Reflexion on the events of 2020
Now it has become fashionable to reflect on the Belarusian protests: could they crush Lukashenka's dictatorial regime, or were they doomed to failure in advance? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, because history does not bear the subjunctive mood.
Undoubtedly, Belarus had a chance, and such chances are very rare.
Lukashenka's motivation
However, one should not forget that Lukashenka, who considers unlimited power the meaning of his life, was ready to do anything to preserve it. A rat, cornered, rushes at an opponent far superior in strength. For Lukashenka, preserving power was a matter of survival.
And we should admit that his motivation was stronger than that of the protest leaders, who preferred to let the people's revolt run its course, explaining that a protest without leaders, a protest organized from below, is harder to behead.
Lack of leaders in protest
Protest without leaders has one huge disadvantage - there is no precise plan of action, and therefore no one knows what to do and where to go. Sometimes even those protesters who were determined to take decisive action were mistaken for provocateurs, because it was believed that our civilized and peaceful protest could create a miracle and convince our ideological opponents of the fallacy of their actions and the correctness of ours. Alas, the miracle did not happen.
The role of law enforcers
No one knows how events would have developed if the protesters had entered Lukashenka's residence - and there were indeed such chances. There is no doubt that Lukashenka would have given the order to open fire on unarmed people, to shoot hundreds of people. But at that time it was still unknown whether the law enforcers would follow this criminal order. Was there still something human left in them? Now we can say for sure: yes, they would have opened fire. No, there wasn't. The law enforcers in Belarus were ready to carry out criminal orders of Lukashenka, which became the key factor in suppressing the protests.
Dependence on Russia
But Lukashenka's own forces were not enough to suppress the revolution, and as a result, the unbowed completely sagged under Russia, giving the Kremlin as much power as it had never given. Multi-vector policy and deals with the West could be forgotten, especially after the mysterious death of the main lobbyist of soft liberalization - Vladimir Makey.
In fact, Lukashenka is a secondary problem. The primary problem is Russia. Whether Lukashenka is there or not, there will be no freedom in Belarus as long as Russia exists in its present form. The Kremlin considers Belarus its colony and will never allow people to come to power there who will take it out of the Russian sphere of influence and into the civilized world.
Repressions and victims
The protests led to large-scale repressions, resulting in thousands of people being persecuted and many killed or imprisoned.
In Belarus, about 50,000 people went through repression for political reasons, and at the moment there are 1,500,000 officially recognized political prisoners in Lukashist prisons alone. Opponents of the authorities were killed at protests and brought to death in prison. Ashurok, Pushkin, Bondarenko, Taraikovsky, Shutov, Vikhor....
Lessons for the future
Belarusians are a kind, gentle and civilized people, but this time their kindness worked not for the good. One of the factors that suppressed the revolution was that we considered Lukashenka's security forces as people, while they did not consider us as people, and therefore acted accordingly. Many of us understood this lesson and realized the wisdom of the words of the famous Machiavelli: armed prophets won, while unarmed ones died. As the Americans say, the tree of freedom needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. The blood of patriots has already been spilled, the blood of tyrants is next.
Hope for the future
But, of course, the strangled revolution of 2020 taught us more than just toughness. It made us understand that Belarusians are a people with unique solidarity and organization, who will be able to build a wonderful country. The main thing is to get rid of ballast.
Nobody can name a specific date of liberation of Belarus, because it depends on many factors, often very unpredictable. A year, ten years or one week - everything can last a very long time or end very quickly. But there is no doubt that this horror will end sooner or later.
