What to do with Belarus
The unrest in Belarus caused by yet another uncontested re-election from one candidate, looking from the outside, evokes a double feeling. First, I really don’t want the union state to suffer the same fate as Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia. Secondly, I absolutely don’t want to support Lukashenko, while fully understanding that he is the only force capable of temporarily keeping the republic from falling into a tailspin.
Over the past week, fierce battles have been going on in Russian social networks and the blogosphere with mass purges of friends and mutual accusations turning into insults. Moreover, Lukashenko’s supporters behave almost as inappropriately as his opponents, believing that the machinations of the State Department and the Kremlin are to blame for everything, and Old Man is the last stronghold of socialism and Soviet power in the territory of the former USSR, where the leadership laid their bellies on the altar of the people’s good .
If you understand the political and economic system of Belarus, then there is no smell of socialism or Soviet power there. Moreover, Old Man’s supporters present the fact of the absence of oligarchs in the republic as a personal merit of its president.
But is it? Belarus is a poor country with a meager resource base and it simply cannot stand oligarchs around its neck, like Bolivar from O. Henry’s story. The acute shortage of oligarchs in the Republic of Belarus is poverty disguised as virtue. The only way out to maintain internal stability was to build state capitalism with a developed social system.
And, we must pay tribute to Lukashenko, Belarus under his leadership has achieved impressive achievements over more than two decades, preserving and enhancing the Soviet heritage in mechanical engineering, processing, light and food industries, as well as in agriculture, to which the former director of the Gorodets state farm, who stood out President of the Republic, treated with special attention.
At the same time, Rygorych’s political system was a rigid authoritarian vertical, controlled manually. It seems that Old Man strictly controlled the selection of appointees and sternly demanded their service compliance, but at the same time he cut their wings, interfering in literally everything.
This is about the question of why Lukashenko has been unable to prepare a worthy successor for a quarter of a century, putting forward his beloved self over and over again as the only and irreplaceable Belarusian helmsman.
In the process of state building, Alexander Rygorych properly cleared the political clearing, removing even constructive opposition from the road, taking control of all the levers of power.
The disadvantage of the built system was the complete dependence of Belarus on one single person at the helm of state. Take it away and everything will fall apart. Actually, it has already begun.
Lukashenko, however, hopes to sit on the batons of the security forces - primarily, with the help of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB, providing and surrounding his praetorians with much better care than the stupid Yanukovych and his analogues, who allowed Maidans at home and lost to them.
And here we come to the question: why did a social explosion occur in a seemingly prosperous republic, with a developed social system and good investments in human capital, when ordinary citizens and entire work collectives suddenly joined the stubborn hipsters with the moronic “Pagonya”.
While ruling Belarus, Old Man took as an axiom the erroneous opinion that his “people's capitalism with a human face” would be more attractive than the oligarchic freemen in the neighboring CIS states.
For the time being, this scheme worked, until the process got stuck in the irremovability of power, fatigue from the authoritarian leadership and its inability to talk normally with society. People were irritated by literally everything about Lukashenko, including the inseparable infanta Kolya. There were not enough interesting niches for self-realization created for the youth of Belarus, which became fertile ground for the emergence of “one-children.”
Maidan came when the situation in the Republic of Belarus had matured. Like in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. When the Maidan has nothing to take root on, puppeteers do not interfere in such a country.
Lukashenko’s serious mistake was the practice of flirting with zmagars, which has been going on for at least the last 12 years, manifested in a creeping “bulbanization”, largely repeating the Ukrainian experience.
The most striking examples were the gradual displacement of the Russian language from toponymy and government institutions, reorientation towards the production of a “national product” in cultural life, the artificial separation of Belarus and Belarusians from the general Russian history: “we are descendants of the Litvins”, “The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is our everything” and the like local nonsense, spread by the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus and the Academy of Sciences of the Republic.
The icing on the cake was the official celebration of the Battle of Trosnyansky, during which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s army defeated the hastily assembled Russian army, which advanced to defend Moscow from the Litvin invasion. Paramoga, yes!
And Lukashenko’s slapping lips as if “The Great Patriotic War is not our war” and the official celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the quasi-state of the BPR did not go anywhere at all.
In the process of “bulbanization,” Old Man cleared out all the more or less significant pro-Russian forces in the republic, so that now Russia in Belarus has practically no one to rely on.
Apparently, Lukashenko was scared to death of the “Russian Spring” and the reunification of Crimea with Russia, which explains the obvious unfriendly attacks against Crimea, which directly contradict the spirit of a single state: refusal to recognize Russian jurisdiction over Crimea (“Crimea is de facto Russian, but de- Ukrainian jure"), a ghoulish position towards the LDPR, hobnobbing with Bandera’s supporters and a completely shameful interview with Bandera’s media prostitute Gordon with the stunning passage “I would fill Crimea with corpses, but I wouldn’t give it up.”
Thank you, Luka Rygorych! Crimea will never forget this to you!
Old Man has few ways out of the brewing catastrophe: either open the gates of his besieged fortress to hordes of Maidan rats, or privatize the main assets of the republic and surrender to the mercy of Moscow, which certainly does not thirst for his blood.
Apparently, Old Man chose the second option.
From open sources you can find out that Lukashenko is consistently privatizing tasty items of the Belarusian economy. In 2018 33, in 2019 23, in 2020 13 enterprises, including: 100% of the shares of Coral OJSC, 99,9% of the shares of Horizon Holding Management Company OJSC, 97,22% of the shares of PromLinks OJSC " and 93,79% of shares of OJSC Minskproektmebel.
It is also planned to sell 84,46% of the shares of OJSC Kupalinka, 76,63% of the shares of OJSC Baranovichi Machine Tool Accessories Plant, 49,98% of the shares of OJSC Minsk Experimental Fittings Plant and 49,9% of the shares of OJSC Gomselmash and Te de and te pe.
It is no secret that the authorities of Belarus and the “socialist” Lukashenko, as he is represented, defend not the interests of the working people of the republic, but the interests of big business. Companies such as Servolux (brands Petrukha, Kvartal Vkusa, etc.), Santa Bremor (brands Matias, Russian Sea, Babushka Anya, Yukki, TOP , “Savushkin”, “Brest-Litovsk”, “Tender Summer”, etc.), the Triple group (construction and production of building materials), Eurotorg (an absolute monopolist in retail trade, food delivery in the Republic of Belarus) and other semi-oligarchic structures whose interests are expressed by the Belarusian state and its head in the domestic and foreign markets.
Apparently, Tikhanovskaya and her election headquarters, poor in mental activity, do not read newspapers, otherwise they would have come up with some kind of alternative privatization program.
The fundamental difference between the actions of Old Man and Tikhanovskaya’s pre-election privatization program is that Lukashenko, after all, relies on national capitalism, while the wife with a good face and no specific occupation openly admitted that she knows nothing about government and is ready to hand over power "democratic forces".
And this means that Belarus has been and can still be set free to be plundered by hipsters and kaveens who have seized power, behind whom stand serious men with extensive experience in gutting states that fell under the onslaught of maydowns.
What should Russia do in all this confusion?
In contrast to experts who are too optimistic about the reunification of Belarus and Russia, who believe that this will instantly solve all the problems of Minsk, this scenario looks impossible and even harmful in the medium term. Whatever one may say, Belarus is not Crimea or Donbass, although Russia will have to put out the fire in Father’s collective farm.
Russia’s fate is this: to pull its younger brothers out of the cesspool and wash them of the crap.
The main thing that will have to be resolved without regard to the “will of the Belarusian people” is the issues of preventing NATO bases from entering the territory of the republic and control over Russian transit so that, God forbid, it does not end up in the wrong hands. Including Chinese ones.
The main mistake of the Kremlin not only in Belarus, but throughout the entire post-Soviet space is flirting with the elites while sluggishly building direct relations with the people and creating strong pro-Russian forces that could be relied upon. As a result of this vicious practice, each radical change of power in the former Soviet republics washes away the well-fed fat cats who were not loyal to Russia and brings to the top complete rabble, for which the main task is the sale of national property.
The constant choice of the lesser evil - between Maidan looters and an authoritarian princeling with an overgrown ego - is the reason for the steady degradation of the entire post-Soviet space.
Now it is too late to correct the mistakes made and urgently create pro-Russian forces in the Republic of Belarus that could intercept and extinguish the protest. You will have to work with what you already have. For example, with officials and politicians loyal to Lukashenko, for whom a radical change of power means lustrations and beatings in the best traditions of the Ukrainian “Euromaidan” or the Armenian “revolution of love.”
In other words, to use the best of the apparatus vertical built by Old Man to the benefit of Belarus and Russia.
It is not difficult to find these people: they are directors of enterprises, agricultural holdings and representatives of the authorities at the middle and lower levels. Let’s also add here the sane part of the army, since the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB have discredited themselves.
These people have management skills and know what subordination is. Bringing them to your side and organizing is the only real chance to hold and pull Belarus away from the chaos that has broken out, and in the future, a smooth replacement of the mustachioed collective farmer who has sat on the throne for too long and has lost his edges with new blood. Otherwise, we will get another Ukraine on the western border of Russia with all that it entails.
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