Belarusian Revolution Has Already Won

It remains to solve the question of the real power.

At the end of the XX century, a new global revolution - the information revolution - began, fundamentally changing the world's way of life. With the advent of the Internet, literally all spheres of our lives started to change rapidly: economics, politics, information space, culture, mentality, and self-awareness. The digital society is rapid, open, transparent, mobile and, most importantly, fundamentally truthful, because any lie can be refuted by anyone, literally anyone now has a voice. Don't you think that the described picture is the exact opposite of the state system that the Lukashenka regime has been building for the last 26 years? )

As in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western governments - elected, controlled, accountable and, as a consequence, effective - have managed to fit into the new paradigm in some places, in others, they are fitting in with varying degrees of success, but in general, the process is going on without political upheaval, as always happens when the political system is flexible and adaptive (that is, not focused on the whims and complexes of one person). Since the beginning of this era, it is the authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships that have been shaken the most, those that throughout history have been based on lies, control of information and resources, and the brainwashing of the population - all the things that are destroyed in today's digital world.

As a matter of fact, this is the Belarusian situation today. The revolution in Belarus began, in my opinion, somewhere in the late 90s, when the first citizens started to explore the free information space. I personally became familiar with the Internet in 1998 when I was a student. Do I have to tell you about the stunning impact on the young inquisitive brain of the possibility to get directly into the richest digitized library of the U.S. Congress (I do not know how it is now, whether everything is in the public domain or not, but that was the case back then) and read in its original language the documents that have formed the modern world? Let's just say that the contrast with the district library - and libraries are a gold-mine of information! - is enormous.

In the period from 2010 to 2020 the digitization took over all spheres of life in the country - not only the information space, but also the communication space and the economic space, it penetrated into politics and became dominant in public life.

Under the new conditions, people learned to communicate in a new way, to exchange resources, to see the world and themselves, the country and the surrounding reality. A change of generations brought about a fall in demand for "ingrained Soviet mentality," i.e. women with back combing, law enforcement officers, municipal workers with saws cutting off greenery in our towns, stupid administrative officials who cannot put two words together - all this was in stark contrast to a truly renewed Belarusian society.

The authorities, depending on one person's point of view, being too rigid and conservative, were simply unable to adapt to the new conditions, to the new world. Thus, a demand to change the regime emerged, and this demand splashed out on the streets in 2020, what we have called the "Belarusian Revolution". It follows the classic pattern: if the authorities are not able to meet the expectations of society in the new conditions, the revolution raises the question of its replacement.

No, of course, they tried, but in their own way. They even created the HTP in the desire that the vanguard of the new society, the IT specialists, would make money and spend it here. But they were not ready that this new society has new demands. Lukashenka used to say: "Our IT specialists, the bourgeois, got hungry for power". It is only partly true. They don't need power to themselves - they are fine with a computer in their backpack. But they do need a different kind of power, so that the women with back combing don't mess up their lives by constantly pushing them back into the "Soviet mentality".

Speaking of IT specialists and others. Of course, it was not only IT professionals who were protesting in the streets - the open information world implies the maximum involvement of everyone, because the benefits of the new era are shared by all. However, it was the most powerful digital component that played a decisive role in the recent events, which speaks volumes. And, on the other hand, the actual refusal of the vast majority of workers to participate in a national strike looks completely logical: even if they do not understand it clearly, they feel that the change of eras, to put it mildly, will take them out of their comfort zone, because the digital, information revolution replaces the results of the industrial revolution, and they are children of it. Therefore, up to some point, they will continue to go peacefully to their factories, although the conscience and morality push many of them into the ranks of supporters of changes, just - it is not theirs, in terms of historical logic. It's another thing that the regime will not be able to maintain the situation in its present state indefinitely, or even for any time at all: economic relations are changing all over the world, something that must die is dying, and it will die. And we can perfectly see it by the state of Belarusian industrial enterprises. Sooner or later, they are going to close even under the present administration, and then there will be nowhere for the workers to go.

The main conclusion that can be drawn from what has been written is that the Belarusian revolution has not lost. The Belarusian revolution is still going on. The society has been greatly renewed, cardinally, one might say, and the Belarusian revolution has already won in this respect. However, this victory will not be possible until the issue of the real power is solved, and in this sense, the revolution has not yet won; it is in progress.

Piotr Kuzniatsou, Telegram