To be sure, Ukraine’s progress has been marred by a deep and persistent corruption, popular disgust with most political institutions, a frustratingly slow policy-making process, a decaying infrastructure, severe health problems and demographic decline, and continued economic penury for those who lack the skills and wherewithal to benefit from ongoing change. Ukraine’s proneness to periodic nervous breakdowns of its political system could, if projected unchecked into the future, produce intransigence, radicalism, an unwillingness to play by any kind of rules, and a willingness to tolerate iron-fisted rule. But the chances of such a dreary denouement are slight, as long as developments within Ukraine occur naturally. The main threat to Ukraine’s continued democratic development would come—if it comes at all—from Russia. Its turn to a fascist-like authoritarianism and aggressive foreign policy under Putin, and the inherent instability of one-man rule of a corrupt energy-rich state, brings to mind interwar Europe, with Russia as Germany and Ukraine as Czechoslovakia.

The End of Revolution

Barring such a gloomy, unlikely scenario, Ukraine’s evolutionary development toward Italian-style politics, society, and economy should persist, with systemic snags and never-ending elite zigzags. There will be no euphoria in Ukraine in the next few years. Mass upheavals, revolutionary change, and revolutionary breakthroughs are unlikely, as the country continues crawling away from authoritarianism and toward democracy. In 2014, when Ukrainians celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Orange Revolution, most will fail to appreciate that the upheaval marked the end of authoritarian experimentation in their country and enabled them to consolidate their democratic institutions in a manner supportive of economic growth. With any luck, they will even conclude that the Orange Revolution is dead, that they alone made the difference in their own lives, and that life in Ukraine has become predictable, uninteresting, and perhaps even boring.