I am interested in learning of his policies, what he said and did, state of the left movement in Belarus as well as position of the country on the world stage and in the eyes of the non-western countries.
I would say he’s the honest social-democrat.
Something that’s hard to recognize, because historical examples are so rare. Western socialdemocracy has been just a bunch of opportunist imperialists right from the split by communists in 1914, and global south socialdemocracy is either just compradors or can’t do shit because being couped or imperialized by west.
As far as I know he’s responsible for a Belorussian transition to capitalism where a lot of the practices of the Soviet times where kept in place, it went through a process of liberalisation much like China did post-Deng, only that in a scenario where there is a lack of a strong communist party (maybe for the best, though, since it would likely be coup’d either by the US or Gorbachev’s Russia). He has done what he could to maintain the national bourgeois in check and also able to remain in the anti-imperialist block.
Jews were able to make the world remember [the Holocaust], and the whole world bows to them, being afraid of saying one wrong word to them
~ Alexander Lukashenko
The history of Germany is a copy of the history of Belarus. Germany was raised from ruins thanks to firm authority and not everything connected with that well-known figure Hitler was bad. German order evolved over the centuries and attained its peak under Hitler. This corresponds with our understanding of a presidential republic and the role of a president in it
~ Also Alexander Lukashenko
Doesn’t really have anything to do with his policies, just make sure you factor in that he’s a raging antisemite if you’re deciding whether he’s “based” or not
I don’t support the sentiments voiced in these quotes, for which I would like to see more context, but we should also remember that he’s allied with the Russian government in fighting genuine swastika-waving genocidal fascists (and the NATO alliance which backs them). Material reality, not opinions alone, are what makes one a fascist.
You can still be anti-semetic and fight Nazis. Hence the current Russian narrative of “judeo-globalism”, “Soros”, and extreme anti-LGBT sentiment.
Also I will say that you are not missing any context with those statements. Lukashenko is a known anti-semite in Belarus.
I think this is more complicated than a “enemy of my enemy is my friend” deal, Russia is finding an ally in Belarus because of their proximity to NATO. They don’t exactly hold all the same ideological lines. That, and Russia isn’t exactly fighting Nazism first, they’re just fighting NATO encroachment and justifying it with the convenient fact that there happen to be Nazis in Ukraine to make the war sound good domestically and to make NATO look bad. Russia is just playing the self-preservation game like any other Capitalist country does.
Besides if they were actually against Nazism in every instance, they wouldn’t be buddy buddy with Belarus.
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So just to be clear, in the first quote, Lukashenko states that the Jews “made” the world remember the Holocaust, as if it wasn’t something to remember in its own right, only something to be remembered after some kind of big Jewish campaign. A conspiracy, one might call it.
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From the Belarussian prespective…
3/10 because of his anti-west stance and cooperation with Russia. Other then preventing Belarus from becoming an American client state like Ukraine, pretty much everything else he has done is pure liberal/capitalist garbage, and Belarus has rotted under his leadership. He is also very right wing and his social policies are horrendous.
On a scale of 10, he’s around a 5 or 6 on basedeness
“market socialism” is when state owned
His attack on trade unions seem pretty unbased.
i rate him revisionist dogshit out of ten
He said factory farmed cows ‘should live in a palace!’ and that it was ‘like Auschwitz’, basically 10/10 based
I think people here just judge him by Marxists-Standards and as if he could pursue some independent policies like Switzerland. I would like to give you another perspective: You have to judge him by post-soviet leadership standards where he would probably be a 8/10.
See, before in the USSR, everything was one country where it would not be expected to have these small countries be completely on their own. Belarus is reliant on Russia in terms of Energy supplies and in economic supply chains. Since the deindustrialization and sell out of Russia’s oligarchs Belarus should have ended like the Baltics or Ukraine. But it did not. Lukashenko kept the main production lines where it was possible, (like I said before, many supply chains from neighbouring Soviet countries were dropped by them) and renewed them gradually. E.g. Fertiliser and Agrarian machines.
Belarus is not rich, if you compare it to life in Moscow. But compared to Russia‘s regions and other states? He is demanding loans and gas from Moscow for his economy, but they have realistic chances of paying them back one day. Countries like Moldavia have no such opportunities or a future. Health care and public transport is basically free. Communal costs in a year are as much as the local price of 40 milk bags. He does not get much appreciation from the youth because they think it’s given. They do not shit on WW2 or establish some Nazi-Collaborator monuments. If his state owned enterprises sell not enough, he will fly to Pakistan or India and try to re-negotiate the prices. Will somebody like Macron do this?
If he decides to go, and he could anytime, Belarus will turn in another Ukraine.
People write here for Belarusians he’s a 3/10. Well they are probably some youngsters without a job sitting in Tiktok watching countries like Germany all day, because people aged 50/60 know how it will all fall apart without him.
Also him suppressing protestors, well if they mean the 2020 color revolution movement led by Tichanovskaya, another maidan, that literally used the flags of Nazi collaborators during WW2, he prevented creating another Banderastan. If somebody like Tichanovskaya will get in power they will sell out, privatise everything. Wages will drop, pensions will drop, rent will rise.
Every gusano Belarusian who I know who left after the 2020 elections to Poland, came 1-2 years later back, noticing the high living expenses there.
I would say about 80% what he did was right and of course, he is not perfect, and everything he talks publicly is just boomer takes - or even bad for boomer takes. But Lukashenko compared to Ianokovich? To Putin? No way you can put him on the same list.
How based do you think is suppressing protests, hunting down protesters and killing network connection in protest areas?
This Economist article from 2021 could answer some of this:
“Why Belarus is called Europe’s last dictatorship” https://archive.is/Vxims
A journal for british billionaires makes cheap torture claims, among ither things. I feel the article doesn’t give us an answer one way or the other.
