{"id":11576,"date":"2023-06-09T19:18:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T16:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/longreads\/lukasenka-still-nostalgic-for-soviet-union-despite-its-failure\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","slug":"lukasenka-still-nostalgic-for-soviet-union-despite-its-failure","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/11576\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0141uka\u0161enka still nostalgic for Soviet Union, despite its failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Alaksandr Klasko\u016dski, BPN<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka often cites the Soviet Union as an example of resistance to the West. He employed that narrative at his meeting with security officials from Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states in Minsk on June 8.<\/span><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u201cYou remember from the Soviet Union\u2019s experience \u2013 we were under pressure; no one liked us; they attempted to strangle us. But we worked splendidly despite being locked within our borders, we were self-sufficient,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka, who considers himself an expert in history, pretends to \u201cforget\u201d that the Soviet Union lost its competition with the West and eventually collapsed.\n<\/p>\n

Self-sufficiency<\/h2>\n

\n\t The Soviet empire ruptured itself in the arms race. In fact, the United States skillfully used its Star Wars program to overstrain it. The centrally-planned economy proved inherently corrosive and weaker than market economies. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan exacerbated the crisis. Russia has fallen into the same trap as it tries to restore its imperial might. It invaded Ukraine and challenged more powerful and technologically-advanced Western countries.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t The leaders of other former Soviet republics are both wary of Russian expansion and skeptical about it. Moscow simply does not have the resources to achieve its goals. Meanwhile, new independent states would like to choose their own paths. Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka is the only leader who let Russia bind and subdue Belarus.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u201cWe need to work out a plan of internal development of our space, Russia and Belarus in the first place, since we have ended up in the same boat,\u201d he said on June 8. He said he would offer Putin to work out a program of action toward self-sufficiency.\n<\/p>\n

Leaky boat<\/h2>\n

\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka sticks with Russia because of his Soviet mentality and the repressive political system that scares off most partners, except for similar autocrats.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t He came to power in 1994, riding on public discontent with post-Soviet chaos and promising to take the country back to the \u201cbright past.\u201d Belarusian society has matured since then with most voters demanding civil rights, democracy and honest elections. Democracy and honest elections would certainly mean the end of \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s autocratic rule and expose him to possible arrest and trial. That is why he is trying to freeze the country as it is or turn back the clock.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka and Putin are birds of a feather. Putin is also fixated on the past, determined to restore the empire only to face the harsh reality of building a union of two autocrats who share the ridiculous hope that self-sufficiency would give the two backward economies a cutting edge in competition with developed nations.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t The two old men have been meeting quite often to discuss how to bend the reality so that it will fit into their outdated mentality and weird dreams. It is sad, however, that they are not just two pensioners sitting on the bench and dreaming. They are strong-arm rulers holding their countries hostage to their backward-looking plans.\n<\/p>\n

Uneasy role for Belarusian ruler<\/h2>\n

\n\t Despite his Soviet mentality, \u0141uka\u0161enka has every reason to fear that Putin may downgrade him first secretary of the Byelorussian Communist Party.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t The leadership of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) did not have a currency, had its budget approved in Moscow and could not block the Viciebsk Airborne Division\u2019s deployment to Afghanistan, where it took heavy losses.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka wants both to receive generous aid from the Kremlin and remain a ruler in his own right in Belarus. He has dismissed proposals for a single currency with Russia and would not send Belarusian troops to Ukraine to help Russian forces.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t But he is finding it more and more difficult to maneuver his way out of trouble. He has already ceded substantial elements of his country\u2019s sovereignty to Russia.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t He is not quite comfortable with his role as the co-aggressor. He would probably prefer to be moderating peace talks. \u201cWe have been branded co-aggressors. I should say that the \u2018co-aggressors\u2019 proposed a peace process on the third, or maybe even on the first day of the conflict. And it [the process] started here in Belarus,\u201d he told the CSTO security chiefs.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t Brussels and Washington do not take him seriously and see him as the Kremlin\u2019s puppet. The West gave up on \u0141uka\u0161enka, leaving him to hang on to autocracy.\n<\/p>\n

CSTO and other post-Soviet alliances in crisis<\/h2>\n

\n\t Moscow established the CSTO and other post-Soviet alliances in an effort to glue the pieces of its broken empire back together. But they are souring. The Kremlin\u2019s imperialistic thinking cannot produce a model to attract its partners that have been looking for pivots elsewhere after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t Kazakhstan is working to strengthen ties with China to counterbalance Russian influence. Astana has made it crystal clear that it will not support the Russian war of aggression.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s June 2022 appeal to the CSTO partners to stand together with Russia against Ukraine fell on deaf ears.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \u201cIf, God forbid, Russia collapses, our place is under that rubble,\u201d the Belarusian ruler warned at the CSTO\u2019s Yerevan Summit in November. The CSTO partners do not rule out that it can fall and prefer to keep some distance from Russia.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t Disappointed with the CSTO, Armenia is looking for new alliances to resolve the crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is a loose economic alliance that cannot help Moscow to put back the pieces.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, at a recent EAEU forum in Moscow, shrugged aside suggestions that his country should join the political and military union of Belarus and Russia, noting Kazakhstan was only looking for stronger economic ties.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t Therefore, \u0141uka\u0161enka and Putin can only hope to build a mini-USSR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alaksandr Klasko\u016dski, BPN Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka often cites the Soviet Union as an example of resistance to the West. He employed that narrative at his meeting with security officials from Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states in Minsk on June 8. \u201cYou remember from the Soviet Union\u2019s experience \u2013 we were under pressure; no one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"template":"","rubric":[24],"class_list":["post-11576","longreads","type-longreads","status-publish","hentry","rubric-theviewer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u0141uka\u0161enka still nostalgic for Soviet Union, despite its failure | Pozirk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Alaksandr Klasko\u016dski, BPN Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka often cites the Soviet Union as an example of resistance to the West. 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