As perestroika progressed, the main task for Communists in Ukraine changed from how to improve the socio-economic situation to how to remain in power. Under the pressure of the growing national-democratic and ecological movement, the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, and Moscow’s increasing administrative, political, and economic powerlessness to control socio-economic and political processes, the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) tried to distance itself from the CPSU and consolidate itself into a coherent Ukrainian political organisation. For the reasons discussed in this paper, the CPU failed to consolidate. Although Communists remained in power, in August 1991, the CPU disintegrated. The way the CPU disintegrated determined Ukraine’s early post-Soviet transformation.