Yet, caught in the sights of a gun barrel, nobody – not even the brave men and women who camped in their hundreds of thousands in the snow before Ukraine’s parliament – knew with certainty whether those changes had wrenched Ukrainians from the grip of fear and apathy. The success of their defiance shows the power of the idea that bewilders outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and his acolytes: that democracy means taking responsibility for one’s fate into one’s own hands.
没有人会质疑乌克兰在取得独立的十二年间发生的巨大变化。但是，看见荷枪实弹后，没有人——甚至是成千上万勇敢地冒雪站在乌克兰议会前的男男女女们——都不敢肯定这些变化是否能将乌克兰从恐惧和消沉中解脱出来。他们认为，民主就是为掌握自己的命运而负起责任，而抗议活动的胜利证明了这一观点力量之强大，令即将下台的总统列昴尼德·库奇马和他的党羽为此大伤脑筋。