Belarus under Lukashenka

Adaptive Authoritarianism

Matthew Frear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780415855273
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135008406
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the nature of the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, and who is often characterized as "the last dictator in Europe". It discusses how Lukashenka came to power, providing a survey of politics in Belarus in early post-Soviet times, examines how power became personalized under his regime, and considers how he coerced opponents, whilst maintaining good popular support. The book discusses all aspects of politics, including presidential power, the ruling elites, elections, the opposition, and civil society. The author characterizes Lukashenka's rule as "adaptive authoritarianism", and demonstrates how the regime's avoidance of any ideology, even nationalism, permits great freedom of manoeuvre, enabling pragmatic adaptation to changing circumstances.

1 Introduction

The Republic of Belarus under President Aliaksandr Lukashenka has been frequently dubbed the last dictatorship in Europe and an outpost of tyranny in both the western mass media and politicians’ sound bites. While these clichéd phrases may make eye-catching headlines, they are insufficient to provide a genuine understanding of the political processes that have been established in Belarus since Lukashenka was elected president of the former Soviet republic in 1994. Attempts to define the Lukashenka regime have ranged from neo-communist to neo-fascist, from sultanistic to retro-utopian, from demagogical democracy to totalitarian regime (Eke & Kuzio 2000; Goujon 2002: 43; Ioffe 2004: 101; Korosteleva 2003; Zviglyanich 1999).

These definitions have often carried with them the connotation that the regime was doomed to failure; nevertheless it has proved unexpectedly durable. Lukashenka remains the country’s first – and so far only – president. When four European Union (EU) foreign ministers penned an op-ed in 2010 that condemned him as ‘Lukashenka the loser’ (Bildt et al. 2010), they could hardly have imagined that five years later Lukashenka would be hosting the German Chancellor and the French President at a summit in Minsk to discuss the Donbas conflict in neighbouring Ukraine. A regime that might once have been dismissed as a temporary anomaly has turned into a fixture on the political map, becoming a non-democratic hole in the heart of Europe. This book seeks to shed some light into this hole, and in doing do map the political landscape of contemporary Belarus.

A frequent theme that arises in the extant studies of Belarus concerns the apparent paradoxes of the political system in place: popular support but denial of political freedoms, economic growth without market reforms, defence of state sovereignty but attacks on Belarusian nationalism, international isolation with openness to foreign trade and travel, closer integration with Russia but assertions of Europeanness. The actions of the authorities may be glibly dismissed by some as erratic and irrational when viewed in terms of simple dichotomies. This book, however, argues that the non-democratic regime in Belarus has, in fact, followed a relatively consistent, expedient, and pragmatic course of action, by refusing to treat these dichotomies as zero-sum choices. It has drawn on all possible pathways, policies, and orientations open to it at any given time. This study introduces the model of ‘adaptive authoritarianism’ as the conceptualization best suited to explaining the successful authoritarian consolidation that has taken place in Belarus. Its overriding primary aim is to maintain the Lukashenka leadership’s grip on the levers of power.

This introductory chapter begins by offering the rationale for examining Belarus as a case study for a non-democratic post-Soviet regime. It then provides a brief historical background to Belarus, before laying out a chronological overview of the main political events in the country since independence. Finally, it provides an outline of the structure of the book and how it will explore the concept of adaptive authoritarianism in Belarus.

Why Belarus? The research context

Belarus is a country of nearly 9.5 million inhabitants that is approximately the same size as the island of Great Britain or the state of Kansas and located (by some measures) in the geographical centre of Europe.¹ As one of the 15 newly independent states to emerge onto the world stage with the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, over the past 25 years Belarus has arguably tended to be one the more overlooked and less understood of them. It lacks the size and power of the Russia Federation, the democratic consolidation of the Baltic States, the natural resources of Central Asia and the Caspian basin, the conflicts of the Caucasus, or the post-revolutionary attraction of Ukraine.

While the furrow of contemporary Russian (and to a lesser extent Ukrainian) politics and society has been well ploughed by academics in the West, the field of Belarusian Studies has remained rather fallow by comparison. Interest in Belarus has gradually increased since the turn of the century, however. There have now been a number of books published that are dedicated to the country’s politics and Lukashenka himself in particular. These range from hagiographies in English (Parker 2007) to broadly positive studies in Russian (Medvedev 2010; Shevtsov 2005). They include a number of western academic studies (Marples 1999, 2007b; Ioffe 2004, 2014; Wilson 2011) as well as detailed insights from Belarusian analysts themselves (Feduta 2005; Karbalevich 2010).

In part, the increased interest in the West can be attributed to a growing understanding that the dual expansion of the EU and NATO in 2004 was transforming Belarus from an apparently insignificant country on Russia’s western frontier to an important neighbour occupying a strategic location on the eastern border of both organizations. There has been a wide range of journal articles and book chapters addressing the perceived geopolitical choices Belarus faces between East and West (e.g. Jarábik & Rabagliati 2007; Koktysh 2003; Korosteleva 2011; Rotman & Veremeeva 2011; White et al. 2016; Yakouchyk 2016) as well as the policies pursued towards Minsk by both the EU (e.g. Guicherd 2002; Gromadzki & Veselý 2006; Ioffe 2011; Korosteleva 2016; Portela 2011) and Russia (e.g. Balmaceda 1999, 2009; Rontoyanni 2002; Danilovich 2006; Deyermond 2004; Drakokhrust & Furman 2002; Marples 2008; Martynau 2013; Vieira 2017). In light of this coverage of foreign policy issues in the extent literature, this book will instead focus primarily on internal politics in Belarus, which has traditionally attracted less academic attention in comparison to the external dimension.

This book contributes to the scholarly thinking on domestic politics in Belarus in terms of the consolidation of contemporary non-democratic regimes. If the expectation had been that in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, newly independent states like Belarus would inexorably move towards the ‘normal’ western models of liberal democracy and a market economy, the evidence did not bear that out. Observers stopped asking ‘How is [a country’s] democratic transition going?’ and instead started analysing ‘What is happening politically?’ (Carothers 2002: 18). The question of how the current political system in Belarus functions in practice, rather than what the political system in Belarus should become, is the issue at the heart of this study. It argues that politics in Belarus cannot be explained away as a straightforward case of developments in Russia or Ukraine writ small. The Lukashenka regime is deserving of dedicated analysis in view of its unpredicted longevity and continued ability to, if not thrive, at least muddle through effectively in the face of internal and external pressures.

In addressing these issues this book does not strive to serve as an apologia for Lukashenka, nor to argue that the system in place in Belarus is a model that others could and should try to emulate. It also seeks to avoid imposing normative assumptions about what political system should be established, taking into account criticism that research into the newly independent states can become ‘needlessly partisan polemics’, which are either excessively naïve or critical of developments (Rutland 2003: 135–6), as well as the risk of resorting to notions of western superiority and Russian or east European ‘otherness’ through ‘regrettable stereotypes, clichés and caricatures’ (Brown 2010: 157).

The book argues that the present regime’s adaptive authoritarianism provides an example of ‘continuity through change’ in so far as Lukashenka has been able to maintain his hold on power by allowing the regime to change and adapt when and where expedient. The regime is not simply a stagnant, Soviet throwback. Equally, any signs of reforms that have taken place should not immediately be interpreted as signs of inexorable democratization. In turn, Lukashenka’s detractors in the opposition find it difficult to develop strategies to successfully erode adaptive authoritarianism. This work does not aspire to be an extended political history of Belarus, nevertheless it is important to provide some historical context and this chapter turns to that in the following section.

From Polatsk to Perestroika

The history of the Belarusian lands and people is a long and contentious one, overlapping as it does with the historiographies of Russia and Poland in particular. The first history of the Belarusian lands from a Belarusian perspective did not appear until the beginning of the twentieth century (Kotljarchuk 2004: 41). The term White Rus, the literal translation of the word Belarus, did not appear before the end of the fourteenth century. The ‘White’ is variously believed to be a synonym for ‘free’ or ‘untouched’, or as an indicator of territories that did not have to pay duties to the Tatars and were not under the ‘Mongol yoke’ in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, or alternatively to indicate territory that had to be rescued from Polish domination and returned to Russia in the eighteenth century (Vakar 1956: 2–3; Wilson 2011: 134–5). ‘Rus’, meanwhile, is not derived from Russia in its modern sense, but instead had its origins in the first eastern Slav state of (Kievan) Rus’.

The history of the eastern Slavs and the roots of the contemporary Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in pre-modern Rus’ era remains a subject of much debate (Plokhy 2006; Snyder 2003). The national myths for Belarus are often dated back over a millennium, to the Principality of Polatsk, a town located in northern Belarus today, which is said to have enjoyed considerable autonomy within Rus’ (Wilson 2011: 4–5). By the late fourteenth century the territory of what is modern Belarus had become part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and Samogitia. It was the Ruthenian Slavs who made up the bulk of the population and it was their language which was the principal one used by the duchy’s rulers.

Some Belarusian nationalists today would argue these Ruthenians were, in fact, proto-Belarusians speaking an early form of the Belarusian language, however this ignores the modern Ukrainian territories within the Grand Duchy and the fact that there was little uniformity in the many dialects spoken by the Ruthenian Slavs (Plokhy 2006: 111; Vakar 1956: 27–29; Wilson 2011: 36). Today the sixteenth century is often venerated as a Golden Age of Belarusian culture centred in modern Vilnius (Wilson 2011: 37–8; Zaprudnik 1993: 35). Cultural figures such as Frantsysk Skaryna were setting up printing presses and producing the first printed bibles in an eastern Slavic language. The Statutes of the Grand Duchy in the second half of the sixteenth century, an important European legal code, are held up as an example of early Belarusian.

The Kreva Act in 1385 had created a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy and neighbouring Poland, however the duchy had preserved most of its political freedoms. In 1569 the Lublin Treaty created a political union between the two polities, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita). As a result those political freedoms the Grand Duchy had enjoyed began to be eroded. The influence of Ruthenian eastern Slavs within the duchy started to weaken as the local elites began to be Polonized. This was hastened by the Brest Church Union 30 years later, which increased pressure for inhabitants to convert to Catholicism. The process was only exacerbated as conflict swept the region in the late seventeenth century, with the Deluge and the Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden ravaging the territory of the Grand Duchy within the Rzeczpospolita (Vakar 1956: 62–4; Wilson 2011: 43–6).

Eventually, the partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century saw the Belarusian lands fall under the control of the Russian Empire for the first time. The change from Polish rule to Russian rule resulted in an intensification of the pressure against Belarusian cultural and political developments by the mid-nineteenth century. The Statutes of the Grand Duchy were prohibited and the Uniate Church (of which some three-quarters of Belarusians were members at the time) was abolished. At the time many of those who might today be referred to as Belarusians actually called themselves tuteishyia or ‘locals’, neither Russian nor Polish (Pershai 2008).

The anti-tsarist uprisings in 1863–64 included failed insurrections in Belarusian territories targeted at both Polish nationalism as well as Russian imperialism (Vakar 1956: 72). In the aftermath of these uprisings, the concept of some sort of Belarusian nation slowly began to develop, although agreement on what such a national movement should be based on was far from unanimous, ranging as it did from religion to language to class identity (Wilson 2011: 69–83). From 1905 newspapers and books were permitted to be published in Belarusian, and the first codified grammar of modern Belarusian was published in 1918. The first newspaper in the Belarusian language, Nasha Niva, began publication in 1906. In this period the nationalist movement Adradzhenne (Renaissance) sought to foster national self-determination and educate potential national leaders. Active supports of national emancipation were not thought to number much more than a few thousand people (Vakar 1956: 92). At this time the nationalist ideal was of little interest to the majority of ethnic and linguistic Belarusians, who were rural peasants.

The opportunity to declare the independence of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) unexpectedly presented itself in March 1918, an ‘unsolicited gift of the Russian Revolution … received from the hands of the Austro-German Occupation Army’ (Vakar 1956: 103). The modern history of an independent Belarus begins with the short-lived BPR (Wilson 2011: 93–6). The republic lasted a mere ten months and was subservient to the Central Powers, alienating much of the population. The BPR’s fate was sealed with the defeat of Germany in World War One and the recreation of an independent Poland. Nevertheless, this premature independence set a precedent and would later take on important symbolic significance.

The Belarusian lands were partitioned between Poland and the Soviet Union during the inter-war period. Western Belarus was granted no autonomy within Poland and authorities sought to root out signs of irredentism. Policies of Polonization and Catholicization were enforced, and the Belarusian provinces were the least developed in the country. Eastern Belarus became the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) and joined the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) established in 1922. According to a Soviet historical interpretation, it is the BSSR, rather than the BPR or the Grand Duchy, which was, in fact, the first state in Belarusian history (Kotljarchuk 2004: 43). Its territory expanded from the counties around the city of Minsk to incorporate previously Russian lands with a Belarusian population and in the 1920s the republic enjoyed a period of Belarusification. This was bought to an abrupt end by the wholesale purges and the cultural cleansing of the Stalin period.

The outbreak of World War Two saw the reunion of Eastern and Western Belarus as Soviet forces occupied Poland in 1939, doubling the size of the BSSR. Vilnius, the centre of Belarusian education and culture, was handed to Lithuania by the Soviet authorities in Moscow. This soon gave way to occupation by Germans in 1941–1944, with Nazi rule wreaking devastating consequences (Marples 1999: 16). One quarter of the pre-war population, or 2.2 million people, were killed. Up to 80 per cent of buildings and infrastructure were destroyed, with 209 out of 270 cities left in ruins. The various guerrilla groups which conducted partisan warfare from the Belarusian forests would later become an important part of the national myth and can today be invoked by both the authorities and the opposition (Goujon 2010).

With victory at the end of the Great Patriotic War, the BSSR settled into the borders that are still used to this day. The post-war years bought reconstruction, modernization, urbanization, industrialization, and improved education for the population, alongside Russification and Sovietization. In the 1980s the BSSR was viewed as a ‘shop window of the (relative) benefits of the Socialist system’ (Eke & Kuzio 2000: 537) with a high standard of living for the Soviet Union. It also earned the epitaph the ‘Vendée of perestroika’² for its resistance to change. Independence was thrust on the country with the collapse of the USSR in 1991, with a population who had voted by over 80 percent in favour of a new Union Treaty in March that year and a leadership who had welcomed the August Putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev (Sahm 2001: 183). The Belavezha Accords that sealed the fate the Soviet Union and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) were signed in a dacha in the forests of western Belarus.

From Soviet socialist republic to sovereign state

This book aims to provide an analysis of political developments in contemporary Belarus, rather than simply offer a chronological description of events. As the later chapters in this book will be structured along thematic lines, this section summarizes a timeline for the emerging Belarusian polity for the reader. This introduces the necessary background context for what will analysed in more depth later in the book.

The final elections to the BSSR Supreme Soviet took place in spring 1990, but these did not signal any dramatic realignment of power. The Communist Party of Belarus (CPB) captured the vast majority of seats. The opposition forces in the Belarusian Democratic Bloc, which included the nationalist Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), won approximately a quarter of the remaining seats that were decided by a popular ballot. In June 1990 a senior member of the CPB, Viachislau Kebich, was appointed prime minister, a position he would hold for the next four years. After the August 1991 putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, the reform-minded academic Stanislau Shushkevich was named chairman of the Supreme Soviet and acted as head of state when Belarus became independent. Both he and Kebich attended the negotiations in Belavezha that formally ended the USSR in December 1991. The communist leadership remained in control of both the legislative branch, through their parliamentary majority, as well as the executive branch, with Kebich chairing the Council of Ministers.

After independence, there were calls to hold new democratic parliamentary elections before the end of the 12th Supreme Soviet’s five-year term. Appeals to hold a referendum on the proposal in 1992 were voted down by sitting deputies. This was in spite of the fact that the BPF had succeeded in organizing a petition with nearly half a million signatures calling for such a referendum. In summer 1992, Kebich and the Council of Minsters usurped many of the prerogatives of the legislature and took control of most of the printed press and all national radio and television. In January 1994 Shushkevich was ousted as chairman of the Supreme Soviet following allegation by a parliamentary anti-corruption committee led by an upcoming young deputy, Aliaksandr Lukashenka. In March 1994, the Supreme Soviet finally ratified a new constitution for the young state. At the first presidential elections under the new system, it was Lukashenka who was unexpected elected the first president of Belarus in the second round of voting in July. In so doing he not only defeated Prime Minister Kebich, but also saw off Shushkevich and the well-known leader of the BPF, Zianon Pazniak.

Lukashenka’s first term soon got off to a controversial start. By the end of 1994 several prominent newspapers published blank columns where reports on government corruption would have been printed to protest against state censorship. A nationwide referendum in 1995 supported elevating Russian to a state language alongside Belarusian and saw the flag and state symbols changed from ones that drew on the legacy of the BPR to versions that were closer to those used in the BSSR. Lukashenka’s increasingly autocratic rule instigated...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Adaptive authoritarianism: A conceptual framework
• 3. Personalization of power under Lukashenka: Institutions
• 4. Personalization of power under Lukashenka: Elites
• 5. Ruling Belarus: Public consent and policy adaptation
• 6. Ruling Belarus: State coercion and pre-empting democracy
• 7. Challenging adaptive authoritarianism: Players
• 8. Challenging adaptive authoritarianism: Tactics
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Economic indicators under Lukashenka
• Appendix B: Official presidential election results
• Appendix C: Official House of Representatives election results
• Bibliography
• Index