On the Eve of Big Changes

• Valery Karbalevich
• 7.01.2021, 15:30

30 features of the Belarusian revolution.

What is happening in Belarus in recent months is called differently: the Belarusian revolution, the Belarusian spring, the political crisis. I would add one more to these names. It was a passionate explosion of the Belarusian society.

1. The main reason for the revolutionary outbreak is that the Belarusian social model, created by Aliaksandr Lukashenka a quarter of a century ago, has exhausted its resources and has become a brake on the country's development.

By the summer of 2020, a large protest potential has accumulated in the Belarusian society. Here at one moment, many factors converged at once, which created the situation of the "perfect storm."

Over the 26 years of Lukashenka's rule, a generational change has taken place. The social structure of society has changed. The number of people working in private structures has increased. Sociological polls show that Belarusians have become one of the most pro-market peoples in Europe.

2. The Belarusian spring is a revolution of growing expectations. The average salary in Belarus has actually decreased over the past 10 years, while society's needs have grown. Lukashenka has become a symbol of stagnation and despair for the majority of Belarusians.

3. The process, which the state mass media interpreted as the transformation of Belarus into an IT country, had unexpected, and moreover, political consequences. New technologies, having created new sectors of the economy, in particular, the IT industry, have given rise to workers with different values and lifestyles. They fostered conflict, a stylistic gap between people living in the digital sphere, with a horizontally organized network culture, and the dominant authoritarian management vertical in the country. In particular, this resulted in different perceptions of the role of women in society and politics.

4. The authorities have lost their monopoly on information. The Internet, the emergence of new media, social networks have destroyed the old system of communication of the current regime with society. And this became an important factor in the social upsurge.

5. The archaic socio-economic and political system, as well as authoritarian methods of government, are rejected by most people. We have a modernizing society oriented towards change, willing to free itself from state paternalism, and a power that preserves the status quo. Society has outgrown the state, and it has become cramped within its framework. Lukashenka did not even notice that he and the country live in different historical eras.

As the famous American philosopher Francis Fukuyama wrote, a "problem" becomes a "contradiction" only if it is so serious that not only cannot it be resolved within the system, but also corrodes the legitimacy of the system itself. This is exactly the Belarusian case.

6. The Belarusian model, which has existed for a quarter of a century, is based not on public trust in political institutions but on trust in Lukashenka. And a crisis of confidence in him led to the acute political crisis.

7. The result of recent events was the desacralization of power as such. Until now, state institutions in Belarus were the only mechanism that unites Belarusians into a single society. There were no other mechanisms, such as a nation or civil society, in the full sense. Now the state has refused to fulfill this unifying function. On the contrary, the authorities deliberately split the society, in fact declaring civil war on the majority of their citizens. Now the state is a danger to society.

8. Power has lost its moral authority. The last year's events destroyed the illusions of the majority of the population as to what Lukashenka's state really is. Now the authorities are unfair and immoral for the Belarusians. Thus, the Belarusian revolution, like the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, became a revolution of dignity.

9. Within a few months, accelerated socialization of society took place. The townsfolk have suddenly become citizens, metaphorically labeled "incredible." The people have become a political subject, which the regime does not want to recognize.

10. Over the past months, civil society has formed in Belarus. Horizontal links are working. A large infrastructure of the social movement has been created, which includes communities of houses, neighborhoods, corresponding chat rooms for their communication. Instead of corporations formed by the state, self-organizing professional communities emerged spontaneously. Chats for doctors ("White coats"), athletes, etc., are being created. This process is largely taking place based on digital platforms, that is, on a post-industrial basis.

11. The process of the formation of the Belarusian nation is over. Usually, a nation is formed in a struggle against some external enemy (empire, metropolis). In the case of Belarus, the formation of the nation took place during the struggle against the ruling regime. This is another paradox of the Belarusian revolution. It is no coincidence that traditional national symbols have become a symbol of protest: the white-red-white flag and the coat of arms Pahonia.

And during these months, we saw for the first time that there is a Belarusian diaspora (as part of the Belarusian nation), which actively supports the protest.

12. The model of the corporate state was destroyed. The labor collectives of state-owned enterprises, which are the key elements of the Belarusian social model and important tools for monitoring the political loyalty of workers, came out with protests.

At the time of the crisis, the entire carefully built system of pro-government "public" organizations collapsed. Have you heard anything about the role of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, "Belaya Rus" during these events? According to the leader of independent trade unions, Aliaksandr Yarashuk, 20-30% of its members left the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. The church has ceased to be reliable.

13. The Belarusian revolution has no geopolitical context in the sense that it is neither pro-Western nor pro-Russian. It is pro-Belarusian.

14. The peculiarity of the Belarusian revolution is that it is without leaders. People who claimed this role ended up either in prison (Siarhei Tikhanouski, Viktar Babaryka, Mikalai Statkevich, Pavel Seviarynets) or were pushed abroad (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Valery Tsapkala, Pavel Latushka). Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is more a symbol of the revolution than its real leader.

A spontaneously self-organizing protest for six months is a Belarusian phenomenon. The vertically organized pyramid of power is opposed by the horizontally organized element of protest.

15. The fundamentally peaceful nature of the protest, in contrast to the ruling regime's incredible brutality, is another phenomenon of the Belarusian revolution. If a very tough, consolidated political regime can be won peacefully, this will become a unique experience of democratic transformation.

16. However, the protest sentiments of society, the "uprising of the masses" did not turn into a "crisis of the top," did not lead to a split of the elites, which according to all theories is a necessary condition for the victory of the revolution. Expectations that the state apparatus would begin to fall apart or go over to the other side of the barricades under the moral and psychological pressure of the people were not justified. Why?

a) Because Belarus has a strong and consolidated authoritarian regime. Not a single state institution is elected by the people, accountable to the people, or controlled by the people. All of them are absolutely sterile from dissent. For opponents of the regime, there are no points of support in the state apparatus and the political system as a whole. For a quarter of a century, the opposition has been in a non-systemic status. There is a rigid vertical of power that Lukashenka personally forms from above. The state apparatus does not depend on the people, and therefore does not respond to its demands, but remains loyal to the one who created it.

b) Belarus has a huge state presence in all spheres of public life. The state dominates not only in the economy but also in the social sphere (housing and communal services, medicine, education), mass media, culture, etc. The state is the main employer. This allows the authorities to exercise state control over society. Political repressions are carried out not only by law enforcement agencies and special services but also by all state structures. And today, the main thing in the work of all state institutions is precisely the implementation of repressions and not the performance of their usual functions.

17. The ruling regime's only response to the new challenges was to rely on naked violence and political repression, which took on an unprecedented character. All those who are against Lukashenka have been declared defeated. The laws do not apply to them. They can not only be imprisoned, beaten, tortured, not allowed into the territory of Belarus (they will soon be deprived of their citizenship) but also, as the story with Raman Bandarenka has shown, even kill with impunity.

18. The cult of naked violence most of all characterizes the ruling regime's inability to adapt to the new reality.

The regime has no narrative for the future other than maintaining the status quo based on violence and fear. Lukashenka does not even understand its necessity.

19. For several months, the country has been living in a psychological state of civil war. And this is not just a cold civil war. Several people were killed, hundreds were beaten and maimed, over 30 thousand were detained. Political polemics between the conflicting parties occurs exclusively through the language of enmity and hatred.

20. In the confrontation between the regime and the revolution, there was a default of state functions. That is, government agencies have ceased to fulfill their responsibilities.

In fact, the foreign policy of Belarus is being destroyed, and the country is losing its international subjectivity. A radical change in foreign policy in just a few days has clearly demonstrated that under an authoritarian regime, foreign policy is not a defense of the country's national interests, but only a method, a means, an instrument of power of one person. And nothing more.

The legal system and institutions of justice have been completely destroyed, without which the existence of a full-fledged modern state is impossible.

In the country, the structures of business, culture (the Kupalauski Theater), sports, suspected of disloyalty to the ruling regime, are consistently destroyed.

Thus, the state deprives itself of its functions, leaving only those that ensure the preservation of power, that is, punitive. State institutions designed to meet the needs of society are being reoriented towards self-service, protecting their own interests from claims from society. The state was reduced to a political regime.

21. Lukashenka has become one of the main factors in the destabilization of the Belarusian society. The events of 2020 mean for him the collapse of hopes to enter Belarusian history with a plus sign. He seems to understand this. Therefore, the state of stress, multiplied by the desire for power and revenge on all who threaten it, overshadowed everything for him. For the sake of preserving power, he is ready to leave scorched earth and ruins here.

22. Until now, Lukashenka appealed to the people over the head of all state institutions and nomenklatura, and his regime of sole power was based on popular support. Now that public support has disappeared, he has to rely on the state apparatus. This means that the role and political weight of the nomenclature is increasing.

23. The regime is evolving towards militarization. Power structures have become a backbone element of the Lukashenka state. And they will demand their share of power. Partly a manifestation of this trend was the fact that Lukashenka changed the key figures of the power bloc since the beginning of the Belarusian revolution.

24. The Belarusian society has received a severe psychological trauma. The authorities will have to live with the same trauma. We have a traumatized society. For the next few years, Belarus will be in a state of post-traumatic stress disorder.

25. Well-known British political scientist Edward Lucas gave a very interesting assessment of the Belarusian revolution: "Current events are a follow-up. You are catching up with a train you missed in the 1990s. This is, so to speak, the last echo of the 1989-1991 revolutions that ended the communist regime."

The Belarusian revolution has dealt a crushing blow to the last post-Soviet utopia. It destroyed the project based on the illusion that development can be ensured without democratic transformation by conserving the basic elements of the Soviet past. All left-wing and anti-Western forces in the world were guided by this project in one way or another. Now, this ideological bubble has burst.

26. The strength of the state apparatus helped Lukashenka retain power. But brute force is unable to ensure his personal legitimacy and the legitimacy of the ruling regime to overcome the political crisis. The majority of the population has a very negative attitude towards Lukashenka, and its active part demonstrates its readiness to continue the protest. The metaphor that Lukashenka is the president of the AMAP is a good description of the current situation. And the cost of putting things in order by force has already turned out to be very high and continues to grow. This is a serious blow to the economy, destruction of business, the legal system, and the country's foreign policy. In other words, Belarus has entered a period of permanent socio-political crisis, which cannot be resolved by force.

27. The saturation of Lukashenka's type with authoritarianism leads to the fact that the pendulum of public sentiment has swung strongly in the other direction. Belarus is ripe for a full-fledged market economy and liberal-type democracy.

28. Lukashenka cannot retain power with the old methods. A situation is emerging that the classic of the revolution described in the form of the formula: the leaders cannot rule in the old way. This means that the authoritarian regime in Belarus must become tougher and more undemocratic than before in order to survive.

29. As a result, two opposite, diverging tendencies are developing in the country. In the coming months, we will have a tougher authoritarian regime and a politicized, revolutionized, movement-based society that has tasted freedom. The lid of the boiling kettle closes even tighter. This means that the conflict is becoming more acute, irreconcilable, and the political crisis is deepening.

30. Belarus will remain, from the island of stability in the foreseeable future, a "sick man of Europe" and the entire post-Soviet space. And this is the inevitable price to be paid for a quarter of a century of deadening stability.

Today we can say unequivocally that the Belarusian revolution has already gone down in history and will have a huge impact on the country's further development. After all, revolutions don't go unnoticed. Belarusian society is on the eve of great changes.

Valery Karbalevich, Svobodnye Novosti