Тег: Belarus

Belarus 4

This is my fourth text about Belarus (others can be found via the hashtag ), and this time it was prompted by watching a conversation between Mikhail Svetov, Roman Popkov, and Elena Borovskaya, as well as Roman’s post summarizing the stream on his channel.

Roman Popkov’s account of the current state of Belarusian civil society was very informative and explained why things are going the way they are, but right now I want to talk about something else.

During the conversation, Roman reproached “Moskals” for their excessively technological mindset. Ponasenkov took the brunt of it with his Die erste Kolonne marschiert, die zweite Kolonne marschiert, but Svetov, who agreed with Ponasenkov, also got hit. I, for one, although I live separated from Moscow by a considerable distance and the Ural range, am still one of those very same “Moskals,” and therefore I also have a purely technological approach to this political science problem: how to ensure the transit from an illegitimate dictatorship to a transitional government, constitutional reform, and a new legitimate government. And I see exactly two options.

Option one. Do you want it to be like in Ukraine?

If the dictator previously had enough strength to weed out combat organizations (hello to Roman Popkov and his NBP) by the root, then now, with constant street protests occurring, it is quite easy to disguise combat coordination training as episodic spontaneous coordination. Tens of thousands of people daily search for the most effective ways to exhaust the opponent’s resources, get to know each other, find out what everyone is capable of, and if the degree of anger continues to rise, then at some point the hundreds of corpses mentioned by Roman will stop seeming like a serious restriction on the path to overthrowing the dictatorship.

Of course, they don’t charge head-on toward administrative buildings, but, as we saw in Ukraine, they seize military warehouses and armories in police stations. After that, a transition to the hot phase of street fighting is inevitable, even if no one is injured during the seizure of weapons. And street fighting will inevitably end with the overthrow of the dictator.

Option two. What is the name of the President of Switzerland?

What follows is a fantasy story; do not take it as a forecast.

Tikhanovskaya arrives for Biden’s inauguration. This is an excellent pretext to discuss exactly how to overthrow Lukashenko. The invasion option is dismissed, and a cheaper one is proposed. Lukashenko is placed on an international wanted list, and a serious reward by Belarusian standards is set for his capture, dead or alive—say, a conventional hundred million dollars. Simultaneously, a second very important person enters the fray; his name is Guy Parmelin. He is the Vice President of the Swiss Confederation, who by the time of Biden’s inauguration will be the new president (hello to Mikhail Svetov and his constant rhetorical question about the name of the President of Switzerland). Switzerland is a neutral country with a very stable political system. Only it can give Lukashenko a guarantee of lifelong political asylum (Russia or the USA cannot).

That’s it; now we start the clock and watch to see what happens first: one of Lukashenko’s guards presents his head and demands the reward—or Lukashenko seeks guarantees from Mr. Parmelin and leaves the country immediately after they are confirmed.

Belarus 3

This is already my third post about Belarus. In the first one, I gave obvious recommendations that turned out to be practically a forecast. In the second, I gave non-obvious recommendations, and, naturally, reality diverged from those recommendations. Therefore, instead of giving my own advice now, I want to express my happiness for the recommendations that Belarusians themselves are exchanging.

I am talking about a text on Telegraph with the proud title Victory Plan. It proposes a continuation of Sharp’s non-violent transformation from a dictatorship into a freer society. In brief, the plan includes:

  • organizing the main directions of resistance (fronts): protest actions, economic strangulation of the state, propaganda, political pressure, including at the international level, and moral and legal pressure on specific executors.
  • building parallel coordination structures (ministries): non-state economic services, insurance funds to compensate for the costs of state violence, the collapse of state social services, and strikes.

This is a very good plan because, during its implementation, society will receive a practical course in agorism, and there is a great chance that it will get a taste for it. When it turns out that non-state coordination is more efficient and the dictatorship eventually withers away, there is a chance that the new state, which will inevitably be built in place of the old one, will acquire the best traits of liberal laxity and will avoid meddling in things that are not its business for quite a long time. And if it does start to meddle, people will have ready-made recipes on exactly how to put the state in its place.

Is there a chance that after the old regime leaves, a new one will not be built in its place? It is very small, because libertarian ideas are not yet widely distributed in society, and the thought that everyone is better off without a state does not seem obvious to people. They are more likely to repeat the mistake of thinking, “this was a bad state, it’s gone now, now we will build a good one.”

What Belarusians and Tsikhanouskaya Need to Do, Part 2

Since I wasn’t far off the mark with the first part of my advice, and events unfolded quite closely to the proposed scenario (instead of arresting the entire headquarters — only the deportation of the president-elect; instead of diaspora activity — a nationwide strike), I will venture to suggest a tactic for ending the confrontation.

The essence of the tactic: no one allows any doubt that the president-elect is indeed Tikhanovskaya, and she continues to act precisely in this capacity. And what does the legitimate president-elect do? Of course, she schedules her inauguration.

There is no need to wait long. The inauguration is scheduled for the nearest Sunday, at the largest open venue in Minsk. Foreign leaders are officially invited to it. The Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians will certainly agree, and another dozen leaders will announce that they are sending their representatives. Then begins a bombardment of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with notifications that the president of, say, Croatia gratefully accepts the invitation of the Belarusian side, arrives for the inauguration at such-and-such a time, and requests that a meeting be organized.

In the same way, the inauguration organizing committee with a straight face issues instructions to heads of agencies: organize traffic closures, provide security, set up a stage, seating for invited guests — and so on. If an official sends a refusal, an announcement of their removal from office follows, and a request is sent to the deputy.

In short, the winning side simply begins to give orders, and representatives of the losing side are faced with a choice: either they play by the new rules, or they personally drop out of the process, and tomorrow new faces occupy their offices. Orders are also given to the OMON squads — they are given a week’s leave; after all, they have just worked very hard.

Additionally, the defense side appeals to the investigative authorities with a proposal to close the cases of Tikhanovsky and Babarika in connection with newly discovered circumstances. The circumstances, in the form of a crowd of thousands speaking actively under the windows at that time, speak for themselves.

I will not elaborate on further details; I think the line of thought is more or less clear. Fake it until you make it.

After the first two acts of the play, only the final one remains to be played: we shall overcome

What should Belarusians and Tsikhanouskaya do?

Bogdan Fokin

I’ll say right away that in this instance, I most want to play the Shulman: curl up in a hole and scream from there that I am not an expert, go to the experts. But let me just stipulate that I am not insisting on being right in this matter, and am merely expressing a modest opinion.

I am proceeding from a simple comparison of the tactics of the Ukrainian Maidan and the Armenian revolution. The Armenian tactic ensured victory at the cost of less bitterness between the parties, as a result of which the conflict quickly quieted down, and reforms are now proceeding without as many problems.

So, Tikhanovskaya’s headquarters should formulate the simplest possible decentralized tactic of wearing down the security forces through peaceful urban guerrilla warfare, with coordinated street closures in geographically dispersed districts, strong moral pressure on election commission employees—so that they publish materials showing falsifications—and strong moral pressure on the relatives of security personnel to force their helmet-wearing kin into unobtrusive sabotage, and so on.

After this tactic is announced, there is a high probability that the headquarters will be crushed and its leadership imprisoned in its entirety. But a decentralized tactic will allow things to proceed without a headquarters thereafter.

The diaspora worked well in Armenia. Belarusians have one too; it should be utilized. This means pressure on foreign leaders so that they do not recognize Lukashenko’s victory, but rather recognize Tikhanovskaya’s victory.

Unlike in Venezuela, high-ranking Belarusian security officials do not seem to be as heavily involved in business, but are simple government employees, so it will be easier to win them over to the side of the legitimate lady president.

The left symbol has been played, now the central one enters the fray