WI: Lukashenko's Russian Take Over Succeded?

[SysyphusOfEphyra]

Context: in the mid 90's Belarus and Russia were considering and moving towards unification into a single country. Part of the treaty would be that they would integrate slowly and calmly. Lukashenko realized he could play the treaty and get elected as the Russian president and get a complete take over. But Yeltsin resigning and giving Putin the keys made that impossible.

What if Yeltain had kept himself together a vit longer and no Putin got involved?

 

[Bukabuck]

It would be more authoritarian regime, than current is. Lukashenko would returned the death penalty, strenghed FSB power. I can imagine restoration of old Soviet flag or remaking the current Russian flag into more soviet style.

 

[Dan1988]

or remaking the current Russian flag into more soviet style.

So like this rejected 1950s proposal, then?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_...st_Republic#Proposed_flag_of_the_Russian_SFSR>

 

[Bukabuck]

So like this rejected 1950s proposal, then?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_...st_Republic#Proposed_flag_of_the_Russian_SFSR>

that's flag looks very corny. I guess that this variant is more interesting

 

[General Tirpitz]

So like this rejected 1950s proposal, then?

Lukashenko likes to tap into Soviet nostalgia but by dropping overt references to Communism. So you migth see symbols, names of organizations and such taken from the Soviet past but without direct references to Communism. Like the RSFSR flag without the hammer and sickle which @Bukabuck posted above. Putin's Russia does this too to some extent but overall it is more a mix of both imperial and Soviet pasts and taking things from boht of those. Lukashenko's Russia might focus more on the latter but it wouldn't mean that his government wouldn't utilize symbols from Imperial Russia when it fits their agenda, just that there might be some shift in balance compared to OTL. Of course, one of the reasons why Soviet history is emphasized in Belarus is because they really can't do the same with Imperial Russian history and that wouldn't be an issue with Russia. I guess it depends how much you think Lukashenko's Soviet nostalgia is genuine and how much it is opportunistic pragmatism where he just relies on whatever things can be found from the past he find useful to justify his regime.

 

[Resurgam]

I'm honestly trying to wrap my head around how this could have actually happened. The world would be radically different.

 

[Dan1988]

that's flag looks very corny. I guess that this variant is more interesting View attachment 601606

Just missing one thing (lifted from the flag of Vladimir oblast’):

Alternately, if the symbolism is too obvious, then the hammer and sickle can be replaced with an adapted form of the blue strip from the flag of Altai Krai.

 

[Dan1988]

Lukashenko likes to tap into Soviet nostalgia but by dropping overt references to Communism. So you migth see symbols, names of organizations and such taken from the Soviet past but without direct references to Communism. Like the RSFSR flag without the hammer and sickle which @Bukabuck posted above. Putin's Russia does this too to some extent but overall it is more a mix of both imperial and Soviet pasts and taking things from boht of those. Lukashenko's Russia might focus more on the latter but it wouldn't mean that his government wouldn't utilize symbols from Imperial Russia when it fits their agenda, just that there might be some shift in balance compared to OTL. Of course, one of the reasons why Soviet history is emphasized in Belarus is because they really can't do the same with Imperial Russian history and that wouldn't be an issue with Russia. I guess it depends how much you think Lukashenko's Soviet nostalgia is genuine and how much it is opportunistic pragmatism where he just relies on whatever things can be found from the past he find useful to justify his regime.

Which, I agree, makes a lot of sense. I only brought up the other one because it was an actual proposal (even if it feels forced with placing the hammer and sickle on the traditional Russian flag) that led to a great deal more purges than should have happened. So the power of the Imperial past was still ever-present even during the RSFSR.

 

[Byzantion]

Context: in the mid 90's Belarus and Russia were considering and moving towards unification into a single country. Part of the treaty would be that they would integrate slowly and calmly. Lukashenko realized he could play the treaty and get elected as the Russian president and get a complete take over. But Yeltsin resigning and giving Putin the keys made that impossible.

What if Yeltain had kept himself together a vit longer and no Putin got involved?

So the privatisation in Russia had been in full mode. Belarus us still collective econony. Would L. Try to roll back everything ?

 

[SysyphusOfEphyra]

Lukashenko is shrewd and cunning. He likely would have stopped privatizations but not rolled them back. Maybe a sort of mixed market oligarchy would have come out.