Thirty years ago, in October of the fateful year of 1990 – when the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Soviet) of the Ukrainian SSR voted on July 16 for the historic Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine – students declared a hunger strike in Kyiv and released a list of demands: the resignation of Prime Minister Vitaliy Masol (a holdover from the previous regime), new multi-party elections in the spring, the nationalization of Communist Party property, rejection of a new union treaty with Moscow and the return of all Ukrainian soldiers serving beyond the republic’s borders.
The students’ demands were similar to those voiced by the National Council, the democratic bloc of 125 national deputies in the Rada that had been elected in March of that year. The National Council on October 1 walked out of the parliamentary session after the conservative majority (read Communists) of 239 deputies voted for a ban on public gatherings in the main square across from the Parliament building.