Valer Karbalevich: “Our history is like a mirror; it reflects both defeat and chance”

This inter­view is part of the col­lec­tion “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion”, a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the cre­ative and civic pres­ence of those who have not lost their voice even in exile.

Valer Kar­bale­vich at the con­fer­ence “Belaru­sian Jour­nal­ism: Where Tomor­row Begins”. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

The col­lec­tion tells the sto­ry of the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award, found­ed by the Belaru­sian PEN in part­ner­ship with the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for East­ern Europe endow­ment fund. The col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed on Novem­ber 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award at the Euro­pean Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cen­ter (Europe­jskie Cen­trum Sol­i­darnoś­ci, Gdańsk, pl. Sol­i­darnoś­ci 1).

Waiting for the gun carriage parade

In polit­i­cal sci­ence terms, every indi­vid­ual pass­es through a process of social­iza­tion. Can you recall the ear­ly influ­ences (fam­i­ly, vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty, edu­ca­tion) that shaped your inter­est in polit­i­cal sci­ence?

My gen­er­a­tion lived through very dif­fer­ent eras: the deep Sovi­et Union and the late Brezh­nev peri­od, the time of so-called devel­oped social­ism and stag­na­tion. Those were the cir­cum­stances under which I was social­ized. Then it seemed like it would nev­er end. When the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, who was sup­pos­ed­ly pro­grammed for immor­tal­i­ty, final­ly died, we watched the solemn funer­al broad­cast and won­dered what would hap­pen next. Brezh­nev was gone, but there were so many par­ty clones who could take over and keep the sys­tem alive.

We still had to live long enough to see the gun car­riage parade on Red Square.

Right. My life began back in 1955. It start­ed in the Kostro­ma region of Rus­sia.

The year was deeply sym­bol­ic. After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev steam­rolled the par­ty, and Malenkov lost con­trol of the gov­ern­ment when Bul­ganin pushed him aside. The mono­lith cracked again, and it already looked like an omen of future changes. But let’s get back to your roots: Are you Russ­ian?

My Belaru­sian par­ents were drawn north­ward, seek­ing employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that promised high­er salaries. My father was a chauf­feur from the Starobin Dis­trict (now Sal­i­horsk), and my moth­er was a teacher from the neigh­bor­ing city of Slut­sk. They lived in the north for two years before return­ing to Belarus after I was born. So I spent my child­hood and youth in the Slut­sk Dis­trict. I became inter­est­ed in pol­i­tics, so it was no coin­ci­dence that I enrolled in the His­to­ry Depart­ment at Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty. How­ev­er, the attempt was unsuc­cess­ful; I failed the com­pe­ti­tion. I spent a year work­ing in con­struc­tion and then tried to enroll again. I grad­u­at­ed from uni­ver­si­ty with hon­ors.

And despite this, you were assigned to work in the provin­cial Hor­ki Agri­cul­tur­al Acad­e­my? Yes, five years in the east­ern Mahilou region. Then, I pur­sued tar­get­ed post­grad­u­ate stud­ies in the cap­i­tal, fol­lowed by 10 years at the Belaru­sian Insti­tute of Agri­cul­tur­al Mech­a­niza­tion — now the Belaru­sian State Agrar­i­an Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty.

Did you teach the his­to­ry of the CPSU?

As was the joke at the time, the course’s name changed depend­ing on the pre­vail­ing par­ty line. Dur­ing Per­e­stroi­ka, for exam­ple, it was first “Polit­i­cal His­to­ry” and then “His­to­ry of Belarus,” reflect­ing changes in polit­i­cal process­es.

The Insti­tute and the Acad­e­my trained per­son­nel for rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and formed the future provin­cial intel­li­gentsia. Were there peo­ple among them who thought out­side the box or were capa­ble of a dif­fer­ent rea­son­ing?

Do you mean civic polit­i­cal con­scious­ness? The rur­al elite of that time were all part of and sup­port­ive of the sys­tem. Before the begin­ning of Gorbachev’s Per­e­stroi­ka, I did not notice any sig­nif­i­cant changes in their con­scious­ness.

This is a para­dox because the rur­al areas changed rapid­ly in the 1960s and 1970s.

I still remem­ber the times when they har­vest­ed grain in col­lec­tive farms with sick­les. At the same time, I wit­nessed a rapid process of wide­spread mech­a­niza­tion. When I was in school, there was still no elec­tric­i­ty in my vil­lage. I did my home­work by the oil lamp. But in the blink of an eye, a tech­no­log­i­cal leap occurred, and urban­iza­tion began. School­child­ren saw a vil­lage full of peo­ple. Then, in the 1970s, young peo­ple start­ed leav­ing, and the rur­al pop­u­la­tion began to age.

It’s worth sup­ple­ment­ing the state­ment with some obser­va­tions of the process…

Per­haps most impor­tant­ly, as rur­al areas became depop­u­lat­ed, their vital­i­ty began to fade as well. Pre­vi­ous­ly, there were ama­teur art activ­i­ties, con­certs, and com­pe­ti­tions. The vast major­i­ty of it van­ished as peo­ple start­ed to depart. Mean­while, it became clear that the col­lec­tive farm con­cept was com­plete­ly out­dat­ed, prompt­ing peo­ple to migrate in search of a bet­ter life. Those who stayed typ­i­cal­ly didn’t have the resources to choose oth­er­wise.

Was the mind­set of vil­lage peo­ple dif­fer­ent from that of city dwellers? How much? And in what way?

In my view, the dif­fer­ence in men­tal­i­ty between social groups at that time wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly pro­nounced. I wouldn’t speak of any sig­nif­i­cant divide. Per­haps the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor was slight­ly more con­ser­v­a­tive. For exam­ple, dur­ing Per­e­stroi­ka, our insti­tute was the most resis­tant to change. Both stu­dents and teach­ers. The rur­al intel­li­gentsia did not con­cern itself with ide­ol­o­gy. Peo­ple solved per­son­al prob­lems and tried to improve their lives.

The broad politi­ciza­tion of Sovi­et soci­ety began only when Gor­bachev declared that stag­na­tion was not the norm but a dis­ease — and that some­thing need­ed to change, to be read­just­ed.

“Foam on the wave of Perestroika”

There were many temp­ta­tions and red flags with­in the Sovi­et sys­tem for those who want­ed to remain in the safe niche of teach­ing canon­i­cal his­to­ry. What moti­vat­ed you to chal­lenge the exist­ing equi­lib­ri­um and step into the realm of pub­lic dis­cus­sion about moder­ni­ty? Was it a per­son­al choice, or was it the ener­gy of that era?

New his­tor­i­cal process­es are direct­ly relat­ed to this, includ­ing the begin­ning of Per­e­stroi­ka and the advent of glas­nost, among oth­ers. Like many oth­ers, I have evolved along­side soci­ety. There appeared a cer­tain free­dom — the oppor­tu­ni­ty to open­ly eval­u­ate, ana­lyze, and draw con­clu­sions — which was very reward­ing. You couldn’t afford that before.

Pub­lic orga­ni­za­tions arose instant­ly and were then called “infor­mal.” They were ini­ti­at­ed from below, inde­pen­dent­ly, and with­out the author­i­ties’ per­mis­sion, in con­trast to the way things had been done until then. New media emerged, pro­vid­ing a plat­form for peo­ple to express their opin­ions.

So, the start­ing point of your “mod­ern his­to­ry” is not just your per­son­al biog­ra­phy, but also a sig­nif­i­cant social shift?

Right, the total­i­ty — an avalanche of events. First of all, the rhythm and pulse of time could be felt in the Moscow press. The media sharply crit­i­cized the his­to­ry of the Sovi­et sys­tem and the com­mu­nist regime.

Can you think of any pub­li­ca­tion that caused the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty and you per­son­al­ly to change your minds?

For exam­ple, there is an arti­cle by Gavri­il Popov[1] in the jour­nal Nau­ka i Zhizn where he crit­i­cized the whole admin­is­tra­tive sys­tem, not just Stal­in­ism, for the first time in a Sovi­et peri­od­i­cal. Since the Twen­ti­eth Par­ty Con­gress, the sys­tem has been con­sid­ered good — it was Stal­in who ruined every­thing. Then, sud­den­ly, some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent and deep­er was voiced. Lenin also came under fire. In oth­er words, the foun­da­tion of Sovi­et ide­ol­o­gy — on which the entire com­mu­nist sys­tem was built — was called into ques­tion. This marked the begin­ning of wide­spread crit­i­cism of the sys­tem as a whole.

The first inde­pen­dent infor­mal cir­cles in Min­sk emerged at this time. Sovre­men­nik grew from these cir­cles. I became one of its founders. First, we met in apart­ments, but soon we began hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions.

It was an attempt to break free from the Sovi­et sphere of influ­ence and estab­lish an inde­pen­dent intel­lec­tu­al space. Was this the first school of free­dom, or mere­ly an illu­sion of an alter­na­tive?

We were a group of intel­lec­tu­als with a pen­chant for dis­sent. My good friends and fel­low stu­dents, Vik­tar Charnou, Mikhail Plisko, and Raman Yakauleus­ki, were among us. Dur­ing our meet­ings, we seri­ous­ly dis­cussed our expe­ri­ences and chal­lenges. As new peo­ple grad­u­al­ly joined the dis­cus­sions, they began look­ing for a con­ve­nient space. Ulti­mate­ly, Leu Kryvit­s­ki unex­pect­ed­ly secured a room in the House of Polit­i­cal Edu­ca­tion. Peo­ple were drawn there like a mag­net.

For how long did the unre­strained peri­od per­sist?

The debates were so impact­ful that the author­i­ties quick­ly mobi­lized teach­ers from the High­er Par­ty School to shut them down. The ide­o­log­i­cal coun­ter­at­tack failed, and then the infa­mous arti­cle “Foam on the wave of Per­e­stroi­ka” was pub­lished.

They start­ed to inves­ti­gate: who had ini­ti­at­ed this process? It turned out to be an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor from the Depart­ment of CPSU His­to­ry! A mas­sive scan­dal broke out, and they dis­sect­ed us at a par­ty meet­ing. The par­ty sec­re­tary called Charnou and me in and summed it up: “You are smart guys, but you’ve just ruined your careers for life.”

Much lat­er, I came across a spe­cial res­o­lu­tion from the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of Belarus that men­tioned my last name. Then, a per­son­al data sheet con­tain­ing my biog­ra­phy and a sum­ma­ry was sent to the par­ty orga­ni­za­tions. The con­clu­sion read, “This is one of those who destroy the Com­mu­nist Par­ty.”

How­ev­er, it didn’t take long for the sys­tem to col­lapse.

So, can you call your­self a first-wave demo­c­rat?

I would frame it dif­fer­ent­ly. Even under the com­mu­nist regime, our Sovre­men­nik club became one of the first forms of civ­il soci­ety.

Let’s recall a few more notable groups from that peri­od. From a dif­fer­ent sphere, per­haps, but still well known — Tala­ka, Tuteishy­ja…

They were pri­mar­i­ly guid­ed by the nation­al idea, which led to the estab­lish­ment of Belaru­sian nation­al­ism. Soon after, the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front and sev­er­al social demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­ni­za­tions were born from it. This process was unfold­ing from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives.

Valer Kar­bale­vich at the con­fer­ence “Belaru­sian Jour­nal­ism: Where Tomor­row Begins”. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

The lib­er­al trend was found­ed on civ­il and polit­i­cal free­doms. The nation­al idea didn’t inspire us much back then.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Plat­form is some­thing worth men­tion­ing when it comes to your wing.

Right, to a large extent, the Unit­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Belarus orig­i­nat­ed from that group. I helped cre­ate it in 1990, before the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union. How­ev­er, when it became clear that this force was bring­ing about the destruc­tion of the Red Empire, many peo­ple, includ­ing lead­ers, stepped aside. Some peo­ple were unhap­py with the shift toward a Euro­pean path, toward the West. In today’s terms, the polit­i­cal sup­port­ers of the “Russ­ian world” had already begun to emerge back then.

And what hap­pened in the realm of offi­cial ide­ol­o­gy?

When real polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion emerged, the old, famil­iar struc­tures revealed their inabil­i­ty to com­pete and began to crum­ble. After all, they were not pre­pared for a polit­i­cal strug­gle, nor for the fight for their ideas. The Com­mu­nist Par­ty, the Kom­so­mol, and the trade unions all sur­ren­dered with­out much resis­tance. The sit­u­a­tion is almost iden­ti­cal to what hap­pened in 2020. In times of acute polit­i­cal cri­sis, orga­ni­za­tions cre­at­ed by the author­i­ties sim­ply dis­ap­pear from the are­na. They were made for a dif­fer­ent pur­pose.

To be the façade?

To exert con­trol over the most crit­i­cal areas of pub­lic life. How­ev­er, con­trol­ling is not fight­ing.

From experts to “extremist centers”

There were also trans­for­ma­tions in the demo­c­ra­t­ic field: some­thing changed quick­ly, and some­thing new appeared imme­di­ate­ly. In 1993, Ana­tol Maise­nia — a jour­nal­ist and one of the first Belaru­sian polit­i­cal sci­en­tists — cre­at­ed the East-West Nation­al Cen­ter for Strate­gic Ini­tia­tives and invit­ed you to join. Was that moment a turn­ing point in your career, or an entry­way into a com­plete­ly new field where the first guid­ing prin­ci­ples of civ­il soci­ety were being formed?

That was a new real­i­ty. Maise­nia noticed my activ­i­ty on inde­pen­dent media, where I com­ment­ed on polit­i­cal process­es and events, and he offered a col­lab­o­ra­tion. The Cen­ter devel­oped and grew rapid­ly. We held many vital con­fer­ences that became sig­nif­i­cant events in social and polit­i­cal life. This includ­ed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Stanis­lau Shushke­vich, the head of the Supreme Coun­cil; deputy prime min­is­ters; the Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs; gen­er­als from the Min­istry of Defense; sci­en­tists; and West­ern politi­cians. The Cen­ter has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the country’s socio-polit­i­cal process­es through its research.

It reached the point of absur­di­ty: pre­cise­ly this effec­tive­ness irri­tat­ed some of our oppo­nents with­in the opposition’s own camp. The East-West was sup­pos­ed­ly pro-gov­ern­ment if the offi­cials approached us will­ing­ly. “Look, they’ve already imple­ment­ed a few ideas. They’re lob­by­ists for the bureau­cra­cy and Kebich’s[2] appa­ra­tus. Tal­ly-ho!”

Effi­cien­cy always caus­es jeal­ousy. But what was the hon­est crit­i­cism behind the façade?

Our col­leagues over­looked the moment. They did not under­stand that the new era brought new play­ers to the infor­ma­tion field whose role was to pro­vide exper­tise. It was an unex­pect­ed phe­nom­e­non. Peo­ple with­out sig­nif­i­cant levers, but with exten­sive knowl­edge and uncon­ven­tion­al per­spec­tives, became influ­en­tial. It start­ed in Moscow, where experts in eco­nom­ics, pol­i­tics, and social work have become trend­set­ters in var­i­ous vital areas with the help of the media.

In addi­tion to Popov, oth­er famous fig­ures of the era include econ­o­mists Abel Agan­b­e­gyan, Leonid Abalkin, and Stanislav Shatal­in.

The ear­ly 1990s, when inde­pen­dent Belarus emerged and the Sovi­et Union col­lapsed, coin­cid­ed with a trend we start­ed. Sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise has become an essen­tial fac­tor in shap­ing social and polit­i­cal process­es and pub­lic con­scious­ness. Back then, news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines had huge cir­cu­la­tions. Peo­ple read a lot, watched, and lis­tened to live broad­casts of essen­tial dis­cus­sions for days on end.

But today, that insti­tu­tion has fall­en below ground lev­el. What caused its down­fall? Was it exclu­sive­ly the state’s mali­cious intent?

The lat­ter had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the process. How­ev­er, I would also like to point out that the devel­op­ment of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies has led to “expert” assess­ments com­ing from almost any­one with a cam­era or micro­phone and a com­put­er. Pro­fan­i­ty and pop­ulism were abun­dant. The demand for quick and sim­ple answers has destroyed the depth of ana­lyt­ics and, in a sense, the con­cept of exper­tise itself.

How­ev­er, the author­i­ties “appre­ci­at­ed” its weighty voice.

Ana­lyt­i­cal cen­ters, an influ­en­tial part of the oppo­si­tion, were tar­get­ed by Lukashen­ka as soon as he became pres­i­dent. A crim­i­nal case was opened against us after 1996. We had to shut down and estab­lish a new brand: the Strat­e­gy Ana­lyt­i­cal Cen­ter.

At that moment, doing pol­i­tics had already tran­scend­ed the legal realm. In a coun­try where the gov­ern­ment was open­ly break­ing the rules, was it pos­si­ble to stay out of pol­i­tics?

At one of the meet­ings, the “young” pres­i­dent announced that the oppo­si­tion receives mon­ey from abroad through three cen­ters: the Soros Foun­da­tion, the Gru­shevoy Chornobyl Relief Foun­da­tion, and us. This coin­cid­ed with the death of Ana­tol Maise­nia. It was the begin­ning of an era of total “crack­downs.”

What was its first turn­ing point?

Of course, the 1996 ref­er­en­dum. It com­plete­ly trans­formed the con­sti­tu­tion­al archi­tec­ture, mak­ing the state super-pres­i­den­tial. The “plebiscite” took place in an absolute­ly ille­gal man­ner. Con­sti­tu­tion­al law experts called it a coup d’état, mark­ing the begin­ning of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s clas­sic author­i­tar­i­an­ism.

What tools were employed to rein­force the new polit­i­cal order? Despite the change of his­tor­i­cal scenery, what has remained con­stant in this process for years?

Repres­sion. The sys­tem­at­ic destruc­tion of all insti­tu­tions capa­ble of cre­at­ing alter­na­tives. This includes think tanks, inde­pen­dent media, and NGOs. They did not dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly. Instead, they were dri­ven into reser­va­tions and lost their influ­ence over polit­i­cal deci­sions. This is an exam­ple of author­i­tar­i­an­ism at its finest. Today, in 2020, we are already fac­ing total­i­tar­i­an­ism.

Valer Kar­bale­vich at a meet­ing with Mikhail Gor­bachev at the Min­sk IBB Cen­ter

1994 election: Industrial echo or rural conservatism?

It is often said that the first phase of his rule was quite lib­er­al for many because of the social con­tract: the gov­ern­ment pro­vides sta­bil­i­ty and min­i­mal wel­fare in exchange for society’s silence. Was this a fan­cy scheme or polit­i­cal sci­ence fic­tion?

Decep­tion is inher­ent in the con­cept of a “social con­tract.” It’s more of an abstract polit­i­cal sci­ence con­struc­tion than a real­i­ty. It’s a dis­guise — a way to cov­er up what’s real­ly hap­pen­ing. As a result, Lukashen­ka relied on more than just repres­sion; he also count­ed on the social mod­el of life he had cre­at­ed.

At one point, the “chief design­er” began claim­ing that it was a role mod­el, not just a local phe­nom­e­non. This was said to have become an alter­na­tive to the post-com­mu­nist trans­for­ma­tion.

In fact, its essence lies in exchang­ing cheap Russ­ian gas and oil for “kiss­es.” For “inte­gra­tion kiss­es,” Belarus received a share of Russia’s fos­sil fuel rev­enue. This result­ed in rel­a­tive eco­nom­ic growth. How­ev­er, the effects were felt through­out the entire post-Sovi­et region, not just in Belarus and Rus­sia. Lukashen­ka cap­i­tal­ized on this trend and reaped cer­tain div­i­dends: peo­ple were will­ing to tol­er­ate author­i­tar­i­an meth­ods because life “had improved slight­ly.”

In mod­els like this, the first per­son always became the cen­tral fig­ure. The well-known phrase “I am the state” is very suit­able in the case of Belarus.

Many forms of per­son­al­ism have exist­ed and will con­tin­ue to exist. The out­come depends great­ly on the indi­vid­ual. In any per­son­al­ist regime — and there have been many around the world, with more still to come — much depends on the fig­ure at the top. Lukashen­ka indeed exerts sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence over polit­i­cal process­es. Take 2020, for exam­ple. Under the pres­sure of the post-elec­tion protests, I think many dic­ta­tors would have resigned. The Belaru­sian one picked up a machine gun and a bul­let­proof vest, say­ing he would defend his pow­er to the end.

You wrote a book about him and cre­at­ed one of the most accu­rate por­traits of Lukashen­ka. Which style, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and man­age­ment mod­el fea­tures were evi­dent as ear­ly as 1994? What did ana­lysts, the media, and vot­ers over­look?

He suc­cess­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ized on the wide­spread dis­ap­point­ment with the reforms. Most of the pop­u­la­tion viewed the com­plex process as ugly, chaot­ic, and even anar­chic. Lukashen­ka, the for­mer direc­tor of the Haradzets State Farm made a firm promise: “I’ll straight­en things out and get back what you lost.” To many, the still-liv­ing Sovi­et sen­ti­ment seemed a sav­ing grace.

What about the new civ­il move­ments and polit­i­cal intel­lec­tu­als? Did you just observe the ris­ing influ­ence of a pop­ulist politi­cian from the side­lines? Why didn’t you man­age to con­vey your ideas? Was there real­ly a gap between the elite and the elec­torate?

Lukashen­ka gauged pub­lic sen­ti­ment and won the only demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus. Admit­ted­ly, he relied on pop­u­lar sup­port in his fight against the oppo­si­tion and oth­er insti­tu­tions, such as the Supreme Coun­cil and the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court.

My ques­tion is about some­thing else: Why didn’t the intel­lec­tu­als — the democ­rats — man­age to reach the peo­ple?

Because the peo­ple resist­ed the changes that we, Lukashenka’s oppo­nents, sup­port­ed, it’s no coin­ci­dence that Ales Adamovich[3] referred to Belarus as the “anti-Per­e­stroi­ka Vendée.”

But why did this hap­pen?

The peri­od from 1950 to 1970, known as the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion, was indeed a time of sig­nif­i­cant social devel­op­ment for Belarus. The repub­lic was far ahead of oth­er regions of the Sovi­et Union and many oth­er coun­tries around the world. Mil­lions of Belaru­sians moved from the coun­try­side to the cities. They set­tled into com­fort­able apart­ments by the stan­dards of the time. Their qual­i­ty of life improved sig­nif­i­cant­ly. This is a pow­er­ful argu­ment. This trans­for­ma­tion took place over the span of one or two gen­er­a­tions. Peo­ple who stood in line at the bal­lot box­es in 1994 wit­nessed it.

When Gor­bachev announced that there had been a peri­od of stag­na­tion before him and that the state was in poor con­di­tion, Belaru­sians did not under­stand him. After all, they remem­bered the time under Piotr Masher­au[4] as the best time of their lives. That is why they did not sup­port the calls for reforms. Lukashen­ka tapped into this sen­ti­ment by offer­ing to restore the “lost gold” of the Sovi­et era — an attrac­tive promise for the elec­torate. 

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, this sit­u­a­tion is inter­pret­ed dif­fer­ent­ly: it is said that the 1994 vote reflects Belaru­sian rur­al con­ser­vatism. You are focus­ing on the iner­tia of the pre­vi­ous socioe­co­nom­ic break­through. Did the unheard-of, large-scale indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the BSSR have an impact?

That’s right. Stalin’s indus­tri­al­iza­tion was vio­lent and instead led to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in liv­ing con­di­tions. In con­trast, post-war indus­tri­al­iza­tion in Belarus raised liv­ing stan­dards. Besides, our region did not expe­ri­ence the same lev­el of cor­rup­tion as oth­er regions of the USSR. More­over, we had a charis­mat­ic leader, Masher­au. Changes for the bet­ter were also asso­ci­at­ed with him.

There­fore, the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front did not receive the same lev­el of sup­port as it did in the Baltic States and Ukraine. All these fac­tors com­bined strong­ly influ­enced the for­ma­tion of the nation­al idea. For exam­ple, the BPF was not as pop­u­lar as the Pop­u­lar Fronts in oth­er regions of the Sovi­et Union, such as the Baltic States and Ukraine.

The con­ser­v­a­tive nature of Belaru­sian soci­ety influ­enced the out­come of the 1994 elec­tion and the country’s sub­se­quent devel­op­ment.

 Civil society: From desert lands to exile

When the first NGOs, foun­da­tions, inde­pen­dent edi­to­r­i­al offices, and polit­i­cal par­ties began to emerge in Belarus, did peo­ple feel that these were more than just local projects — that they could lay the ground­work for a new coun­try?

The poten­tial was obvi­ous. As old struc­tures dis­in­te­grat­ed, the socio-polit­i­cal land­scape became bar­ren. Giv­en this con­text, it was essen­tial to devise a new one.

A civ­il soci­ety is an essen­tial ele­ment of a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. In our sit­u­a­tion, how­ev­er, there was sim­ply no room for maneu­ver. After all, the demo­c­ra­t­ic process in Belarus was very brief and quick­ly col­lapsed. Con­se­quent­ly, the expan­sion of this niche was sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­strained. For instance, it was linked to back­ing from for­eign funds rather than domes­tic finan­cial insti­tu­tions.

After so many years with­out gen­uine elec­tions, under intense pres­sure and depen­dent on grants for sur­vival, could this be seen as a grad­ual deple­tion of civ­il soci­ety? In such dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, did civ­il soci­ety still have some kind of strat­e­gy — or should we rather speak of a mere­ly reac­tive exis­tence?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the lat­ter is true. Each struc­ture was focused on its own sur­vival and lim­it­ed goals. There was no over­ar­ch­ing strat­e­gy like “We will build a demo­c­ra­t­ic Belarus through civ­il soci­ety.” Some peo­ple want­ed to do this, but gen­er­al­ly, every­one was doing their own thing. In an author­i­tar­i­an sys­tem, it could not be oth­er­wise. Such a sys­tem blocks and slows down the devel­op­ment of civ­il soci­ety.

The for­mer total­i­tar­i­an struc­tures in Belarus have not yet ful­ly col­lapsed. The pow­ers and roles of deputy heads of ide­ol­o­gy depart­ments have increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly with­in enter­pris­es. Labor col­lec­tives are now both busi­ness enti­ties and polit­i­cal units.

Can we say that dur­ing the brief demo­c­ra­t­ic peri­od, the civ­il sec­tor evolved into an alter­na­tive to Sovi­et polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions — a “par­al­lel Belarus”?

In a way, yes. Over time, the Com­mu­nist Par­ty and the Kom­so­mol were pushed aside, but there was no pri­va­ti­za­tion. The pub­lic sec­tor remained dom­i­nant. The eco­nom­ic sys­tem sur­vived, which great­ly lim­it­ed the devel­op­ment of new civ­il insti­tu­tions.

Now, let’s move from the past to the present. What about civ­il soci­ety in exile? Is it capa­ble of shap­ing the country’s future?

The extrater­ri­to­r­i­al Belarus — a civ­il soci­ety in exile — has already become a tan­gi­ble real­i­ty. It has been cre­at­ed and is oper­at­ing. But we face seri­ous prob­lems.

The issue of influ­ence on domes­tic polit­i­cal life is para­mount. On the one hand, the Inter­net era has made emi­gra­tion much stronger and broad­er than it was in Sovi­et times. Nev­er­the­less, real sce­nar­ios of change will unfold in Belarus. No one can pre­dict the out­come. Exter­nal geopo­lit­i­cal fac­tors play a sig­nif­i­cant role. They com­pli­cate both fore­casts and cur­rent activ­i­ties.

Valer Kar­bale­vich at the con­fer­ence “Belaru­sian Jour­nal­ism: Where Tomor­row Begins”. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

2020: Who/what was hit by the perfect storm

What hap­pened to us in 2020? The gov­ern­ment and civ­il soci­ety over­looked the civ­il explo­sion, which begs the ques­tion: where did it come from? What was the rea­son for this?

I can brag a lit­tle here. Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions were held in 2019. Then, dur­ing the round­table dis­cus­sions, I said that, for the first time dur­ing Lukashenka’s rule, the num­ber of his oppo­nents had sur­passed that of his sup­port­ers. Every­one crit­i­cized me at once, ask­ing, “Where did you dream this up?” I answered hon­est­ly: “I don’t know where or how it will man­i­fest, but the land­scape of elec­toral sym­pa­thies has shift­ed.”

And it explod­ed just a year lat­er. Then there was what is called a per­fect storm: sev­er­al impor­tant fac­tors coin­cid­ed at once.

The author­i­ties’ reac­tion to the pan­dem­ic was unpro­fes­sion­al and dra­mat­ic. A gen­uine alter­na­tive emerged dur­ing the elec­tion — first Valer Tsap­kala,[5] then Vik­tar Babary­ka.[6] As a result, peo­ple with vast­ly dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies and views found com­mon ground in one sen­ti­ment: any­one but him!

So, has the clas­sic Belaru­sian con­ser­vatism failed after all?

It was some­thing else — specif­i­cal­ly, the social process­es that shaped the mid­dle class. This group want­ed to influ­ence pol­i­tics gen­uine­ly, and soci­ety sought to become a polit­i­cal actor rather than a mere object. We have evolved to the point where we demand­ed the right to choose, not just the right to vote in fake elec­tions.

And what role did civ­il soci­ety play? Though osten­si­bly unno­ticed, it was, in fact, like a “mole of his­to­ry,” prepar­ing the ground.

Yes, civ­il soci­ety has done a lot. Of all its insti­tu­tions, how­ev­er, I would sin­gle out the inde­pen­dent media. They played a cru­cial role in this crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion. The author­i­ties over­looked the advent of the inter­net, which elim­i­nat­ed the tra­di­tion­al monop­oly on infor­ma­tion. Non-gov­ern­men­tal web­sites, forums, and plat­forms have tak­en over the unreg­u­lat­ed dig­i­tal space. They began to dic­tate the pub­lic agen­da. In one way or anoth­er, a large part of the pop­u­la­tion used ser­vices offered by the Tut.by media out­let and by oth­er edi­tors and blog­gers. The pow­er ver­ti­cal sim­ply did not under­stand the chang­ing sit­u­a­tion. They under­es­ti­mat­ed the impor­tance and poten­tial of new media. In par­tic­u­lar, since Lukashen­ka him­self doesn’t live in the online world and doesn’t use a com­put­er, he failed to grasp the polit­i­cal impact of mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies.

As for civ­il soci­ety as a whole, its great­ness emerged in the events of 2020. The sheer num­ber of neigh­bor­hood, res­i­den­tial, and pro­fes­sion­al chats is impres­sive, as is the phe­nom­e­nal role of Telegram chan­nels.

Hun­dred-thou­sand, two-hun­dred-thou­sand, even half-mil­lion-strong demon­stra­tions could not fail to impress. But wasn’t it, above all, a moral com­mu­ni­ty — unit­ed against evil, yet with­out clear­ly defined polit­i­cal goals?

In that high­ly politi­cized atmos­phere, every issue took on a polit­i­cal dimen­sion, the rigged elec­tion, the exclu­sion of Siarhei Tsikhanous­ki,[7] Tsap­kala, and Babary­ka from the race, the beat­ings of civil­ians, and many oth­er fac­tors — all of it cul­mi­nat­ed in a polit­i­cal protest. Every­thing was trans­form­ing in the process and becom­ing part of pol­i­tics.

Let’s dwell on the trig­ger fig­ures — Babary­ka and Tsap­kala. Is applaud­ing them still an old Belaru­sian dream of hav­ing a “strong eco­nom­ic leader” at the head of the coun­try?

That’s right, this atti­tude is deeply embed­ded in the nation­al con­scious­ness. The head is expect­ed to be an exec­u­tive with eco­nom­ic expe­ri­ence. These peo­ple sup­pos­ed­ly under­stand oth­ers’ needs bet­ter and can ful­fill their promis­es more quick­ly.

The exam­ple of Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya negates this the­o­ry!

It’s a whole oth­er sto­ry. After Lukashen­ka cracked down on all his real rivals, peo­ple were so angry that they vot­ed for her, a woman with no polit­i­cal or eco­nom­ic expe­ri­ence. The vote was not a show of sup­port for Tsikhanouskaya; it was a protest against Lukashen­ka.

Or, to put it anoth­er way: this was how peo­ple defend­ed their right to dig­ni­ty and their right to make their own choic­es. We are human beings, not cat­tle. We’re fed up — we want to live dif­fer­ent­ly!

Yeah, one could rea­son in this way. More­over, Tsikhanouskaya declared, “I’m not here to lead the coun­try — I just want to ensure free elec­tions are held.”

How­ev­er, pol­i­tics is not tak­en seri­ous­ly in Belarus at all. A par­ty leader feels like a joke. How­ev­er, the head of a bank or a high-tech park is seen as an hon­est busi­nessper­son. This is because we lacked expe­ri­ence with real demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions.

Isn’t this rem­i­nis­cent of Belarus’s suc­cess when its econ­o­my was grow­ing and busi­ness exec­u­tives were seen as heroes?

Absolute­ly. The pub­lic sec­tor still accounts for near­ly half of the entire econ­o­my. There­fore, the head of state is seen pri­mar­i­ly as an admin­is­tra­tor. That’s why Lukashen­ka con­tin­ues to vis­it state-owned farms and fac­to­ries, pub­licly lec­tur­ing local offi­cials. This is all part of his polit­i­cal the­ater and his attempt to appeal to the elec­torate.

The epilogue

Fol­low­ing the con­ven­tion of the genre, let’s revis­it our start­ing point. You have been a uni­ver­si­ty teacher for many years. Let’s imag­ine a sit­u­a­tion: anoth­er lec­ture on the most recent peri­od of our exis­tence, giv­en to tomorrow’s his­to­ri­ans and polit­i­cal sci­en­tists. What would you tell them in con­clu­sion? What max­im would you leave them with? What would you advise them to pay atten­tion to — how to act, how to live, and how to assess what’s hap­pen­ing?

Dear col­leagues, Belaru­sian state­hood is still very young — only 35 years old. Nei­ther the ide­o­log­i­cal, polit­i­cal, nor eco­nom­ic mod­els have ful­ly tak­en shape yet; they are all still being formed. That’s why the human fac­tor plays a much greater role here than in coun­tries with sta­ble sys­tems. We have the pow­er to influ­ence the process­es tak­ing place in Belarus today much more strong­ly. So I urge you: join in bold­ly, take part, make an impact, and seek out your own — our Belaru­sian — way!

The project “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” is co-financed by the Pol­ish Coop­er­a­tion for Devel­op­ment Pro­gram of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion reflects exclu­sive­ly the author’s views and can­not be equat­ed with the offi­cial posi­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland.

[1] A Russ­ian politi­cian and econ­o­mist. He served as the may­or of Moscow from 1991 until he resigned in 1992.

[2] Viachaslau Kebich was a Belaru­sian politi­cian and the first Prime Min­is­ter of Belarus from 1991 to 1994.

[3] A Sovi­et Belaru­sian writer, screen­writer, lit­er­ary crit­ic and demo­c­ra­t­ic activist.

[4] A Sovi­et par­ti­san, states­man, and one of the lead­ers of the Belaru­sian resis­tance dur­ing World War II who gov­erned the Belaruss­ian Sovi­et Social­ist Repub­lic as First Sec­re­tary of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of Belarus from 1965 until his death in 1980. 

[5] Belaru­sian politi­cian and entre­pre­neur; for­mer diplo­mat, ambas­sador to the U.S. and Mex­i­co, and founder of the Belarus High Tech­nolo­gies Park. A key fig­ure in Lukashenka’s 1994 cam­paign, he lat­er became one of his main oppo­nents, barred from the 2020 pres­i­den­tial race and sen­tenced in absen­tia to 17 years in prison in 2023.

[6] Belaru­sian banker, phil­an­thropist, and oppo­si­tion politi­cian. Seen as the lead­ing chal­lenger to Lukashen­ka in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, he was arrest­ed in June 2020 on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed finan­cial charges and lat­er sen­tenced to 14 years in prison.

[7] Belaru­sian YouTu­ber and oppo­si­tion activist known for his crit­i­cism of Lukashenka’s regime. He was arrest­ed in 2020 short­ly after announc­ing his pres­i­den­tial bid, with his wife Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya run­ning in his place. After five years in soli­tary con­fine­ment, he was released on June 21, 2025, fol­low­ing a vis­it to Belarus by U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kei­th Kel­logg.