Belarus - A Unique Case in the European Context? By Peter Kim Laustsen* Introduction Remaking of World Order2 , where he ex- Federation, Ukraine, Romania, Bosnia and pressed a more pessimistic view. It was Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Since the end of the Cold War and the claimed that the spreading of liberal de- Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and break-up of the Soviet Union, a guiding mocracy had reached its limits and that Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) did paradigm in the discussions concerning outside its present boundaries (primarily support Huntingtons theory. political changes in Central and Eastern Western Europe) this form of government The development in the latest years has Europe has been a positive and optimis- would not be able to take root. shown progress in all but a few of the tic believe in progress towards the vic- The political development that took above mentioned states. Reading Freedom tory of a liberal democracy. This view was place in the years after the fall of the Ber- Houses surveys on the level of political clearly expressed by Francis Fukuyama in lin Wall and the birth and rebirth of the rights and civil liberties gives hope. his widely discussed book The End of successor states of the Soviet Union, Widely across Europe these rights and lib- History and the Last Man1 . The optimistic Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia did not erties have been and are still expanding view of the political changes was however however support Fukuyamas claim. On and deepening. One state does clearly sepa- challenged by Samuel P. Huntington in the contrary, the political upheaval in, for rate itself from the trends in Eastern and his book The Clash of Civilizations and the instance, Slovakia, Belarus, the Russian Central Europe: Belarus. According to * Mr. Peter Kim Laustsen is a Master student of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and is a former Academic Assistant in the Baltic Defence College Institute for Defence Studies. The article is based on a paper from January 2003. 65 Freedom House, the political and civil describe Belarus as one of the wealthier Belarusian National Republic created af- rights and liberties have worsened since republics socially as well as economically. ter German Kaisers protection under the 1994/1995 and continue to do so. The Belarus went through a massive eco- First World War. purpose of this article is an attempt to nomic and industrial modernization af- The commonality between these two explain the causes to the specific political ter the end of the Second World War. units is the absence of an effect on the developments in Belarus and to charac- The developments in the political sphere Belarusian consciousness today. Both Po- terize the political regime. could only take place after the death of land and Lithuania largely possess mo- Josef Stalin, after which the political elite nopoly on the state continuity from the The starting point of obtained a certain degree of autonomy Lithuanian Grand Duchy. The end of the Belarus in relation to Moscow and because of that state was that it was split between the ma- a relatively high degree of internal self- jor powers of the time. The Belarusian part Two critical factors can be said to have rule. ended up under Russian control, and the existed in Belarus: modern internal struc- Another characteristic feature of the period was characterized by a cultural, re- tures and an existing state structure. Ac- Belarusian case is the presence of a crisis ligious, and political repression with Rus- cording to a survey conducted by of sovereignty. Compared to, for instance, sian attempts to erase all traces of a Deutsche Bank in 1990 and repeated by the three Baltic states history shows that Belarusian identity. This co-optation of the Kuzio & Nordberg3 , Belarus had a high there de facto has not existed a Belarusian Belarusian nation David Riach described score on the scales of the survey concern- state before. The first possible state that as de facto destruction of the Belarusian state ing industrialization, infrastructure, and can be said to have existed is the Grand and nation. The short time the National level of education in the population. Duchy of Lithuania due to the fact that a Republic existed, its establishment under Among the republics in the former So- large part of the present Belarusian terri- the German Kaisers protection and the viet Union, Belarus was clearly positioned tory was a part of the state formation, a lack of popular support has had an almost as number five, while Ukraine was posi- predominant part of the population was negative effect on the feeling of a state tioned as number one. This evaluation of of Slavic decent and the language used in among the population. The perception had Belarus is also supported by the United the state administration was Belarusian, been that the republic was an attempt to Nations Development Programmes while the other possible state formation incorporate the Belarusian territory and (UNDP) yearly development reports that can be said to have been the short lived population under German rule. 66 The establishment of Belarus as a So- In contrast to Belarus, the three Baltic tria-Hungarian rule, where the govern- cialist Soviet Republic in 1919 exists states succeeded in maintaining their in- ment pursued a more liberal policy to- strongly in the minds of the Belarusian dependence from the end of the First wards ethnic groups within the states bor- population. The strongest memories for World War until the beginning of the ders. Despite the fact that the sovereignty Belarusians are of the time under Soviet 1940s. In this period the populations of was challenged, the populations in the rule with the fighting and resistance dur- the Baltic states built a strong conscious- Baltic states as well as in western part of ing the Second World War, the rebuild- ness about their independence, the state, Ukraine managed to preserve the memory ing, modernization and industrialization the nation, and their cultural heritage. The of a sovereign statehood, and because of after the war, and the rising standards of Soviet Unions annexation of the Baltic that the states were more prepared for state living that followed these developments. states, the deportations and the armed and nation building project by the time Another important element was the fact struggle against the occupation until the of independence in 1991. that Belarus was accepted as a founding middle of the 1950s, all contributed to member of the United Nations. These strengthen the consciousness. The popu- Politico-institutional positive elements of the incorporation of lation of Belarus stood in an almost op- factors Belarus in the Soviet Union led the popu- posite situation at the Independence in lation to see itself as Soviet Belarusians 1991. In the three Baltic states the Another critical factor was the collapse rather than Belarusians. This problem has populations memory of the statehood of the totalitarian rule imposed by the So- probably been further advanced by the and nationhood was a positive heritage viet Union. The collapse became clear in fact that Belarus as well as other republics that had positive effects during their battle the late 1980s and in the beginning of the in the Soviet Union experienced state for independence and nation building. 1990s. Two elements strongly contributed building before its nation building, the Another relevant comparison is in re- to undermining the totalitarian rule. It was opposite of the development that took lation to Ukraine which experienced a the meltdown of the nuclear reactor in place in most of the West, Central and longer period as an independent state. Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and the dis- East European states. The consequence has Despite the heavy Russian and Soviet sup- covery of the mass graves from the 1930s been that it has not been possible to build pression, a national consciousness did sur- and 1940s in the Kuropaty Forests north the national identity within the frame- vive. This was partly the effect of the fact of Minsk in 1988. These events had massive work of a state. that a part of the state came under Aus- consequences for the rule from Moscow. 67 The catastrophe revealed the inefficiency concerning the events were reported to The Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the lack of action from the totalitar- the public and where the findings in rela- ian state - at the regional level as well as at tion to the excavations were described. The meltdown of the nuclear reactor the state level. Both Ukraine and Belarus David Marples estimates that the discov- in Chernobyl occurred on the 26th of abstained from taking action indepen- ery of the mass graves had a decisive ef- April 1986, where the explosion caused dently of the centre in Moscow. The melt- fect on the possibilities for political an immense leak of airborne nuclear ma- down had a considerable psychological as changes in Belarus. terial. The consequences of this pollution well as physical effect on the population The reaction from the local govern- were a vast relocation of population and of Belarus, which was caused by the lack ment in Minsk was moderate. It was de- a large portion of the Belarusian land of information, help, and action from the cided to establish a commission which kept in quarantine (and therefore it can- local as well as the national government. had to go deeply into the matter. The not be used to produce agricultural This became obvious in relation to the result of the commissions work was, for products). The accident had large eco- evacuations, which were only partial and large parts of the population, another nomic and human costs as well as conse- did not evacuate all the persons to safe piece of evidence of the regimes charac- quences for the legitimacy of the Soviet and clean areas.