Valer Karbalevich: New Protest Dynamics Appeared

Every new log in the fire enlarges the revolutionary flame.

The protest march in Minsk on October 25 has become the most massive action of the regime’s opponents for the last month. I believe the People’s Ultimatum has played the mobilization role. The authorities also helped in a way, having disgraced themselves with their mega-rally that never happened,” political scientist Valer Karbalevich writes in his Telegram channel.

Meanwhile, on October 26, disturbances started at enterprises and universities. Some workshops stopped. Many private companies, mostly those engaged in public services, did not work on October 26. The authorities sent MIA officers to all big state-owned enterprises, and they started detaining workers and dispersing students’ gatherings. In other words, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s call to the general political strike became a signal for a new wave of escalation of the resistance in the society.

This has propelled the protest to the new dynamics, instead of it becoming a routine, there has been an attempt to get away from the hopeless situation. And all speculations of the state media that “the protest is fading” are groundless. The protest’s development is fluctuant. If the society is electrified and politicized, any new log in the fire enlarges the flame.