Sergei ANTONCHIK: "We have begun doing what Poland's Solidarity went through"

2001-07-14

You seemed to disappear from the political scene in mid-1990s. What happened in your life after the parliamentary elections of 1995?

Unlike many people, I believe that politics is a profession like a jointer, a scientist or an engineer…I am convinced that a politician is a man who takes advantage of certain conditions in society, not rejects them. After the expiration of my parliamentary mandate, I have worked a lot among workers, launching various organizations and initiatives. I believe that workers have a great influence in a country like Belarus with well-developed industries, once branded the Soviet Union's assembly shop.

I am certain that it is impossible to change anything without worker masses participating in public processes.

So I helped establish a free union before working out a project with my associates to set up a national strike committee. To my regret, this serious project did not meet with support of the political elite, because politicians view me as their rival. That is why, without financing the project came to a halt after we created some structure. Most recently, we have launched an initiative called Workers' Self-Help to offer real assistance to people.

A year ago, we re-established the Workers' Union, an organization formed in 1989-1990 by Mukhin, Sobol, Razumov and other people. The Workers' Self-Help was set up on the basis of that organization. The Ministry of Justice denied registration to both, therefore we have been functioning as a public initiative.

It is ridiculous that political leaders, when they get together in Minsk, complain to each other that the people are too ignorant, passive and timid. Our work has proved that the people are neither timid nor passive, nor ignorant.

They just found themselves in a very difficult position. Workers and employees are concerned about their daily bread, clothes for their children and about keeping their job. These problems predetermine their behavior. I approached various opposition leaders with my project, told them, "Let us start helping people, let us show that not only the government can substitute for their father and mother. People will surely respond to your help." But they laughed at me, because our political elite are convinced that no one except them knows the truth.

How do people meet activists who deliver food and other aid?

We select 5-10 people and offer them financial aid. We collected money among more or less high-paid workers in Minsk, appealed for money to entrepreneurs, who could give something. Then we asked these 5-10 people to bring others who are in need. Thus, we created a network of people connected with each other.

The principles of solidarity are unique because they help overcome fear and estrangement. A totalitarian regime seeks to alienate workers from the results of their work. When a man cannot provide for his family, he does not feel confident, he feels inferior. The authorities stir up the feeling by wage cuts and intimidation, forcing the man to act the way they want him. Not because it is in his nature, but because he is humiliated and enslaved. Then the man is afraid to take part in opposition street protests, because the management tells him, "You will be fired." The man is afraid to sign petitions, because he understands the no one will help him if he loses his job. The fear is so strong that people rejected free food parcels first. People were afraid that their handwriting will appear on questionnaires that we used to account for aid. They became our friends after a third or a fourth meeting. Some of them began reading our leaflets, and some began participating in political activities.

This raised a new wave. In fact we have begun doing what Poland's Solidarity went through. But Poland's intellectuals and political elite did not mind Lech Walesa, a worker, winning the presidency. Poland has hundreds of educated economists, lawyers and political leaders. But they were wise enough to put forward the political leader of a majority, Lech Walesa, not a refined intellectual. At the foreground were the interests of Poland's future, not personal ambitions.

Do you believe present-day Belarus and Poland of the 1980s have anything in common?

Absolutely, things like oppression, low living standards and intimidation.

The Belarusians have the same attitude to Russia as the Poles to the Warsaw Pact - even if the comparison is not completely correct. I mean that in Poland the opposition did not set people against Russia for fear that Moscow would drown the liberation movement in blood. At present, many Belarusians fear to sever ties with Russia. A similar situation, do not you think?

The Belarusian opposition did not look for a national leader after Gennady Karpenko's death. I would not propose myself if Gennady Karpenko were alive now.

Was it the only circumstance that prompted you to run in the presidential race?

No, it was not. I saw members of current and former nomenklatura [people who held key-posts in the Communist Party and state-run enterprises] seeking nomination. I think that 30 to 40 percent of the population, who live below the poverty line and are in desperate position, would sooner vote for a man close to them. That is why I was forced to stand in the election. If our political elite could grasp it all, if it made realistic assessment of the situation, it would come up with such a man within two or three years, not necessarily me, but a man who could become the president of a majority.

I think the candidates proposed by the opposition cannot win. Only those, who realize that most of the people are under the influence of prejudice, populism and a simplistic notion of the economy, can win.

An election campaign is an expensive undertaking…

I have no money, this is absolutely true. But Lukashenko also had no money at the beginning. In a society with eroded borderlines between social groups, and with no middle class, any idea can materialize. What happened in Belarus in 1994? The hardliners were blocking market reforms, and a majority of the population did not understand what was going on.

This uncertainty gave rise to expectations of a new leader, who will sort out all problems. I think that the Anti-Corruption Committee chairman, whoever he was at the time, would certainly have won the presidency because that report matched the desire for revenge in deceived and disappointed people. That is why, by forming Workers' Self-Help, we aimed to meet these expectations.

We wanted people to realize that there is a force capable of protecting anyone who comes under pressure, who has been fired…The man who emerges on a wave of struggle for justice does not need much money.

Can you draw parallels between now and then?

A large number of people, whose life is deteriorating, again start to look for an avenger to defend them and guarantee their interests after the election. There is such a mood in society. I often meet workers and know what they think. We must give people hope, a real hope. We will do it. More and more people realize that they made a mistake seven years ago. They backed a wrong man -- Lukashenko. But the mistake has not disillusioned them. It was just a wrong man.

Can one man correct the mistake, for instance Antonchik, Kozlovsky [ex-defense minister], Marinich [ambassador to Latvia], Yaroshuk [head of agricultural trade union, all of them presidential bidders] or someone else? Maybe the time for concerted action against the regime is ripe as never?

I am a practical man. I support a kind of unification that will help us stop theorizing and start doing practical things. I would offer all potential candidates to get together and assign a concrete task to everyone rather than try to figure out who is the first or the fifth. For example, Sergei Antonchik goes to factories to stage protests and round up workers' support for a single candidate. Yaroshuk takes off his suit and goes to villages to explain farmers why Lukashenko's system of government ruins the agricultural sector. Marynich goes to managers at enterprises to persuade them to meet with the heads of election commissions, persuade them to refrain from helping the authorities rig the election. Kozlovsky finds an opportunity to influence the military. Thus, we would form a front of struggle against the dictatorship. I would be ready to take up the dirtiest job in the team.