Belarusian Protests Won't Spread to Russia Because Russians Fear They'd Disintegrate Their Country, Lichikhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Nothing, including democratization, threatens the territorial integrity of Belarus; but many things, including any moves toward greater democracy, would lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation, according to Dmitry Luchikhin, a Russian commentator who writes frequently for Kontinent.

            That distinction between the two countries is one of the most important factors limiting the spread of activism like that on view in Belarus today to the Russian Federation, Luchikhin argues (newizv.ru/comment/dmitriy-luchihin/01-09-2020/pochemu-rossiya-ne-belorussiya-i-komu-ugrozhaet-raspad-strany).

            “The population of Belarus, like to a significant degree that of other former republics, doesn’t feel a threat to its identity from internal political processes,” he says. Their peoples are confident that their country will remain in existence regardless of what political changes occur. Belarus will remain Belarus, but Russians have no such confidence about their own country.

            That means, Luchikhin suggests, that all parts of the political spectrum in these countries can take part in politics without the fear that such participation will lead to disaster. But “the situation in Russia is unfortunately different.” Many are certain, on the basis of the experience of 1991, that any liberalization and democratization will lead to Russia flying apart.

            Such things, far too many Russians believe, are “incompatible with the idea of the unity of the country.”  For them to support a campaign for human rights and basic laws would require that they first “overcome their attachment to the values of the unity of the country with which they themselves identify and allow the possibility of the disintegration of the country.”

            That is why, Luchikhin concludes, that “the total dissemination and reproduction of Belarusian protest5s in Russia at the present time is impossible, although that in no way excludes or makes meaningless local protest phenomena like that in Khabarovsk or protests regarding the environment.”

            Those are possible, even likely. But a nationwide one would require a national self-confidence in the stability of the country and its borders that Russians in large numbers don’t have and that the Kremlin is all too happy to exacerbate for its own purposes to promote acceptance of the way things are now.