The “Orange revolution” in the Ukraine
was given extensive media coverage in the West. The events appeared to possess
all the ingredients of a political thriller: on one side, an utterly corrupt
Stalinist mafia, in all probability guilty of the grotesque murder of a
journalist who seems to have inquired too closely into its business; on the
other, Yushchenko, the heroic defender of democracy, his face ravaged by the
poison of a bungled KGB assassination with the beautiful Yulia Timoshenko at
his side, the very symbol of youth and hope for the future - but as this article shows, the "democratic revolution" was born of a ruthless struggle between cliques of the ruling class.