled a parliamentary faction of 25 deputies,Political parties of the world by Alan J. Day and Henry W. Degenhardt, 2002, John Harper Publishing, , Page 479 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.
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, 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. During the election, Moroz campaigned for transforming Ukraine into a parliamentary republic, prohibiting the sale of land, and a "state-regulated market".
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, 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.
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. She and Volodymyr Marchenko, who was also expelled from the party, founded the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine a month later in April 1996.
In the run up to the 1998 parliamentary election, attempts to form a coalition with the Communist Party had failed 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. Соціалістична партія України, sd.net.ua (4 September 2009) The bloc managed to secure 8.55% of the votes, 29 proportional seats, and 5 constituencies out of 450 in the Verkhovna Rada. 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.Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, , page 86 The Peasant Party later started its own parliamentary faction with 15 deputies in the autumn of 1998 but disbanded in 2000Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition by Roman Solchanyk, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001 as many of the Peasant Party's deputies followed their faction leader Serhii Dovhan into the newly formed pro-presidential Solidarity led by Petro Poroshenko.Ukrainian Political Update by Taras Kuzio and Alex Frishberg, Frishberg & Partners, 21 February 2008 (page 22)
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.
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,The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhy Yekelchyk, Oxford University Press, 2015, , page 87 Kuchma also faced accusations of having funded the Progressive Socialist Party in order split the left-wing vote.Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, , page 87
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.
The resultant Ukraine without Kuchma (UBK) protest campaign ended when it was violently dispersed by the Militsiya, the national police force, in March 2001. 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 , , , and Vasyl Aresto, founded the splinter All-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice" in April 2000. As members of the Socialist Platform, they had been expelled for their opposition to Moroz's reforms within the party.
During the election campaign for the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, opposition parties and candidates were afforded little media access,Ukraine's election frontrunners, BBC News (28 March 2002) 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. 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. The party was a participant in the Rise up, Ukraine! protests which called for early presidential elections.