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Belarus: The Final Satellite State?

A satellite state is an independent nation that is under the influence of another nation; this influence can be economic, militaristic, political, cultural or social. The most famous modern example of this is the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe, comprising all forms of influence listed above to enclose the region within, what Winston Churchill called, the ‘Iron Curtain’. Considering how Belarus is one of the closest contemporary representations of the Soviet model, could it be the only satellite state in Europe to have formed after independence from the USSR, and the only one to have survived?


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Source: Council of Europe


Main Characteristics of a Soviet Satellite State during the Cold War period (1947-1991):

  • Authoritarian Dictatorships and Corruption

  • State-ownership of Industries and a (pseudo) Command Economy

  • Subservience or Loyalty to the Communist Party of the USSR

  • Rigged Elections

  • Strict Censorship and State-controlled Media

  • Economic Stagnation and Labour Exploitation

  • Repression by the Secret Police and the Military

  • Oppression of Religious, Cultural and Minority Groups

How Does This Relate to Belarus?

LEADERSHIP & POLITICS:

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Belarusian government reorganized to form a constitutional republic in 1994, retaining a majority of its Soviet-appointed ministers. At the time of this change, the current President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, was the interim Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. This provided him the power to implicate higher officials, such as Supreme Soviet Chairman Shushkevich and Prime Minister Kebich, through corruption, damaging their reputations. The Presidential election that followed is believed to have been rigged by Lukashenko, who gained a majority of the votes, despite Kebich being seen as the clear favourite. What is remarkable about this is that Lukashenko’s rise to power is almost identical to that of Soviet leaders like Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and satellite state leaders like Ulbricht (East Germany), Rakosi (Hungary) and Gheorghiu-Dej (Romania) who all utilized political sabotage and rigged elections to come to power. As of June 2021, Lukashenko is seemingly intent on retaining a lifetime position as President through more rigged elections that extend his Presidential term - gaining, on average, 80% of the vote in all elections since 1994 - and through the enforcement of constitutional reforms that permit its longevity. He has, as of June 2021, been President for almost 27 years.

Lukashenko maintains his position of leadership as an authoritarian dictator, just like the Soviet and satellite states’ leadership. Strangely enough, the Belarusian President takes pride in his authoritarianism, unlike his Soviet-era counterparts, “My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator, but an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it.” Under Lukashenko, most Parliaments and Referendums have also been fabricated or rigged to gain results in his favour, while under the guise of democracy. As Belarus is a self-proclaimed dictatorship, it is worth noting that, when examining current data and predicting future policies, Lukashenko’s personal opinions and prejudices are extremely impactful.

Lukashenko has stressed, on many occasions, that he intends to revive and retain Soviet culture in Belarus, “I view the collapse of the Soviet Union as a disaster that entailed, and still brings about, negative consequences around the world... the Soviet Union ceased to exist and, as you see, the world started shattering.” His opinions clearly coincide with the culture, diplomacy and social norms of Belarus – where Soviet relics, Communist Red Stars, secret police forces, Komsomol-style youth organizations, enmity towards NATO and the United States, and close ties with Russia all prevail as they did under Soviet rule. So, is Lukashenko just a delusional fanatic or has he really turned Belarus into a satellite state?

ECONOMY AND SOCIALISM:

President Lukashenko has clarified that, under his leadership, the Belarusian economy would function under “market socialism”, incorporating both elements of Soviet socialism and modern Russian capitalism. However, Lukashenko’s regime has allowed minimal liberties and accommodations for the private sector to efficiently function in Belarus, leading many privatized industries to fail due to market volatility and high government intervention. At the same time, economists have estimated that the state-owned sector of Belarus is far higher than the official data provided. The National Statistical Committee of Belarus’ published data estimates that 57% of laborers work for the state while 48% of economic output is state-produced. In contrast, foreign economists have estimated that 69-82% of Belarusian laborers work for the state, while almost 75% of economic output is state-produced, showing wide discrepancies between the data sets. The prevalence of state-owned industries over private enterprises in Belarus shows a clear bias towards socialism.

Thus, one may trust foreign statistics more as they align with the Belarusian President’s personal prejudices towards the USSR’s model of socialism. It is worth noting that Lukashenko’s background as a deputy chairman of a collective farm (kolkhoz) upon his entry to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the early 1980s may have influenced Belarus’ policy of retaining collective farms as its main source of agricultural output. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, there have been few changes in the Belarusian economy, particularly in the agricultural sector, since the Soviet era. Although Lukashenko’s nostalgic policies may seem heartwarming, collecting farms in the Soviet Union and its satellite states had a far more sinister purpose. Most collective farms were used as forced labor camps for rich peasants (kulaks) and criminals throughout the USSR’s existence, functioning under abhorrent conditions where farmers were forced to work to death, allowed meagre quantities of food and were punished by secret police forces. Given that students pursuing higher education are Lukashenko’s main opposition group, it is quite concerning that university students have, as recently as 2020, been placed in collective farms. A recent large-scale example is the group of 150 students from Vitebsk State University who were placed in an apple farm by the Belorussian government, in 2019, for unspecified reasons.

Furthermore, Soviet-style economic stagnation is also reflected in the modern Belorussian economy which frequently experiences fluctuating inflation rates, volatile exchange rates, large trade imbalances and high foreign aid dependence:

“Yearly inflation fluctuates between 15-20%, total volumes of unsold production are ever increasing, having now exceeded 34 trillion [Belarusian] rubles, or 79% of the monthly average production,” Stanisław Bogdankiewicz, a Belarusian academic and an ex-Chairman of the National Bank of Belarus (NBB), said as quoted by Charter97. “In manufacturing, 26.7% factories are unprofitable. Investment has fallen by more than 10%. Total external debt has risen by more than 140%, amounting at $40.5 billion on October 1, 2014, which is 55.4% GDP.”

The problem with these volatile rates is the burden they add to Belarus’ private sector, making it difficult for businesses to expand and predict future figures to strategize. Ultimately, this serves to discourage any private firms from continuing operations in Belarus or attracting Foreign Direct Investments into the country, sealing the country’s future as a fully socialist state.

On the bright side, Belarus has seen many new technological developers and domestic ‘start-ups’ being established – somewhat reminiscent of Soviet ‘space-race' era rapid tech-developments. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency developers have also been encouraged and funded by the government of Belarus since 2017, prompting critics to speculate whether further free-market reforms may be possible in the future.

REPRESSION, CENSORSHIP, SECRET POLICE AND THE MILITARY:

For a country that is determined to replicate the Soviet Union’s governance, strict censorship, secret police forces, military intimidation and the persecution of peaceful dissidents are essential qualities.

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, noted in 2018, “A 22-year-old in Belarus now has never experienced free and fair elections, is afraid to publicly express political views, does not have access to different media or to a diverse culture, and finds it normal to undertake forced labour at weekends.”

Since May 2021, Belarus has been in the headlines for the diversion of a Ryanair flight carrying 26-year-old Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich. Lukashenko went as far as making bomb threats and having fighter jets follow the aircraft Protasevich was on before forcing a landing at Minsk Airport to take him into custody. According to fellow passengers, Protasevich was said to have turned around while being arrested and, looking petrified, told the crowd that he was “facing the death penalty.” This grim statement may not be untrue as Belarus has a history of assassinating dissident journalists: Dzmitry Zavadsky, Veronika Cherkasova, Aleh Byabenin and Pavel Sheremet are among the many who were abducted or assassinated by the Belorussian Government and military since 1994.

Two months prior to the 2020 Presidential Election in Belarus, it was estimated that over 40 journalists were arrested and had their offices raided. Subsequently, throughout the protests that followed the election in August, hundreds of protestors and journalists were shot with rubber bullets, abducted, arrested, tortured and had equipment, such as cameras and memory cards, destroyed. According to Amnesty International, in 2020 UN human rights experts received 450 testimonies of ill-treatment of detainees supported by photo, video and medical evidence, documenting a horrific litany of abuses. The Belarusian authorities admitted receiving some 900 complaints of abuse by police in connection with the protests but by the end of the year not a single criminal investigation had been opened, nor had any law enforcement officer been charged with respective violations. For the Soviet and satellite states’ governments, persecuted journalists would hardly be news, with thousands having been assassinated and brutally tortured throughout the years.

Lukashenko’s regime also rapidly responded to the rise of online media and internet sources in the country: blocking access to most Belorussian private media outlets like Naviny.by and Tut.by, banning all VPN services and foreign websites without government permits and by installing stringent internet-filters. These restrictions are depressing reminders of the USSR’s censorship laws which were administered by secret police forces. Belarus continues to use a secret police force, aptly named the KGB, to repress opposition to Lukashenko in nightmarish detention centres, much like most Soviet regimes. Human rights violations by the Belorussian secret police have also led to the sanctioning of dozens of its members by the European Union and the United States.

“Ill-treatment amounting to torture is used as a systemic tool that serves the overall oppressive legal framework in Belarus...... (Belarus) continues to carry out executions. The President, although he has the right to do so, has not ordered a moratorium on executions, or commuted death sentences to prison terms,” explained Mr. Haraszti.

Religious, social and cultural persecution has also been prevalent in Belarus, with Jews, Protestant Christians, foreign Catholics and Orthodox worshippers being the main targets. According to Forum18, a 2002 state schoolbook teaches that Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses are "sects encouraging fanaticism”, that Krishna-devotees “need psychiatric help” and that Orthodox worship “results in a hypnotic state.” Since atheism is a core practice of Soviet socialism, religious persecution in Belarus is hardly surprising. Lukashenko’s neo-Soviet policies have also led to a culture of anti-Belarusian nationalism, with the President explaining, “People who speak Belarusian cannot do anything except talk on it, because it is impossible to express anything great in Belarusian. The Belarusian language is a poor language. There are only two great languages in the world: Russian and English.” As of 2020, over 90% of Belarusian school-children are only taught in Russian. If you thought Lukashenko could not get any stranger, you may not have expected LGBTQ+ relationships to have been legalized in Belarus as early as 1994. Although, Lukashenko’s opinions, “As for those who are screaming about dictatorship...when I hear that come up, I think that it is better to be a dictator than to be gay,” have led to severe oppression and social stigmatization of those relationships.


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Source: open democracy

How Can You Help?

After reading this article, you may have concluded that there is no possible way to aid those struggling and facing persecution in Belarus. That’s not true.

Most Belarusian journalists and dissidents report domestic abuses and atrocities from outside the country, living in exile in places like Lithuania, Poland and Greece. So, you can, in fact, access information and ensure that you are well-read and informed, or aid in bringing the work of these independent reporters into mainstream news through discussions and promotion on social media. The significance of this is that you can contribute to providing Belarusians the freedom of speech that they are severely lacking in at the moment, as many other individuals like Roman Protasevich continue to face horrific ordeals in the hands of Lukashenko’s regime.

Links to Independent Belarusian News Sites/Blogs:

Sources and References:


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