Neformaly

Neformaly [неформали]. Groups, associations, and political organizations that emerged in the Soviet Union during the period of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. Such groups were called informal (neformalni) or unofficial because they were not part of Communist Party of the Soviet Union or state structures and had no juridical status under Soviet law. Of the hundreds of such organizations that came into being, only a few were officially registered in 1990 (with all the attendant rights to nominate candidates in elections and have a bank account). Among the most significant were the Memorial society, which was dedicated to chronicling and rehabilitating the millions of victims of Soviet repression, the Zelenyi Svit Ukrainian ecological association, the Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society, and the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh). Zelenyi Svit and the Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society each had approximately three-quarters of a million members.

The amnesty of political prisoners, many of whom were hardened political activists, in the early part of 1987 was the catalyst that launched the wide-scale growth of unofficial groups. The amnesty also coincided with the launching of the policy of glasnost, which led to a general liberalization and democratization of Soviet society. Under glasnost the number of people willing to participate in activities hitherto subject to severe repression increased dramatically.

The first large organization to be established was the Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society, headed by Dmytro Pavlychko. Its founding congress was held on 11–12 February 1989 in Kyiv. The society promoted the use and development of the Ukrainian language and actively campaigned against Russification. It published two newspapers, Slovo (Kyiv) and Prosvita (Lviv). Soviet officialdom had hoped that the emerging Ukrainian national movement would confine itself to promoting the Ukrainian language and culture and not pursue more political goals. By granting the society official recognition, however, the state in fact created a legal framework for political opposition to the state. The society provided office space for the Popular Movement of Ukraine and nominated its own opposition candidates in elections.

The largest and most important organization in Ukraine in the early 1990s was the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh). It was formed on the initiative of members of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the large Kyiv branch of the Writers' Union of Ukraine. Rukh’s draft program was published in Literaturna Ukraïna in mid-February 1989. Between February and September 1989 the Communist Party of Ukraine engaged in a counterproductive media campaign against Rukh. The campaign backfired: its effect was to attract many new members to Rukh and thereby increase its influence. Rukh was a coalition of all the main unofficial groups in Ukraine. Its founding congress in Kyiv on 8–10 September 1989 was attended by 1,200 delegates, who elected Ivan Drach their head. Rukh sponsored numerous initiatives designed to break the monopoly of the Communist Party and state apparats and campaigned for the adoption of a more democratic electoral law. On 21 January 1990 it held its most successful event—a human chain of some one million people holding hands from Ivano-Frankivsk to Lviv and on to Kyiv—to commemorate the 1919 proclamation of the union of the Ukrainian National Republic with the Western Ukrainian National Republic. Rukh was not registered in time to field candidates for the 4 March 1990 elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. It was, however, the main force behind the Democratic Bloc that won almost a quarter of the seats in the Supreme Soviet. Immediately after the elections (which were marked by large-scale fraud and irregularities) prominent Rukh members, including Drach and Dmytro Pavlychko, called for the transformation of Rukh into a political party that would advocate Ukraine’s independence and a multiparty system. On 24 March 1990 the Great Council of Rukh meeting voted against the proposal, considering it inadvisable to transform a large coalition of diverse forces into a political party.

The largest number of independent newspapers and bulletins in Ukraine was published by Rukh (over 30 titles from every region of Ukraine). The CPU leadership, though tolerating Rukh’s existence, did everything in its power to block Rukh’s growth. Thus, Rukh was not registered by the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR or allowed to publish its official organ, Narodna hazeta, until February 1990. Because supplies of newsprint were restricted, the circulation of the newspaper was limited to 10,000 copies.

Two of the first neformaly to be established in Ukraine were the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG) and the Ukrainian Association of Independent Creative Intelligentsia. In August 1987 Viacheslav Chornovil, the dissident and former political prisoner (who was elected in 1990 to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, and who also held the chairmanship of the Lviv Oblast Council), signaled the launching of the Ukrainian unofficial movement with his open letter to Mikhail Gorbachev. The open letter announced the re-establishment on 30 December 1987 of the journal Ukraïns’kyi visnyk, which he had edited as a samvydav publication in 1970–2. The UHG was renamed the Ukrainian Helsinki Association in 1988, and attracted approximately 600 members. At its congress in Kyiv on 29–30 April 1990 the association was dissolved and replaced by the new Ukrainian Republican party. Headed by Lev Lukianenko, the party was the first non-Communist party registered in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Association of Independent Creative Intelligentsia was formed in October 1987 as an unofficial writers’ and cultural-workers’ union. It published the journal Kafedra, edited by Mykhailo Osadchy in Lviv, and four other literary journals: Ievshan zillia (Lviv), Skarby hir (Ivano-Frankivsk), Porohy (Dnipropetrovsk), and Snip (Kharkiv). One of the first neformaly formed in Kyiv was the Ukrainian Culturological Club, in September 1987. With the increased politicization of the population, the club disbanded at the beginning of 1989, and its members joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Association and other groups. Among the most active cultural and educational groups in Ukraine was Lviv’s Lev Society (est 1987).

The Memorial society held its founding congress on 4 March 1989 in Kyiv. Its most active branches were in Lviv oblast (which published Poklyk sumlinnia) and Ternopil oblast (which published Dzvin). The western branches of Memorial undertook to document the scope of repression carried out by Soviet occupational forces after the absorption of Western Ukraine into the Soviet Union.

Zelenyi Svit, which published a newspaper of the same name, held its founding congress in Kyiv on 28–29 October 1989. It began as a purely ecological and anti-nuclear power group, but under the leadership of Yurii Shcherbak it became increasingly politicized. It joined the Democratic Bloc formed in November 1989 as an umbrella group of all neformaly during the election campaign to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, and a few days before the fourth anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster on 22 April 1990, it launched the Green Party of Ukraine.

One of the first student neformaly was the Hromada society at Kyiv University, formed in the spring of 1988. It represented the new generation of radical student activists brought to the fore under glasnost. Hromada published the uncensored journal Dzvin and organized numerous meetings in Kyiv, including the first large student demonstration in November 1988, and a boycott of military education classes. By the middle of 1989 Hromada had ceased to exist. Most of its members joined new, more overtly political organizations.

Other youth and student neformaly were created in most Ukrainian cities and postsecondary schools. In February 1990 the western Ukrainian Student Brotherhood at Lviv University (which published the newspaper Bratstvo and the journal Vikno) and the Ukrainian Student Association in central and eastern Ukraine (which published the newspaper Svoboda) joined together to form the Confederation of Ukrainian Students and organized political mass strikes at universities and polytechnical institutes. A 1989 survey published in the Soviet Ukrainian press showed that over 800 new sociopolitical clubs were operating in Ukraine’s postsecondary institutions. Some of the more significant youth groups created in the late 1980s were the nationalist Association of Independent Ukrainian Youth (the youth wing of the Ukrainian Helsinki Association), which published Moloda Ukraïna in Lviv and Rada in Kyiv, and the revived scouting Plast Ukrainian Youth Association. Over 20 new non-communist political parties also emerged.

Ukrainians living in other Soviet republics also formed neformaly. The Moscow-based Slavutych Association of Friends of Ukrainian Culture, founded in 1988 and headed by the former cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych, was among the most active. National minorities in Ukraine (Jews, Poles, Greeks, Hungarians, and Crimean Tatars) also organized independent associations and published their own bulletins.

The neformaly and their publications attracted a mass following and readership and challenged the Communist monopoly of power. From the late 1980s they published some 200 independent, uncensored periodicals, with circulations ranging from 500 to 10,000. Although they were harassed by the authorities, the neformaly persevered and were the harbingers of a renewed civil society and national movement. The abolition of article 6 of the Constitution of the USSR (which enshrined the leading role of the CPSU in all spheres of life) allowed the possibility of a multiparty system and served to stimulate autonomous political activity and the articulation of bold political demands. The end result was the collapse of the Communist regime and the 1991 Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence.

Taras Kuzio

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]