Challenge: With a POD anytime in the 20th century, make Belarus democratic

I am primarily gunning for an "avoid Lukashenko taking over and Moscow meddling in Belarus' affairs" scenario. Any POD during the 20th century could do, but I'm most interested in a 1980s or 1990s one.
 
Lenin chokes on a fishbone at the beginning of century. Later on SRs and Mensheviks form a coalition government with token Kadet representation, as the All-Russian Constituent Assembly is allowed to meet and steer the country towards chaotic but very democratic future. Belarus sticks around in the new federated Russian Republic.
 
The Polish-Bolshevik war goes differently/not at all, and Poland ends up controlling Minsk. Belorussia may either be set up as a puppet/client immediately, or gradually develop through autonomy into a separate state as democratic Poland decides forced Polonization of the entire area would be too incompatible with its legal system to be tolerable. The small Belorussia remains associated with Poland and separate from Russia, and eventually becomes democratic. Don't ask me exactly how, but in almost 100 years a lot can and will happen.
 
I'm not sure about the exact POD, but I could easily imagine Belarus having a color revolution around the same time as the Ukraine.
 
I think a key time period for a democratic Belarus would be sidelining Lukashenko and his ilk in the early 1990s. You might get a struggling democracy then, at best on the level of Latvia and Ukraine, and at worst on the level of poorer parts of Russia and Ukraine. But it at least wouldn't be a pariah state. And it would probably keep the far more awesome flag and coat of arms with a knight. :D

Some good PODs in the early 20th century might involve codifying a standard Belarrusian language earlier, as well as an earlier national awakening. Belarus came to its problems partly because it didn't consolidate a coherent nation state identity until after WWI. That made it easy pickings for Russia and the USSR, while Ukraine at least had several decades or centuries of local identity to build upon, even if it was a very regionally-based and somewhat divided "national" identity.
 
Last edited:
Obviously the best opportunity would have been to prevent Lukashenko from becoming President in 1994. Having anyone even remotely dedicated to preserving democratic institutions would have changed Belarus' trajectory.

My understanding is that he was fairly unknown as a politician when Communism fell. He was the only politician in parliament to vote against dissolving the USSRa nd becoming independent, which showed everyone then what he was like. He gained fame by being an eloquent complainer of corruption and used that to win the first Belarussian presidential election.

You need something that derails that. Perhaps an accident which kills him, or that a pro-democratic politician pre-empts his fame as a critic of corruption. The most obvious POD would be that Lukashenko's charges of corruption against Stanislav Shushkevich are found to be baseless, and Shushkevich retains his job as head of state (technically still the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet). Shushkevich then wins the first Presidential election under the new constitution in 1994.

Democratic and market reforms are instituted. Democratic parties are strengthened. There are plenty of non-democratic parties too, and it is highly likely that they will gain power at some point. At best, we can imagine a situation like Ukraine where democratic parties have extended years of control, but lost periodically to parties with less democratic credibility, but that a system of elections following democratic norms becomes accepted by the Belarussian people. Preumably, the longer the democrats retain power, the more difficult it is for someone like Lukashenko to destroy democratic institutions even if he gets power later on.

If we really want to stack the deck, we have the market reforms implemented much better in Belarus than they were in Russia or Ukraine, creating a more broad support for the democratic parties.

One thing we can say is that without Lukashenko, less emphasis will be made on continued ties with Russia, and more emphasis placed on distinctly Belarussian symbols and culture that distinguishes it from Russia.
 
Top