Moscow and the Non-Russian Republics in the Soviet Union by Li Bennich-Bjorkman

Author:Li Bennich-Bjorkman [Bennich-Bjorkman, Li]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032155401
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2021-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

5 The Belarusian Soviet nomenklatura

A political history, 1947–1994

Andrei Kazakevich

DOI: 10.4324/9781003244608-5

There is a Thorn – it looks so old,

In truth, you’d find it hard to say

How it could ever have been young,

It looks so old and grey…

And all have joined in one endeavour

To bury this poor Thorn forever.

William Wordsworth, The Thorn, 1798

‘10 July 1994, Sunday. I have never noticed the information printed under the date (in an office desk calendar). This time, though, I read it: “Sunrise at 04:51, sunset at 21:38. Daytime length 16 [hours]:07 [minutes]”. Then I thought: “What a long day that will be…”’ (Kebich, 2008, p. 8). On that long day, the second round of the presidential elections was held, when Viacheslav Kebich, the undisputed leader of the Belarusian nomenklatura, who had practically all the reins of power in his hands, suffered a devastating defeat from an outsider and until then little-known Aleksandr Lukashenko. This event put an end to the political domination of the Belarusian nomenklatura that had lasted for about 45 years. The consequences of the event still have their impact on the present political development of Belarus.

In this chapter, I will chart the political history of this political group, from its birth at the end of the 1940s, then its prosperity in the 1950s to 1970s, its decline in the 1980s, to its collapse in the beginning of the 1990s. The main attention will be paid to the description of its inner structural contradictions, dynamics of appointments at the top level of power, and its relationship with the Centre of the Union. I will show the mechanisms of the formation of various groups within the political elite of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and the reasons for their decline and collapse.

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