Undercover police in #Belarus getting punched up by protestors and forced back into their van. pic.twitter.com/jY8AhIzb6z— Jake Hanrahan (@Jake_Hanrahan) August 30, 2020
If the colour revolution succeeds, all that’s in store for Belarus is crippling austerity and mass privatisation.
Lukashenko isn’t a progressive figure taking Belarus forward, and his Covid approach was utter dogshit, but he is a bulwark against something much worse.
He’s a former collective farm manager that got elected on the promise of freezing Belarus in time and shielding it from the neoliberal gutting that the rest of Eastern Europe faced. He kept, and is keeping, that promise.
There is no positive outcome here. Only a choice between an aging dictator holding together the remnants of a socialist system, and neoliberal fascist decay.
We should take our cue from those leftists that have had to make this choice before.
Rolling in the tanks is the second worst response to a colour revolution, the worst being capitulation. If tanks are the only option left, the party screwed up badly.
The best short-term approach is to ensure the military remains on-side. Colour revolutions only really succeed when the military flips. From there, it’s just a matter of having security forces hold the line while foreign influence operations get taken out, and while the underlying material concerns get addressed.
Compare the response to June 4th and to the recent Hong Kong independence movement to see the differences.
What makes you think elections administered by the opposition, who are 100% puppets of the west, would be legitimate? How do you know they're more popular than Luka, who has kept Belarus free of fascist groups and kept western capitalists from pillaging their economy, unlike all other former Soviet/Warsaw Pact states?
Look at what the opposition wants to do. They want to sell off all the state owned enterprises to western capitalists. They literally admit it. Look at literally all other countries surrounding them. Every single one has major extreme far right movements and many of them are in power. That's what would happen if Luka is deposed.
Western-backed opposition is not going to be fair and it's not going to lead to heckin epic real socialism. It's going to objectively lead to mass unemployment, lower salaries, high crime, high suicide rates, rampant unsafe prostitution (out of desperation, not sexual liberation), and skyrocketing substance abuse rates. That's what happened in every single other former Communist country that went through the shock therapy these people are proposing.
We all like to see cops get fucked up, and we tend to see ourselves in the protesters, but we should keep in mind that all 18 of the Communist Parties it the former Soviet Republics, including the Belarusan Communist Party, support the current Government.
If the colour revolution succeeds, all that’s in store for Belarus is crippling austerity and mass privatisation.
Lukashenko isn’t a progressive figure taking Belarus forward, and his Covid approach was utter dogshit, but he is a bulwark against something much worse.
He’s a former collective farm manager that got elected on the promise of freezing Belarus in time and shielding it from the neoliberal gutting that the rest of Eastern Europe faced. He kept, and is keeping, that promise.
EDIT: this is the opposition’s proposal for healthcare reform. Every single sentence should send klaxon-level alarm bells ringing.
Jesus that document is cursed, just nothing but neoliberal free market reforms applied to every level of the government and all of the publics assets.
Belarussian forces have been recieving aid from the UK military on urban warfare training
Lukashenko is notorious for playing Russia and the West off of each other to get the best benefits from both without bowing to either.
The protesters or the military/police?
The military
Source?
Link
Cheers. Looks to be an attempt by Britain to get info on Russia, and an attempt by Belarus to counter-balance Russian influence via the UK.
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Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, "tankies were right again”.
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I'm not going to simp for a 20+ year long dictator over basic democratic elections.
Look at Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine. They’re collapsing into right wing dictatorship.
Now, do me a favour. Read this thread covering the actions of Nazi collaborators in Beylorussia, and tell me that a de-Sovietised Belarus will be any better than their Baltic peers.
There is no positive outcome here. Only a choice between an aging dictator holding together the remnants of a socialist system, and neoliberal fascist decay.
We should take our cue from those leftists that have had to make this choice before.
Roll in the tanks
Rolling in the tanks is the second worst response to a colour revolution, the worst being capitulation. If tanks are the only option left, the party screwed up badly.
The best short-term approach is to ensure the military remains on-side. Colour revolutions only really succeed when the military flips. From there, it’s just a matter of having security forces hold the line while foreign influence operations get taken out, and while the underlying material concerns get addressed.
Compare the response to June 4th and to the recent Hong Kong independence movement to see the differences.
I appreciate the effort response
What makes you think elections administered by the opposition, who are 100% puppets of the west, would be legitimate? How do you know they're more popular than Luka, who has kept Belarus free of fascist groups and kept western capitalists from pillaging their economy, unlike all other former Soviet/Warsaw Pact states?
Look at what the opposition wants to do. They want to sell off all the state owned enterprises to western capitalists. They literally admit it. Look at literally all other countries surrounding them. Every single one has major extreme far right movements and many of them are in power. That's what would happen if Luka is deposed.
Western-backed opposition is not going to be fair and it's not going to lead to heckin epic real socialism. It's going to objectively lead to mass unemployment, lower salaries, high crime, high suicide rates, rampant unsafe prostitution (out of desperation, not sexual liberation), and skyrocketing substance abuse rates. That's what happened in every single other former Communist country that went through the shock therapy these people are proposing.
Your entire post history reveals the ignorance of a first-world leftist.
Be kind. Most of us are first world leftists. We’re all here to grow. And it’s hard not to feel elation at seeing protesters succeed overseas.