The SSR Belarus
By: Alan Bedenko
Date: March 4, 2006
Sometimes they never learn.
The last socialist regimes in Europe toppled in the late 80s and early 1990s. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the DDR, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria - the core of the Eastern European Warsaw Pact - overthrew their dictatorships in 1989 in an historic, dramatic upheaval.
Yugoslavia, Albania, and the Soviet Union came a little late to that party. Albania had for years been the most closed society in the world - hard-line Stalinist right up until the last. This was a country that had a bunker for every man, woman, and child, and was completely shut off from the rest of the world. Yugoslavia degenerated into a rather pointless civil war, and the Soviet Union didn’t fall until the attempted coup against Gorbachev in 1991 failed, and led rapidly to the ascent of Boris Yeltsin as reformer.
Soon thereafter, the former Soviet Socialist Republics of, e.g., Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, etc. became part of something called the “Commonwealth of Independent States”, and slowly gained independence from Russia. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania have, in about 10 years, become fully independent liberal democracies with functioning free market economies, and all three are now members of the European Union.
Belarus is the exception. Nestled between Russia and Poland, this country has been led by a megalomaniacal madman since 1995. Alexander Lukashenko is Europe’s last socialist dictator. And he was elected.
From the CIA Factbook:
president elected by popular vote for a five-year term; first election took place 23 June and 10 July 1994; according to the 1994 constitution, the next election should have been held in 1999, however LUKASHENKO extended his term to 2001 via a November 1996 referendum; new election held 9 September 2001; October 2004 referendum ended presidential term limits allowing president to run for a third term in September 2006; prime minister and deputy prime ministers appointed by the president
When the rules become inconvenient, change ‘em.
Belarus is in the midst of a Presidential election (which Lukashenko will, no doubt, rig), and when Belarus’ congress opened this week, it looked like this:
Remind you of anything? Does this:
Large congresses are not the only communist-era icon that President Lukashenko has revived. He has restored, too, the Belarussian flag and anthem from Soviet times; the command economy and the police state.
It’s a very fine line between fascism and socialist totalitarianism. The command economy plus police state suggests the latter. The fact that he’s using the visual and symbolic trappings of Soviet socialism helps me reach that conclusion. Slobodan Milosevic, on the other hand, turned quickly into a fascist when he wiped the last vestiges of socialist ideology and symbolism from Yugoslavia in the early 90s. It became a kleptocracy, run by various mafia dons, (of which Milosevic was capo di tutti capi), and advocated racial purity, rabid nationalism, and expansionism. Luckily, he’s cooling his heels in the Hague.
The Ukranian revolution of 2004 is pretty fresh in our memory. The fact that Europe has this guy sitting literally on its back door is a shame. I distinctly hope that something similar can be sparked in Belarus sometime over the next several years. I also hope that the US and EU do what they can to light that spark.
opposite.
Alan Bedenko is the author of the website BuffaloPundit.com and a contributing author to Buffalo Spree Magazine.
© Alan Bedenko, 2006.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the WNY Coalition for Progress.
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