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.