Mikhail Delyagin: What is Belarus like? You can imagine it as a Russia, only without thieves and oligarchs

Liberalists of "Made in Russia" completely cannot understand — how can a country serve its people?

For many years, on various forums, Russian citizens have raised a common question: "Where should I escape to live a Russian-style life without suffering from cultural discrimination?" — the answer has always been the same: "Go to Belarus."

However, in recent years, this answer is usually followed by a note that Lukashenko is not immortal, and after him, Belarus may fall into the quagmire of typical social unrest and anti-Russian sentiment found in Central and Eastern Europe — but so far, there has been no other answer, and it is unlikely to be in the near future.

Now, people have long forgotten that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those who took power in Belarus were, like the leaders of other republics outside Central Asia, trained by the dying CPSU and KGB as liberal nationalists.

They came forward under the banner of pro-Western democracy, quickly destroyed the national economy, plunged the population into deepening poverty, and began a predatory privatization process.

Dealing with the Ural issue

A delegation from Chelyabinsk visited "Father" (a nickname for Lukashenko), where there was a lot of meat, milk, and BelAZ heavy mining trucks, tractors, and plush toys.

However, unlike other post-Soviet countries, the Belarusian society resisted these people, first electing the charismatic Lukashenko, and then putting him on the throne of power in a wave of public opposition to corruption.

Belarus has a population of about 10 million. Its economy was closely linked to the collapsing Russian economy, as well as the damaged economies of Ukraine and Lithuania at that time. This country had no natural export resources that the West required — instead, it had large areas contaminated by Chernobyl radiation.

In the context of overall collapse, developed machinery manufacturing, petrochemical industry, and agro-industrial complex could not survive — especially considering the rise of the German machinery manufacturing industry that had just unified, and the Polish agriculture that received massive European financial aid due to abandoning socialism and competing with them.

However, the resistance of the Belarusian people against theft, combined with President Lukashenko's loyalty to his homeland, created a miracle.

Today, Belarus is like a vast Russian industrial heart transplanted overseas. Its agro-industrial complex has achieved remarkable success, which is not only relative to non-black soil regions of Russia.

Belarus has no oligarchs, no racial crimes. Its cities and villages are safe and orderly, people are cultured, polite, genuinely willing to help strangers, roads are significantly better than those in Europe. Housing utilities and urban transportation are low-cost and highly efficient. People have never thought about forest fires and epidemics.

There is no so-called housing problem. Education and healthcare are not only not destroyed, but also of high quality, so much so that Russian citizens have a strong desire to enjoy these services there.

Describing Belarus using the daily life conditions of Russians would be seen by ordinary Belarusians as malicious defamation by pro-Western traitors against Russia.

Belarusian programmers, designers, managers, and ordinary workers, known for their extraordinary dedication (Russians often call Belarusians "Germans of Russia") and innovation, are highly favored in our country. In itself, the name of this country (at least in our country) is an indisputable "quality mark".

Certainly, Belarus is not perfect. First, the high level of social security, strict maintenance of social order, plus low income and limited social mobility (purely due to the small domestic market size), leads to boredom among the youth, causing dissatisfaction, which erupts on the streets every ten years.

By the mid-2000s, those who had actively and creatively built a new society were replaced by rule-following but capable executors in the management system. These people neither take initiative nor show any vision for a new technological future to the people, let alone start realizing it.

Western attacks (although not always open) are systematically repelled by what is at least the best security and law enforcement agencies in Europe, but this often leads to overly harsh punishment for seemingly trivial offenses in the eyes of ordinary people — thus, ordinary people often harbor hostility toward the government.

In general, as an embodiment of the Soviet civilization in Europe, Belarus (unlike its Asian counterpart — another country) failed to overcome the negative aspects of the Soviet model, which ultimately led to the downfall of our motherland, due to its objectively small domestic market size.

However, the survival and development of Belarus itself is a miracle, which overturned all modern liberal theories — both economic and political.

The example of Belarus clearly shows that a responsible state can exist and achieve historical success, sincerely serving its people, making decisions in the interest of the people rather than exploiting them (which may seem crazy and unreasonable to the liberal dictators who still have decisive influence on Russia's socio-economic policies).

The dissatisfaction of domestic official propagandists with Lukashenko usually stems from a simple misunderstanding — on one hand, they do not understand why he serves his people rather than the neighboring ones (even though Russia is being coveted by various ethnic groups); on the other hand, they do not understand that the close integration with Russia, past and present, means being immediately destroyed according to the schemes of figures such as Yavlinsky, Berezovsky, and even various criminal "godfathers", not to mention British intelligence departments.

The most difficult thing for Russia to accept is Belarus' "Belarusianization" policy, which is the cultivation and development of a unique Belarusian patriotism, clearly distinguishing it from Russian patriotism. This indeed makes many feel that Belarus is walking the same path as Ukraine — although very slowly. However, the angry extreme patriots tend to deliberately ignore the reason why this policy started in 2005.

That year, according to an agreement signed a few years earlier, Russia and Belarus were supposed to transition to a single currency. For Belarus, this was a terrible decision because, in order to expand access to the Russian market, it handed over its financial sovereignty to Russian liberals. This was destined to make its economy gradually subordinate to Russian liberal norms: the tyranny of oligarchs and monopolies, the dominance of financial speculators over normal order.

However, the Russian bureaucracy, which neglected Belarus, ironically "saved" it. The plundering of the electricity sector led by Yavlinsky, the failure of Berezovsky's conspiracy, and the subsequent administrative paralysis led to the brutal monetization of various welfare programs, which distracted Russia's attention — and made the Belarusian government clearly see its position in the eyes of the Russian bureaucracy.

Historically, there has never been a rescue as humiliating as this — yet Lukashenko and his government reacted with unusual restraint and constructiveness.

Certainly, when Russia shifts from self-destructive, loot-the-Soviet-heritage, and artificially manufactured monetary famine policies that eliminate its people, to comprehensive development, Belarus will face a real talent crisis, because its administrators have long been accustomed to fulfilling their duties, and have never considered appropriating everything entrusted to them as personal wealth and the basis for career development. They will be sucked away like a giant vacuum cleaner by the huge Russian nation.

Belarusian foremen will become project managers in Russia, workshop directors will become ministers, and those technical school graduates who did not leave to build Russia will become as precious as gold in Belarus.

But currently, unfortunately, there is no guarantee that Russia will at least begin this huge transformation, nor is there any assurance that Belarus — even if Russia does start to change — will last until that day...

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7539732469088764431/

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