Alaksandar Klaskouski

Twenty-nine years ago on a wonderful August day I suddenly found myself in shoes (more exactly, in tarpaulin boots) of someone who was a step away from becoming an occupant. A rumor has gone around that our alarmed division would go to Poland.
Was it so or not, it has remained under the veil of the military secret. Most probably, maneuvers were practiced just to be on the safe side (because the fire of strikes was just beginning to flare up in the neighboring country). But the version of “international assistance” was perceived in the complete earnest. “Enemy voices” were talking a lot about unrest in Poland. We secretly kept a SW receiver “Selena” in our barrack, and just then we heard about Walęsa and other leaders of the strike movement.
…The intrigue ended up when not far away from the Polish border the convoy which was enwrapped in fumes suddenly turned back. The remaining part of the training we spent very comfortably. We mostly consumed the fruit wine “Apricot Aroma” in bushes near the firing range and song mockingly “The Red Army is The Strongest One”.
Later I read that in 1980 – 81 plans of intervention really existed. The role of General Jaruzelski is interpreted in different ways. Some argue that he urged the Kremlin to bring in troops but old men in the Politburo had already singed their feathers in Afghanistan and were afraid of Western sanctions while oil prices were falling. Others believe that it was Jaruzelski who saved the country from Hungary-86 and Czechoslovakia-68 scenarios by having imposed the martial law.
Anyway, I bless my stars that this cup passed from me. One day, my uncle Koscia, a former armor crewman, told me how they had been sent to Budapest in 1956. And while he personally did not kill anyone nor crushed anyone with tracks, the way Magyars were looking at Soviet soldiers left a hard gall in his mind for his entire life.
After that military training in 1980 I began to follow the events in Poland closely. And the entire relatively politicized part of the Belarusian society was seeking to get more adequate idea about the situation in the country than articles in “Pravda” gave to you. The common people were also indoctrinated with relative propaganda at universal days of political orientation: something like, the counterrevolution lifted its head, and the Socialist gains are under threat! It is true, some speakers from the Party’s district committees were adding on the informal basis: “but they never had the Soviet power and true (as in the USSR) socialism there, they were always looking at the West, at the capitalism!”
Now I arrive at conclusion that these propagandists were right in their own way.
An important moment: the authorities had no time to ruin the appetite of Poles for private property at the times of the Polish People’s Republic. The rural area remained populated by individual farmers predominantly. There were a lot of private shops etc. And the Belarusians were massively inoculated with the kolkhoz and Soviet-style dependency vaccine. The entire philosophy: to work letting things slide and to grab all you can lay your hands on.
Also, many people were sincerely grateful to the Soviet regime because they had moved from homes under thatch to town apartments with warm WCs and hot shower. The after-war Minsk was practically made from such yesterday’s countrymen who were ashamed of their “village” language. Mistrust of men of the street for the national democratic movement grew later on the same mental soil which was fertilized by the official media: something like, if you place them in authority they will drill you by exams in the Belarusian mentality!
I will certainly be reminded about the golden age when several tens of thousands of people rallied under opposition banners. Yes, but, firstly, influence was rather quickly lost, and secondly, at the height of this influence the threat to the regime never reached the degree to make it scared and to make it agree to a roundtable (games of 2000 in the “dialogue of socio-political forces” count for nothing). And in Poland the roundtable was a result of a de facto power balance (and of undeniable moral ascendancy of opposition).
Certainly, the Belarusian opposition has a great registry of mistakes, but in principle, it simply was not able to jump over its head.
The drama of Belarus is that the communist system was quite successful in setting up here an experiment in creation of a “homo sovietikus”.
This is why independence was not even comprehended by everyone (not only in 1991 but up to date as well), let alone mass struggle. And it was primarily the sovietized mass of people who voted for Lukashenka in 1994, overtaken by nostalgia about the rosy past. The iconic sausage priced at 2.20 rubles was associated namely with the Soviet era of stagnation. A historic revanche took place. Not the total one, and more likely, the delusive one, but the country was slowed down for about fifteen years.
Polish workers also wanted to buy sausage at an accessible price. I will remind: in summer of 1980 protests were detonated just be the hike of price of meat in works canteens.
But Solidarność’s phenomenon was not in the least in sausage slogans. The word “Freedom” was the password.
After all, prosperity and the abundant table — the same sacred bub and grub, if you want, — were not associated by millions of Poles of the Solidarność era with the Soviet style barracks paradise, but on the contrary, with distancing from the Soviets, with private initiative and true national independence. And again, with freedom.
And although the Belarusians were then intrigued by Walęsa’s and his fellow coworkers’ audacity and by the scope of the Polish movement, they mostly perceived this phenomenon as a “folly of the courageous”, without conceding that Solidarność had any chances to win. And still less they projected a similar plot on the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The colossus of the Communist empire seemed to be impregnable.
The Belarusian society in its majority (I would ask individual super-activists of that era not to upspring in protest: nobody has been forgotten, and nothing has been forgotten) dozed even when the entire “Socialist camp” went all to pieces. It was not in vain that progressive essay writers called the gentlest Soviet republic the anti-perestroika Vendee.
In political analyst Siarhiej Nikaluk’s opinion, the Belarusians do not have traditions of a collective protest. After all, something may be recalled. And in the first place the social explosion of April 1991 which was expected by nobody. Then in the capital city of “Vendee” about one hundred thousand enraged proletarians went to Lenin Square.
I remember how workers congested tram tracks in Minsk. In Orsha even the train traffic was stopped. Now well-trained security forces would make rebels toe the line. Mind you that the repressive apparatus in the Communist times could not even closely match the one which exists now.
But that revolt was spontaneous and just the sausage one: people were outraged by Pavlov’s (the Soviet prime minister at that time) price hike when a lunch in works canteen became worth almost two rubles instead of the traditional one ruble. Here is a clear parallel with the Polish plot of summer of 1980.
But then further on everything was different. There was no ideologic core, spontaneity dominated, and thus the unrest was quickly neutralized by sucking it in the quagmire of petty negotiations and palliative decisions. Later some political forces tried to say that they had been directing that proletarian demonstration; however, it is evident anyway that they had not attained any noticeable influence.
Another outburst was a strike of subway workers in 1995. But that local impulsive demarche was bound to be defeated. There were no repercussions, no broad solidarity, let alone a powerful structure similar to the Polish Solidarność. I will remind: the latter was able to unite up to nine and a half million people, one in three Poles!
In this context it is worth to stress the role of the active part of the Polish intelligentsia who managed to establish a close contact with workers in early 1980s.
Two factors overlapped in the Polish case. First, the rejection of the Communist system as it was – as unable to secure prosperity, rights and freedoms. Second, the rejection of the CPSU’s empire as a prison of nations, and also not only of nations of the USSR but of the entire Socialist camp. This position was taken not only by an upscale batch of intellectuals but by numerous Poles.
Certainly, one may add other important factors — in particular, to recall the role of the church and the catch phrase of John Paul II “Don’t be afraid!”, to speculate about the massive Western support, but these are separate broad topics.
The fact is that they had a solid ground for mass movement. Poles fought for independence for generations and they had a good school at it. Moscow was always associated with an empire threat to them.
Yes, our forefathers took part in uprisings against the two-headed eagle. But later this spirit and this historic memory were mercilessly beaten by different kind of satraps.
But what can you say: an important part of our society, according to independent sociologists, is still ready to create a union with Russia in some form. Moreover: well in advance of the new presidential election the leader of opposition communists brings up the slogan of the single currency with the eastern neighbor (i.e., the ruble with the two-headed eagle). And certainly, he counts on a favorable resonance.
At the same time, such political pirouettes no longer arouse apocalyptic feelings. The sociology attests again that the perception of independence is slowly getting stronger in our country, as well as the pro-European attitudes. They are already now on a par with the pro-Russian ones, and even prevail. Besides, for the time being there is more like split than parity on the majority of the most important issues for the nation – issues of the historic choice. Split against solidarity. And moreover – no hint at a structure like the legendary Solidarność.
It is evident that the Belarusian way to changes is more tortuous and contradictory than the triumph of the Polish anticommunist movement of past times. At the same time, we will point out that the sweeping victory over the previous regime did not resolve the problems of the Polish nation miraculously. And this is a topic in its own right.
One should not idealize mechanisms. The political culture in the society is being established slowly, step by step. The market economy does not guarantee the Edenic life. And Belarus has its specific delicate problems (language, cultural identity and others) which any most progressive government cannot resolve at full speed or by issuing directives.
But tectonic movements are also inevitable in our country.
The economic crisis poses challenges which the “Belarusian model” surrounded by myths is unable to cope with. And one of the main paradoxes is that namely the tie-in to Russia suffering from great-power ambitions, on the one hand, and the uncompromising autocracy of Lukashenka, on the other hand, created the explosive mixture which razes the “union project” and gradually moves Belarus in a totally different geopolitical situation.
In Poland they had changes under the pressure of masses, and in our country they brew under the pressure of the external force majeure, against one’s will.
An intervention from the east is practically an unrealistic threat for today’s Belarus in contrast to Poland of 1980 – 1981. But an economic expansion on the sly is probable.
So, decorations and actors are totally different, the intrigue is not so expressive, but the moment of historic drama is scarcely much less important for us than it was for the Poles in 1980s.