Specific prince. Why you should not be offended by Lukashenko
Judging by the reaction of a number of public figures and publicists, a significant part of society in Russia, to put it mildly, “did not understand” the recent statements of the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko regarding the Donbas and Crimea. I did not understand and did not accept. Some, like, for example, the writer German Sadulayev, used them for very emotional criticism of the very idea of the possibility of the existence of sincere and friendly relations even among the closest, kinship Slavic peoples. Others, like the Petersburg blogger-friend of Russian Andrei Pesotsky, denounced the Belarusian regime as a reincarnation of “Brezhnevshchina” in response, while not forgetting to file a whole set of accusations in the liberal spirit at the same time. But it grieves that no one (or almost no one) of the accusers of the Belarusian president has been able to either discern or point out publicly the main reasons for such a sudden for many metamorphoses of our long-time ally and partner. It seems that once again, an emotionally superficial approach to really significant social and political events did not allow us to understand their essence. And, in which already in a row once. Sadly ...
In order to uncover the motives that prompted the President of Belarus in the confrontation of Russian militias and the Kiev junta to openly take the side of the latter, it is necessary to start from the wrong media image of Lukashenko, who over the past twenty years was created by the efforts of the Russian media , and the de facto praises of patriots in it, albeit to varying degrees, but almost the same features), but from a brief historical analysis of the path that the country has undergone in the post-Soviet period. And then a lot will be clarified.
To begin with, it should be noted that Alexander Lukashenko, who won the Belarusian presidential election in the summer of 1994 for the first time, belonged to the category of economic managers (“red directors” in the terminology of the liberals of the beginning of 90) who had a soul for the common cause, and not personal pocket. That is why they did not accept the destructive market experiment; they could not organically “fit into the changes”, literally leading to degradation and confusion before our very eyes. It was his refusal to conduct large-scale privatization of public property, the curtailment of economic reforms initiated by S. Shushkevich and caused the first acute attack of the malice of Russian reformers and their media staff. And in the patriotic camp, on the contrary, gave rise to hopes of becoming a strong Russian leader, a defender of the people being robbed, driven into the catacombs of the people.
In his initial desire for integration with Russia (and in that era of liberal violence, the very formulation of such a question was considered by the “elites” of our country almost as a “thought crime”), Alexander Lukashenko was, without a doubt, absolutely sincere and honest. The creator and man of labor, as opposed to the clicks of destruction and collapse, he was well aware that the power of the state is in its unity, and the power of society is in unity. Belarus treacherously cut off from the all-Russian body (besides not having any significant tradition of its own statehood) seemed to its president only as a temporarily disintegrated part of the Russian world, and such disintegration itself at that time was perceived as ridiculous historical incident, which, no doubt, should be fixed in the near future. And the economic situation of the former union republic, unexpectedly unexpected for its people to become independent, seemed unreliable and precarious. Apparently, at that time Lukashenko was not sure that she could live on her own, without close cooperation with Russia in at least the economic sphere.
We perfectly remember what the Kremlin’s reaction was to the open hand extended to him from Minsk (at least, who was ready to extend the hand of friendship to the defeated “evil empire”). And if Yeltsin (I don’t know what motivated them at that time: the inertia of the Soviet thinking or only political calculation) signed with the President Lukashenko an agreement on the formation of a union state, then the “seven bankers”, which then dominated Russia almost completely, predictably reared . The reunification of the Russian people (and the Belarusians, in fact, are almost the same Russians, that in the ethnic, in the cultural sense) she did not enter into any plans. As a result, allied agreements from the Russian side systematically sabotaged, in the newspapers and TV channels belonging to the oligarchs against the head of Belarus a real information war was launched, under the control of Berezovsky ORT organized the most genuine interstate provocations on the border, etc.
The result of all this turned out to be as logical, and so sad. Having realized for several years that full-fledged integration with Russia in such conditions is simply impossible (and if possible, only at the cost of ruining and plundering Belarus with predatory near-Crimean oligarchy), having strengthened the country's economy, Lukashenko gradually turned away from the Kremlin and took a strategic course to build his own independent state. And, I emphasize, this choice was initially forced, but gradually, with each subsequent year of its successful reign, the “father” began, as they say, to get a taste.
“It is not the consciousness of the people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness,” stated Karl Marx in the preface to “To the Critique of Political Economy”. And argued, I must say, fairly. The life of the former Soviet republic, which never returned to Russia, gradually changed the consciousness of its top.
The present-day Belarus is no longer a splinter torn from the Russian world, painfully experiencing its separation and dreaming of reunion. Such, in many ways, it was still ten or fifteen years ago, during the reign of the early Lukashenko. But today Belarus has already launched mechanisms to strengthen its independence, consolidate state independence, uphold its own national interest (including in relations with the Russian Federation). Their strength, of course, is not the same as in post-Soviet Ukraine, but the conditions are different: in Belarus, fortunately, there is no significant analogue of the Galician zapadents, and local anti-Russian nationalists are few and marginal. However, even despite this mitigating factor, we should not be complacent. The process, albeit slowly, but it goes on, the timer of another bomb, planted under the Russian world by the Belovezhskaya criminals, is regularly ticking. The alienation of the Belarusian ruling circles from Russia is felt more and more strongly, and it manifested itself long before the notorious statements in the media about the need to destroy the bandits. A couple more decades of “autonomous navigation” - and after the ruling circles the people will inevitably be pulled.
In fact, the President of Belarus has long acquired the psychology of a specific prince, who keenly and jealously guarded his own lot. Notice that from a certain moment (and specifically, from the moment the integration initiated by him once came to a standstill) Lukashenko in every possible way shies away from supporting the policy of spreading spheres of Russian influence and even more so territorial increments of the Russian Federation. The non-recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the wish of the Ukrainian junta to bring back the Crimea as soon as possible, the open condemnation of the revolting Novorossia — all of this, alas, are links in one chain. And while performing such actions, Lukashenko is no longer guided by the ideals and values of the Russian-Soviet man (as we once knew, respected and loved), but by the logic of the independent dictator, the newly-fledged prince, who, in his present position, Essentially, I could not.
In the Crimean precedent and the Novorossiisk uprising that followed, the head of Belarus sees, above all, a threat to his principality and the continuation of his own undivided reign in him. If today Russian people cut off from Russia came out with the slogans of reunification in Sevastopol and Donetsk, is there a guarantee that tomorrow they will not want to do this in Minsk? Apparently, the process of Russian irredenta began to alarm Alexander Grigoryevich seriously, because during the twenty years of his presidency he managed to fully understand the old truth: it is better (and safer!) To be the first in his village than the third or tenth in Rome (Moscow) . And with Moscow, by the way, not everything is so obvious. Remembering the history of the “milk wars” with the Kremlin, will Lukashenko believe personal guarantees in exchange for renouncing sovereignty, even if they follow? The pro-Western lobby in the Russian Federation is so strong, and it is unlikely that it will particularly resist the insistent demands of the West to give out the “last dictator of Europe”.
Yes, such a reincarnation of one who has been looked upon with faith and hope not so long ago cannot but grieve. The seeds of separatism, which are now being poured into the Belarusian land (attacks by local historians on Kutuzov’s army, allegedly inflicting looting on Belarusian villages during the war with Napoleon, will be selected for high command positions in the army and other security structures of ethnic Belarusians) seedlings. Let us hope that they will not turn out to be as poisonous as the seedlings of the “Svidomo” sowers turned out to be, but who knows ... Theorists of the Ukrainian separatism were also not once taken seriously. Unite must be able to on time. One specific principality on the Russian map has already become apparent (the second, the Ukrainian, is turning into a mortal enemy before our very eyes). Therefore, it is necessary to do everything so that the leaders of the New Russia that is being born today are not forced to follow in the footsteps of Alexander Lukashenko with time.
Information