Socialist Party of Ukraine

The Socialist Party of Ukraine (Соціалістична Партія України, 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. The party was represented in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, from 1994 to 2007 and was the third and fourth largest party during that period. From 2007 onwards the party's electoral results became increasingly marginal, failing to win any seats in subsequent elections despite historically strong support in the central regions of the country. Oleksandr Moroz had led the party for more than twenty years before his resignation in 2012.

The party was suspended in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and banned by a court decision on 15 June 2022.

Creation
Following Ukraine's independence on 24 August 1991, 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 program was approved at the second congress held in November 1992, emphasising the party's status as the successor to the communist party of Lenin and proclaiming 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 December 1993, the party declared themselves in the opposition to the government of Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma and President Leonid Kravchuk and their policies, but by this point Kuchma had already resigned from the government.

In March 1994, the party participated in the country's first parliamentary election since independence and won 14 seats, becoming the third-largest party in the Verkhovna Rada behind the People's Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) and the Communist Party. In May 1994, Moroz was elected Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (speaker of parliament). By mid-1994, the party controlled a parliamentary faction of 25 deputies, as deputies from other parties, especially those from the Peasant Party of Ukraine (SelPU) opted to sit with the Socialists.

In the 1994 presidential election, Moroz was supported by both his party, the Communist Party, and the Peasant Party garnering 13.3% of the vote. As Moroz failed to advance to the second round of voting, both the Communists and Socialists opted to support Kuchma, who eventually won the election against Kravchuk.

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 programs 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. The bloc managed to secure 8,55% of the votes, 29 proportional seats, and 5 individual seats 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. The Peasant Party later started its own parliamentary faction with 15 deputies in the autumn of 1998 but disbanded in 2000 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. By June 2002, the Left Center faction only had 17 members in the Verkhovna Rada.

After the election, a group of former SPU members led by Ivan Chizh who were in opposition to Moroz founded the Justice Party in 2000.

The party nominated Moroz as its candidate for the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election. He along with the leader of the People's Movement of Ukraine Viacheslav Chornovil, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Marchuk, and Mayor of Cherkasy Volodymyr Oliynyk were collectively known as the Kaniv four. In the lead-up to the election, they had agreed that three of them would withdraw and support the fourth against the incumbent Kuchma. The alliance fell apart when no agreement could be reached on who the single candidate should be.

Moroz was considered the most likely candidate to beat Kuchma but failed to advance past the first round of voting, having come third with only 11.29% of the vote. It is claimed that electoral fraud was practiced during the election and that Kuchma had secretly funded the Progressive Socialist Party in order split the socialist vote.

Split parliament
In January 2000, eleven centre-right parties came together to form a pro-Kuchma majority in the Verkhovna Rada, controlling 241 of the 450 seats possible. The willingness of the usually disjointed parties to form a coalition was spurred by Kuchma's threat of reducing the powers of parliament or even dismissing it entirely over its refusal to approve his first-choice for Prime Minister, Valeriy Pustovoitenko, as well as its reluctance to pass legislation supported by the presidency.

On January 18, The pro-Kuchma majority succeeded in passing a resolution to elect new parliamentary leadership, but the result was rendered invalid when the head of the Ethics and Standing Order Committee claimed that voting cards of absent deputies had been used. However, the act of voting on behalf of absent deputies had been a heretofore accepted practice, causing the pro-Kuchma deputies to leave parliament in protest. In subsequent meetings, pro-Kuchma deputies attempted to introduce changes in parliamentary procedure in a way that would make it easier for them to take control but were continually rebuffed by Tkachenko's team.

On January 21, the situation escalated when pro-Kuchma deputies gathered in the Ukrainian House and declared their assembly the legitimate parliament, and dismissed Tkachenko as Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. Deputies loyal to Tkachenko, including the Socialist Party's, continued to meet in the parliament building. On February 4, the breakaway parliament was effectively legitimised when Kuchma signed the bills it had passed into law. On February 8, the Security Service of Ukraine and pro-Kuchma deputies took over the parliament building and ejected the pro-Tkachenko deputies.

2000 constitutional referendum
In April 2000, voters were asked whether they supported 4 amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that would increase the powers of the president, decrease the number of deputies from 450 to 300, and introduce an upper house. Despite their recent conflict, leaders from both pro and anti-Kuchma parties were united against the referendum. The former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Tkachenko stated that the referendum had:

"“no other goals than installing an unlimited presidential authority, destroying the parliament, and limiting the rights and freedoms of all Ukrainian citizens.”"

Ivan Plyushch, who was elected the new Chairman by pro-Kuchma deputies, was comparatively moderate in his criticism of the referendum but argued that it was unconstitutional. Indeed, Articles 155 and 156 of the 1996 Constitution stipulated that the constitution could not be amended by referendum and that any amendments had to be passed by parliament with a two-thirds majority. While the Constitutional Court of Ukraine reaffirmed that the constitution could not be amended by referendum, it also ruled that the referendum itself did not go against the constitution and that its result had to be implemented in full. In essence, despite specific constitutional provisions preventing the act, the court's ruling allowed the constitution to be amended by referendum, if only indirectly through parliament.

The implementation of the referendum's result would be obstructed when Kuchma was implicated in a major political scandal (see below).

The Cassette Scandal and Ukraine without Kuchma
On 28 November 2000, 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 party was heavily involved in the Ukraine without Kuchma (UBK) protest campaign that began as a result of the scandal. Yuriy Lutsenko, who would later become Minister of Internal Affairs under the governments of Yulia Tymoshenko and Prosecutor General of Ukraine, gained national prominence as a result of his involvement in the campaign.

The campaign reached its climax on 9 March 2001, when protesters and the Militsiya, the national police force, violently clashed in central Kyiv. The protestors were eventually dispersed and more than 200 people were arrested, though only 19 would eventually be charged and sentenced to jail. The National Salvation Committee, a loose collection of opposition parties formed before the beginning of the campaign would later establish the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) to contest the forthcoming 2002 parliamentary election.

2002 parliamentary election and Rise up, Ukraine!
During the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party had limited access to the media and its youth wing had instead endorsed the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), led by Viktor Medvedchuk, who was later appointed the head of the presidential administration (chief of staff) by Kuchma after the election. In spite of this, the party won 6.9% of the popular vote and 24 out of 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada on 30 March 2002.

In September, a series of protests referred to as Rise up, Ukraine! were launched by a 'troika' of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Socialist Party, and Communist Party. They were later joined by Bloc of Viktor Yushchenko "Our Ukraine" (BVYNU), an electoral alliance led by former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko, at the urging of Tymoshenko. The protests, although unsuccessful in achieving its goal of removing Kuchma from power, laid the foundations for a united front against Kuchma's administration among opposition parties.

2004 presidential election and the Orange Revolution
Moroz, who was the party's candidate for the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, garnered 5.82% of the vote before endorsing Yushchenko in the second round of voting. The contested result of the election, which had initially given incumbent prime minister Viktor Yanukovych the victory, was plagued by accusations of fraud and led to the beginning of series of protests dubbed the "Orange Revolution", in which the party was an active participant alongside Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. Over the course of the protests, orange became a political label used to refer to Yushchenko's supporters.

The protests succeeded in its goals to overturn the election result, with Yushchenko winning the resulting re-run. In response to the result, Yanukovych resigned as prime minister, allowing for the appointment of a new coalition coalition government led by Yulia Tymoshenko. The inauguration of the Tymoshenko government marked the first time the Socialist Party ever 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 party also provided two chairmen of regional state administrations and secured the appointment of Valentyna Semenyuk-Samsonenko as director of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. The party retained its position in the succeeding Yekhanurov government, which had come to power as a result of a power struggle between Tymoshenko and National Security and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko, involving allegations of corruption, which resulted in the former's dismissal.

In 2005, the Ukrainian Party of Justice - Union of veterans, handicapped, Chornobyl liquidators, and Afghan warriors merged into the Socialist Party.

2006 parliamentary election and political crisis


Moroz expressed doubt that an "orange coalition" between the Socialist Party, Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc could be re-formed in the lead up to the 2006 parliamentary election, with observers having speculated that the Tymoshenko Bloc would choose to run against Our Ukraine. Nonetheless, both the Socialist Party and Our Ukraine announced the drafting of a memorandum between the two parties on 26 March, the day of the election, and announced their intention to start negotiations with the Tymoshenko Bloc.

However, coalition talks were marred by mutual distrust between the parties' respective leaders as well as disagreement over the distribution of positions. Both Moroz and Tynoshenko accused Our Ukraine of intentionally delaying negotiations and holding counter-negotiations with the Yanukovych-led Party of Regions, while Our Ukraine accused Moroz and Tymoshenko of prioritising gaining positions in government over strategy and program. Moroz urged Our Ukraine to accept Tymoshenko as prime minister despite claiming to have been offered the position himself by Yushchenko, and Tymoshenko, in turn, supported Moroz for the position of chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, a position he had previously held. Negotiations stalled and were even suspended at various stages before an agreement was finally reached after Moroz announced he would no longer seek the chairmanship,  appearing to conclude nearly three months of negotiations and political uncertainty.

However, uncertainty arose once more when Moroz objected to Petro Poroshenko's nomination as Our Ukraine's candidate for the position of chairman, citing his connections with big business as well as his role in the September 2005 crisis that ultimately resulted in the dismissal of Tymoshenko as prime minister. On July 6, Moroz's name was submitted as one of the candidates, causing Poroshenko to withdraw his candidacy and urge Moroz to do the same. Instead, Moroz was elected with the support of the Party of Regions, the Communist Party, and the Socialist Party despite having previously assured that he would support whomever was nominated for the position by Our Ukraine. On July 7, a coalition agreement between the Party of Regions, Communist Party, and Socialist Party was signed, and the newly formed bloc, initially referred to as the Anti-Crisis Coalition and later the Alliance of National Unity, elected Yanukovych as prime minister.

The party's decision to enter into a coalition with the Party of Regions led to the resignation of a number of high-ranking party members including Yuriy Lutsenko, who would later go on to lead Yuriy Lutsenko's People's Self-Defense, as well as First Secretary Yosip Vinsky, who would go on to join Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna.

2007 parliamentary election and political crisis
Yushchenko dissolved parliament on 2 April 2007 because he believed the government was acting illegally during the 2007 Ukrainian political crisis.

In the 2007 parliamentary election, the party's vote share collapsed, a fact attributed by political scientist Bohdan Harasymiw to its betrayal of Our Ukraine and the Tymoshenko Bloc. Its new program lacked its previous pro-European stances, instead calling for Ukraine to develop positive relationships with the EU and Russia. The Socialist Party of Ukraine failed to secure parliamentary representation, having received 2.86% of the total national vote (0.14% short of the required minimum 3% representation threshold). This led to more high-ranking members leaving the party and the creation of the offspring Union of Leftists.

After having led the party for 20 years, Oleksander Moroz in July 2010 was succeeded by Vasyl Tsushko. However, Moroz was again elected as party leader in August 2011.

2010s
A March 2010 poll predicted that the party would get 0.2% of the vote at the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election. In the 2010 local elections, the parties electoral misfortunes continued, winning few votes and securing little to no representatives in regional parliaments across Ukraine (winning representatives in 11 Ukrainian Oblasts parliaments in total), except in the Chernihiv Oblast and Poltava Oblast where they won 11% and 5,8% of the votes.

In July 2011, the party was expelled from the Socialist International alongside Party of Bulgarian Social Democrats due to the parties' non-compliance with "the fundamental values and principles of the International" in the midst of the Arab Spring.

In November 2011, plans to merge 11 left-wing parties, including the Socialist Party of Ukraine, fell through when the party's council refused to ratify the agreement. Instead, in December 2011 Moroz announced that the Peasant Party of Ukraine, Socialist Ukraine, Children of War, Children of War of the People's Party of Ukraine, and Cossack Glory had merged into the Socialist Party. The remaining five parties that had been part of the original agreement opted to form United Left and Peasants. However, in January 2012 the Ministry of Justice declared the merger between the Peasant Party and the Socialist Party to be illegal.

In April 2012, Petro Ustenko was elected leader of the party, replacing Oleksander Moroz. In the election the party won 0.46% of the national votes and no constituencies (it had competed in 58 constituencies) and thus failed to win parliamentary representation.

The party did not participate in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Leadership crisis
In 2017 Serhiy Kaplin, at the time a member of the Ukrainian parliamentary faction of Petro Poroshenko Bloc, claimed to be the party's chairman. Kaplin intended to take the party to elections with Party of Pensioners of Ukraine under the label "For ordinary people". But Illia Kyva also claimed to head the Socialist Party of Ukraine. In January 2018, during a "joint meeting of the political council and the central control commission of the Socialist Party of Ukraine" Kyva was expelled from the party. Kyva stated this exclusion was illegitimate. According to the official registration of the party Illia Kyva is the chairman of the Socialist Party. Kyva left the party in June 2019 to join Opposition Platform — For Life.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party had 2 candidates in constituencies, but both did not win a parliamentary seat.

Russian invasion and banning
The SPU was one of several political parties suspended by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 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 Block.

On 15 June 2022, the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned the SPU (of all the parties suspended on 20 March 2022 only the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine and Opposition Platform — For Life actively opposed its banning). The property of the party and all its branches were transferred to the state. Vikor Zaika, who was also the director of the Illia Kiva Liberation Charitable Foundation, was the party's official leader at its banning and according to the Security Service of Ukraine, Illia Kyva had continued to influence the party and its course. On 18 April 2022, it was reported that Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigations had opened a case of treason against Kyva for involvement in an illegal arrangement with a general of the Russian Armed Forces.

On 18 October 2022, the final appeal against the party's ban was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, meaning that the party was fully banned in Ukraine.