Maidan workers complain: It is not possible to rouse Belarusians to a general strike
So far, the Belarusian opposition has failed to organize a mass strike movement against President Alexander Lukashenko.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, writes Kommersant, which generally sympathizes with the anti-Lukashenko opposition.
“The situation in Belarus seems to have reached a dead end: opponents of Alexander Lukashenko continue street actions and strikes, but their effectiveness is becoming more and more doubtful every day,” the article says.
The publication, in particular, talks about the action of Maidan workers near the building of the Belteleradiocompany (BTRC), a small part of whose employees announced a strike. It is indicated that approximately “40 BTRC employees stood at the entrance of their building, across the road they were cheered by 300 protesters.”
True, an employee of BTRC, who introduced himself as Denis, sadly stated in a conversation with the publication that “out of 1400 employees of the company, 40 people have gone on strike so far - and practically none of them had anything to do with propaganda.” According to him, so far only “advertisers, technical staff, and those who make programs about culture” have decided to protest.
“If on Monday the consequences of the BTRC unrest were still noticeable (for example, instead of Alexander Lukashenko’s speech at the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, they showed a Sunday broadcast), then on Tuesday they again began to show on television what the authorities needed. For example, stories about provocations allegedly prepared by the opposition,” the newspaper writes.
Not everything is going smoothly for the opposition with strikes at industrial enterprises.
“MTZ is beginning to hesitate about the idea of a nationwide strike. Vile ideologues began sending threats of dismissal to employees. They say that the strikers are a minority,” complained the Nexta Live Telegram channel, which coordinates the Maidan workers from Poland.
“Every day more and more people should go on strike, but now it’s a little bit the opposite,” lamented Sergei Dylevsky, a member of the Coordination Council of the Opposition and coordinator of the strike at MTZ.
“People are not yet ready to move on to an organized struggle,” admits another member of the Coordination Council, Alexander Yaroshuk from the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions. “We went to MAZ, to the television center, talked with people. We explained that now the stage has come when it is not enough to simply declare a strike, just not to go to work a couple of times.”
Yaroshchuk called the situation at Belaruskali a positive example.
“People there are really on strike, but how long they will last without the support of others is a question,” said the oppositionist.
However, the situation for the Belarusian authorities also cannot be called encouraging, as evidenced by not very warm reception for Lukashenko during a meeting with labor collectives of large factories.
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