What Will Change When Lukashenka Leaves? Everything!

• Vitali Tsygankov
• 7.01.2021, 14:25

The rest of the issues will be addressed as they become available.

Over the past few months, I have repeatedly seen statements on social networks that Lukashenka's departure will not save Belarus from systemic problems, many of which reflect the current level of consciousness and development of the Belarusian society.

After several discussions, I get the impression that such conversations are started either by fools who have no idea how the authoritarian system functions in Belarus or double agents who have a goal (or task) to split the supporters of democracy with the thesis that fundamental changes will not even take place after Lukashenka leaves. A thought is thrown up - why, they say, fight against the regime if it will be replaced by the same one.

It is not a secret for anyone that an authoritarian system has been built and functions in Belarus, where everything is tied precisely to one person's personality. Most of the strategic and tactical decisions, especially recently, are aimed primarily at the interests of this particular person's political survival and have little to do with the interests of Belarus. Think about it, if the head of state really thought about the interests of his country - would he take actions that, as it was obvious, would lead to civil conflict, international sanctions, isolation, economic decline?

If a person really put the country's interests above the desire to preserve his power, he would not go for it.

Therefore, any, the most formal change of the surname will, in fact, objectively bring cardinal changes in any scenario. Even if we assume the most pessimistic case (Lukashenka's place is taken by a "successor," the conditional current prime minister), then, even in this case, Belarus will immediately become a completely different country.

History knows many examples when an authoritarian regime rested only on the "habit" of the state machine to fulfill any, sometimes the most inadequate wishes of an authoritarian leader.

Those who think that, after Lukashenka leaves, the system will remain and nothing will change simply do not understand how such political regimes function. Most of the historical examples, Pinochet in Chile, Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal, demonstrate that authoritarian regimes quickly transformed after the ruler left power. This happened not only when the caudillos were replacing the opposing forces, but also when successors or associates came to replace them - changes were still inevitable.

You can also remember the Soviet Union, when Stalin's death did not change the system, but changed the country, especially for those millions of people who were released from the camps. There is some inevitable historical pattern in this - any successor to a dictator, even one who swears loyalty to the existing course, is in fact almost always forced to pursue a completely different, usually more liberal, policy.

"Yabatski" - this is how the fans of Aliaksandr Lukashenka call themselves, admitting that they are not supporters of a certain political course, ideas, or principles. They voluntarily recognize themselves as subjects of one particular person. If this person stops to be the head of state, they will begin to think, lost, who should be their new idol.

In today's Belarus, there is no problem of an "immature society"; the situation is just the opposite. The majority of Belarusians are ready for new political and economic realities, they are ready to decide their own destiny on their own, and only the power with its last strength clings to the past with its "blue fingers."

Obviously, this clinging is connected almost exclusively with one person, who in the late 90s built a system of sole power and never agreed to real political and even economic reforms, believing that they would limit his power.

Now, in Belarus, the situation is the opposite of what it was in 1991. Then political changes (collapse of the Union, independence, market relations, competition policy) came too quickly and largely from outside Belarus. Most were not morally ready for them, did not take an active part in them, and were just beginning to learn to live by the new rules.

Now the opposite is true. Sociologists note the cardinal changes that have taken place in the Belarusian society in recent years - in values, attitudes to basic life issues. According to the World Values Survey, the number of those who share the opinion that people have freedom of choice and influence their own lives has doubled in Belarus over the past 10 years. The number of people with paternalistic expectations has decreased. The number of those convinced that improving citizens' lives is the only task of the state has almost tripled.

More and more Belarusians believe in the need for competition, in the importance of transparent rules because the normal competition is possible when the law works and there are more or less predictable rules of the game. On the whole, Belarusians have become more "market-oriented," more responsible for their lives, the level of paternalism and hopes for state aid have drastically decreased.

However, the Belarusian authorities were unable or unwilling to accept these changes. The society ran away far ahead, and the government, with its outdated authoritarian principles, was left behind.

You can even say that all the authorities' rhetoric about "losing the country" is justified! Indeed, with Lukashenka's departure, they will lose "this country" - a country of lawlessness, the omnipotence of security officials, unprofitable enterprises, a soulless vertical, dullness, and agro-glamor.

In any society, there are a variety of public attitudes. And any action by the authorities can be "justified" by one or another level of support. People in all countries are not ideal; they have their own fears, complexes, and lack of education. But it is the power that decides on what qualities of the people it is worth relying on in its policy, and it is the power that determines the boundaries of certain actions. It depends only on the government where it will lead its people - up or down.

History knows many examples when it was the personality traits of an authoritarian ruler that changed the fate of a nation.

In the 30s, authoritarianism and fascism in one form or another were quite widespread in Europe. But it was precisely the specific features of Hitler's personality and character that unleashed the Second World War and led to the Holocaust.

Historical documents, testimonies of contemporaries tell us that, unlike the First World War (when after its declaration, patriotic rallies were held in many capitals), the broad masses did not want the Second World War, even the Germans for the most part. If there were any revanchist sentiments, then they are quite local - to take Alsace and Lorraine from France, the Sudetenland from the Czech Republic, to punish Poland. Nobody wanted to die in the snows near Stalingrad and under the bombs of American bombers. We can say that if in Hitler's place there was any other, more mentally adequate German leader, even from the National Socialist elite known to us, history could have developed differently; the world war might not have broken out.

Just because there would be another person in the place of the leader.

It can be absolutely confidently asserted that it was precisely the specificity of Aliaksandr Lukashenka's personality, the specificity of his attitude towards people and power that led to the disappearance of his political opponents in the late 90s. It was this specificity that led to August 2020, when the lawlessness and omnipotence of the power structures fully manifested themselves.

So first, you need to achieve a simple surname change. This is the most important thing today. Other issues will be resolved as they come.

Vitali Tsygankov, Svobodnye Novosti