© REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Belarus is an example of a country that made one wrong decision, and then for three decades its citizens have had to live with that choice—or in some cases die or languish in prison as a result. In Belarus, the death penalty is carried out with a shot to the back of the head. This is the case with politically motivated verdicts, too, only then the bodies are never found. The KGB is still called the KGB. It is Belarus that is the real heir to the USSR, or Soviet Union, with Russia coming in second. In 1991, when Belarusians voted on whether they wanted independence or preferred to stay in the USSR, 83 percent replied that they did not want independence. They got it against their will. After several years’ experience with democracy, they elected Aleksander Lukashenka in 1994 and allowed him to rule in true Soviet fashion, or at least did not put up too much of a fight. Belarusian society has repeatedly committed the sin of omission. And the opposition committed the sin of disintegration.

When Lukashenka came to power in 1994, he did so completely democratically. But then he seized control of the Constitutional Tribunal, then the public media, and then he subjugated the security services, the police, and the Central Election Commission. He staffed them with loyal underlings and took care of their salaries, and they made sure he was reelected. Maria Kolesnikova, the only one of the three opposition leaders who is still in Belarus (Svitlana Tsikhanouskaya is in Lithuania and Veranika Tsepkalo is in Russia), admitted openly that aside from the most recent election on August 9, Lukashenka would have won all previous presidential elections—democratically. Other opposition figures hold a different view, but do not deny that the president long enjoyed substantial support from the public. But he falsified this year’s electoral results, because a win of 55 percent would mean he is not the only leader, that he has some competition. And that’s out of the question. There was no opposition in the USSR.

History Unfolding

Why would Lukashenka have won? Because although he is a bandit, he is also a very skillful political player. Twenty-six years of dictatorial rule, maintaining independence from Russia and the West, and above all, a pretty good standard of living in Belarus—these are real achievements. Hardly anyone travels to Belarus, so few people know anything about the country, outside of a few specialists. Now that history is unfolding here, there are a handful of foreign journalists. Most did not receive accreditation and therefore did not come, but several journalists from Poland and Ukraine came without accreditation. I stayed in several places in Minsk, touring nearby towns and villages, and I was surprised by the quality of highways all across Belarus (funded by a special tax imposed for this purpose), the cleanliness and orderliness of the cities, the complete absence of traffic jams (they only happen when protesters try hampering the police), and the selection of goods in stores. Even in small towns, you can buy a hundred kinds of fish, and even sushi, despite the fact that Belarus is the largest landlocked country in Europe. These goods are too abundant to be destined for the oligarchs, because the Belarusian model gives the dictator a monopoly on corruption. Lukashenka controls corruption just as he controls election results or television programming. Of course, there is a group of rich people, but this is a society completely unlike Ukraine or Russia.

Four-fifths of GDP is generated by the state. Wherever citizens of other post-communist countries such as Poland buy clothes, food, or equipment produced by Western brands, Belarus has its own brands, factories, and advertisements in every market segment. Of course, they are usually of worse quality, but they work, look decent, and function as respectable “replacements.” At purchasing power parity, GDP per capita amounts to $22,000. For comparison, in Ukraine the figure is $10,000. If the Belarusian people succeed in overthrowing their dictator and opening their country to the world, they will be in a vastly better position than the Czech Republic, Hungary, or Poland in 1989. We won’t see Western capital swooping in and buying up whatever it wants and introducing its own brands. Belarusians won’t be relegated to cheap labor, and enterprises won’t collapse. Belarus not only has its own retail chains, restaurants, cars, and clothes, but also a very strong IT sector that Lukashenka cares deeply about and gives almost complete freedom. Of course, the “Belarusian economic miracle” or “Belarusian autarky” is largely financed by Russia, but it is also the result of independent development, good education, good management, and a strong work ethic.

Even Lukashenka’s greatest critics, including those whom he tortured like Ales Mikhalevich (a candidate in the 2010 presidential election), speak approvingly of the standard of living in Belarus. According to Mikhalevich, Belarus belongs to Northern Europe, which is why the country is characterized by cleanliness and a strong work ethic. And you see that everywhere. Lukashenka with all his quirks would not have survived for nearly three decades if Belarusians were starving, if they had nowhere to work and no opportunities to pursue. They emigrate for political rather than economic reasons. The current protests are taking place with slogans demanding freedom, not social improvements, although Belarusians are aware that the economy has for several years been consumed by a crisis.

No Soviet Nostalgia

The Belarusian diaspora has now become as active as its Polish counterpart used to be in the 1980s, and it consists mainly of students, academics, musicians, and corporate employees, not Uber drivers or retail workers. I am working with many emigrés who have come back to help. Others are unable to return to Belarus, but are doing their part from abroad. They are essential for newsgathering—they often have a better idea of what is happening just around the corner because they have the Internet at a time when Lukashenka has been shutting it down within Belarus (the country’s internet service provider is state-owned, although some people use private companies). The emigrés say that they are fed up with Lukashenka because he makes it impossible for them to live in Minsk. Whereas one fourth or one fifth of young people have left countries like Bulgaria and Lithuania, that has not happened in Belarus, and with good reason. Minsk, like any major city, is overflowing with young people and is already as modern as Warsaw or Prague were four or five years ago. In the IT sector the gap is even smaller.

Lukashenka’s problem is that a generation has grown up that no longer remembers the Soviet Union, but knows the West and its values very well. For them, the green and red Soviet flag is a form of treason; they carry the white-red-white flag adopted by the independent Belarusian state in 1918. Like Lukashenka himself, the Soviet flag is only popular among older people who spent their best years in the USSR, want stability, and enjoy regular, decent pensions. For the young generation, the former collective farm director who has ruled the country for 26 years is a freak of nature. They grew up outside the system. That is why nobody has to teach them about democracy or new technologies today.

The authorities have complete control of the official media, so a kind of second media sphere has arisen online. Independent media outlets do exist in Belarus today, mainly as internet portals, and their readership has grown by 300-400 percent in recent weeks, assuming mass scale. The most important of these are Nasha Niva, Radio Svaboda, and TUT.by. Popular channels on YouTube and Telegram (including, for instance, the one run by Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the jailed presidential contender whose wife Sviatlana replaced him on the ballot) also play a role. The most famous video bloggers have as many as several hundred thousand subscribers (Belarus is a country of nine million, with six million eligible voters). Independent media messaging is already reaching a large segment of society, and unofficial media outlets are considered credible. People see them as mainstream news sources where they can get information on issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Bungled Coronavirus Response

Lukashenka is mentally stuck in the 1990s, or even the 1980s. He hasn’t learned anything in terms of his messaging or his worldview, and he is unable to make effective use of the state-run media to counter independent reporting. All he can do is block the internet and cellphone networks at opposition rallies. On Sunday and Monday, the internet was effectively completely shut down. The IT sector and the economy more broadly are suffering as a result, and Belarus has lost some of its credibility with foreign partners. The opposition has ways to get around the internet shutdown using proxy servers and encryption applications. If you use a VPN and Psiphon, sometimes you can manage to connect.

Like some other world leaders, Lukashenka bungled his coronavirus response. When he denied the threat and failed to intervene, it seemed like a moral abdication. That was especially disappointing for the generation who feared for their parents. Belarusians had to deal with the threat of COVID-19 on their own and began to join together to buy masks and equipment, to help the sick and medical personnel. The regime lost ground, and civil society gained it. Bonds of solidarity were formed. People began to get to know each other and communicate with each other. The regime lost its legitimacy because it could no longer guarantee a basic level of security, and the economic crisis was making itself felt. When Lukashenka himself fell ill, instead of evoking sympathy, he merely further discredited himself.

Lukashenka also disregarded the political potential of women, who are propelling the opposition forward. The opposition’s electoral campaign was led by three women, and now it is women who form the backbone of the protests. A president who placed his wife under house arrest, had a son with his personal physician, and is famous for spending money on prostitutes, evokes disgust. The opposition’s women leaders quickly came to an understanding, united the opposition, and organized an exceptionally effective campaign staff. If a German or Polish politician were to visit the opposition’s campaign headquarters, a conversation with their social media specialists, event planners, and sociologists would give them an inferiority complex. I have observed several election campaigns in Poland and Germany, and there is really no comparison. This surplus of modernity is a reaction to the country’s political backwardness. The Polish opposition would do well to learn that it takes unity to overthrow a dictator. In Belarus, the opposition’s success took much more effort than winning an election in an ordinary democratic country. Breaking the government’s monopoly on information required IT specialists, very good social research, and the best social media specialists.

A Distinctive Identity

Another error by Lukashenka was losing his Russian guarantor. Russia, of course, prefers Lukashenka to the opposition and will not let Belarus out of its sphere of influence, but it no longer intends to make his life easier. Lukashenka can be satisfied that he was able to take advantage of Moscow for so long. He received raw materials at a steeply reduced rate, keeping the economy and the standard of living in Belarus at a much higher level than, for example, in Ukraine, but he was supposed to pay by surrendering independence. Meanwhile, integration with Russia has not taken place at the economic, legal, or political level. Belarus was supposed to adopt the Russian ruble, a common judiciary system, and a common parliament; state-owned enterprises were supposed to be handed over to Russia. Nothing like this ever happened, or if it did, only on a semi-fictitious basis. Even cultural Russification has begun to regress instead of solidifying. The independent media is bilingual, the Belarusian language is slowly recovering. Few dream of joining Russia anymore. Paradoxically, it was Lukashenka who created the Republic of Belarus as a country with a distinctive identity, even if it is linguistically Russified.

How will Russia react if Belarus breaks free of the dictator’s shackles? It will release its closest ally from its sphere of influence. That does not seem up for debate at all, and yet it is not an obvious point. I asked a number of excellent experts on the region, both inside Belarus (Valer Bulhakau) and abroad (Adam Michnik and Timothy Snyder), and all agreed that Russia would not intervene. There will be no Ukrainian scenario, because that has simply not paid off for Russia. It gained the Donbass and Crimea—meaning it gained only problems—and lost Ukraine. Before 2014, Ukrainian society was favorable to Russia and largely spoke Russian. Russia had economic influence and an ally. And now the Russian language is disappearing in Ukraine, the economy is slowly recovering, the military is arming, and Russia is the country’s primary enemy in the eyes of Ukrainians. Anyone who claims otherwise is just ashamed to admit it.

If Russia were preparing something, we would already see the groundwork being laid by the Russian press. There would be propaganda slandering the opposition, Putin would be inventing conspiracy theories and amassing troops at the border. Green men would not have gotten caught like the Wagner Group mercenaries who were mocked and shown half naked on TV. Lukashenka would be waxing poetic about Slavic unity, not shouting at Russia and accusing the mercenaries of attempting to take over his country. Nothing like that is happening. Russia is waiting for Belarus to define itself so that it can deal with whoever is in power. Putin is probably hoping that the Belarusian people will soon start quarreling internally, gas and oil can be sold to them at market prices, and the West will offer Belarusians little more than scholarships. That is better for Russia than seizing Vitebsk and then holding it at an astronomical cost while facing further Western sanctions. Belarusians would turn away from Russia, and in a few years Russian would cease to be their language.

Crackdown Backfires

A better scenario, for both sides, is to pursue something akin to the status of Armenia—a relatively independent, democratic state, generally favorable to Russia, that remains outside NATO and EU structures. This would suit the democratically-minded political elite, which does not want war. That creates a kind of geopolitical window of opportunity for the opposition at a time when the dictator’s authority is collapsing. At a time when the world is being flooded by a wave of authoritarianism, democracy could be spectacularly successful in the place one would least expect, that is, in Belarus, which had been forgotten by everyone.

Both experts and the people on the street estimate support for Lukashenka at no more than 15-20 percent, mainly in the provinces. There I encountered very sharp disputes between Lukashenka’s supporters and his opponents. Everyone talks about politics. You can feel that history is unfolding before our eyes. The situation is changing daily. Election day and the following day saw demonstrations. The opposition formulated a plan long before the election so that everyone would know what to do, even if the internet was shut off. Last Sunday’s protest, on August 9, took place at Minsk’s Victory Square, as planned. Lukashenka sent in the riot police, who managed to take control of the square bit by bit. The next day, people started to organize themselves around metro stations. A barricade was erected at the intersection near the Riga shopping center, but the sharpest confrontation took place at the large intersection by the Pushkinskaya metro station. There, the riot police were not content with taking control of the area. At one point, without warning, they attacked, shooting rubber bullets (photos and recordings were published on Facebook). The authorities moved from defensive to offensive operations. The internal troops armed with shields and clubs disappeared, replaced by riot police armed with rifles and undercover agents tracking down and arresting journalists.

Stun grenades, flash bangs, and water cannons were only a prelude to rubber bullets (including some produced in Poland, something the Polish Ministry of National Defense has failed to explain, even though is obligated to monitor sales by third countries), beatings, and combing the area for dispersed demonstrators. Thousands of people were arrested and then tortured in jail. Some 40-50 people were locked up in an eight-person cell. In Gomel, people were kept in police vehicles due to a lack of space at the detention center. As a result, one young man died. The independent press also documented the first instances of live ammunition being used.

Opposition Rebounds

Lukashenka’s security services moved on to a new phase the next night. They no longer waited for the demonstrators to show up, but began to demonstratively punish anyone who came out onto the streets. Cars were beaten with truncheons, and their drivers were pulled out and beaten. I drove past several such situations, and I saw one victim being resuscitated. On two separate nights, I saw 60-80 armored vehicles driving along Minsk’s main street, Independence Avenue. The sadistic violence had an effect. The demonstrations stopped. After 7,000 people were arrested, it seemed that Lukashenka would survive.

And then a miracle happened. On Wednesday, August 12, women and girls took to the streets en masse, wearing white, holding flowers, and showing the V sign. They lined the streets and demonstrated against violence. They demonstrated all day. It brought tears to one’s eyes. The car horns howled again. In the afternoon, the doctors who tended to the victims of police beatings joined in, saying they had never experienced anything like this before. The next day, Thursday, workers began to go on strike. One factory after another joined the strike. It began with the country’s largest and most prestigious industrial enterprises: the BelAZ truck factory, the nitrogen plant in Grodno, and tractor manufacturing plants in Minsk. Then the railroad joined, followed on Friday by the Minsk Metro. The workers stood with the women.

The security services were at their wits’ end. They had not foreseen something like this. How could they shoot and beat women, doctors, and workers armed with heavy machinery? The opposition regained the streets, restoring control of the situation and regaining political effectiveness. Social media was flooded with photos and videos of police officers throwing their uniforms into the trash and their torn-off epaulets into the toilet. Paradoxically, the lack of leaders strengthened the protest, because Lukashenka did not know whom to arrest. The protesting women were not afraid of anything. They stood in front of KGB buildings, they seized every street. Fifty soldiers were stationed in front of the National Assembly, and they symbolically lowered their shields. Women started adorning them with flowers and embracing the soldiers. This further discredited the Lukashenka regime, and served as a disarming example for other members of the security services.

Regime Teetering?

On Saturday, August 15, the staff of Belarusian state television (primarily technical staff, but also some presenters) began to show solidarity with the protestors. On Sunday, state television reported on the protests for the first time. This was yet another breakthrough. Natalya Kachanova, chairwoman of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament, showed up, but she was not able to mollify the crowd. She was joined by Natalya Eismont, Lukashenka’s press secretary and wife of Ivan Eismont, head of the state television company. The next breakthrough came when Belarusian diplomats began to oppose Lukashenka, beginning with the ambassador to Slovakia.

Lukashenka responded with a rally on Independence Square on August 17, with some 5,000-7,000 supporters who had been bussed in. Two hours later, the opposition showed that it was able to mobilize between 200,000 and 500,000 people. Lukashenka ordered paratroopers from Vitebsk to the western border. Officially, this was a reaction to actions by Lithuania and Poland. Lukashenka stated that the army had the strength and the means to quell peaceful protests. He also added that he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding Russian assistance in pacifying the demonstrations. According to Lukashenka, Russia would respond as soon as it received a request from authorities in Minsk. He announced that the opposition would not come to power even after his death.

Speculating about the possible collapse of the regime in Belarus, we can rule out all scenarios that involve an agreement between Lukashenka and the opposition. The so-called the Spanish road to democracy or a round table scenario is out of the question. Lukashenka can end up either like Yanukovych or like Ceausescu—in exile (living off the fortune he stole) or shot in the same manner in which he killed his political opponents. His closest allies will face either the same fate, that, or international justice.

The post Belarus Primed to Break Free appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Eastern Europe is a region more internally divided than any other part of the continent. It is homogeneous only in ethnic terms—its population is almost entirely white (apart from some Roma populations in some countries), which makes it rather exceptional and ill-suited to the realities of a globalized world.

When modern national identities were emerging, most of today’s Eastern European countries were not even on the map. Their most prominent nationals were citizens of other countries, and their broader populations were generally poorly educated and politically disenfranchised. The common experience that ultimately united Czechs, Poles, Romanians, and Hungarians was communism.

The 19th-century experience of struggles for independence has made Eastern European countries more nationalistic and more sensitive to issues of sovereignty, while the experience of communism (which was often more nationalist than leftist) has discredited the political left. The legacy of communism is that the region is poorer, more backward, more corrupt, and cut off from immigration.

Eastern European countries also differ from their Western neighbors in terms of their economic model. They lack the experience of the postwar welfare state. Meanwhile, the fall of communism came at the height of faith in neoliberalism, which is why the capitalism that was introduced in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary (as well as Russia) is far more neoliberal that its equivalent in Germany, France, or Italy.

The Narcissism of Small Differences

All of these factors serve to differentiate Eastern Europe from the West and underlie its classification as one cultural-political region. But this is a region dominated by the narcissism of small differences, where no country wants to be compared to the others because they all aspire to join the West. Every country in the region suffers from the complexes of backward and aspiring countries, meaning that they are all constantly competing with each other in an attempt to prove they are better than their neighbors.

For example, the Poles look down on the Czechs for not having fought hard enough for their country, while the Czechs disdain the Poles for constantly engaging in battles that cannot be won. The Poles see their country as the region’s natural leader because it is larger and more populous. But no one else sees Poland in that role. The Czechs see themselves as the most modern and most Western nation in the region. Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltics are in the eurozone. The Hungarians, meanwhile, are the only ones in the region who have international ambitions: Viktor Orbán wants to be the leader of Europe’s populist right. Jarosław Kaczyński wants Europe to leave him alone, but he joins Orbán in his campaigns from time to time.

Eastern European societies know much less about each other than they do about Germany or Austria. Language, religion, culture—there is much more that divides us than unites us. This is true even for the historic incorporation into empires. The territories of today’s Poland belonged to three empires at various times, which is still evident in railway and road infrastructure, and even in voting patterns.

Monastery, Mob, or Madhouse

The common experiences of 19th-century nationalism and 20th-century communism make the region far more populist than Western Europe. But the region’s internal differences also mean that it is home to entirely different brands of populism.

Poland’s populism is ideological, while the Czech Republic’s resembles the iconic Czech literary character Josef Švejk in that it is half-witted and bumbling, and therefore less threatening. Hungary, meanwhile, has gangster populism. Poland’s ruling party, the Law and Justice Party (PiS), is like a monastery, Hungary’s Fidesz is like the mob, and Andrej Babiš’s ANO is like a madhouse. The populism of Slovakia’s former prime minister, Robert Fico, does not resemble anything—it is an invisible populism, although it involves the rather surreal element of cooperation with the Italian mafia. Fico’s invisible populism has proven the least populist, and fostered economic growth in Slovakia. On the other hand, it has also proved the most murderous—only Slovakia has experienced the killing of a journalist, most likely with the involvement of businessmen cooperating with government authorities.

As political scientists Martin Eiermann, Yascha Mounk, and Limor Gultchin of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have shown, only in Europe’s post-communist east do populists routinely beat traditional parties in elections. Of 15 Eastern European countries, populist parties currently hold power in seven, are part of a ruling coalition in two more, and are the main opposition force in three.

Eiermann, Mounk, and Gultchin also point out that whereas populist parties captured 20 percent or more of the vote in only two Eastern European countries in 2000, today they have done so in 10 countries. In Poland, populist parties have gone from winning a mere 0.1 percent of the vote in 2000 to the current PiS government winning two consecutive parliamentary majorities. And in Hungary, support for Prime Minister Orbán’s Fidesz party has at times exceeded 70 percent.

Liberalism Is a Western Import

Hard data aside, we need to consider the underlying social and political factors that have made populism so much stronger in Eastern Europe. For starters, Eastern Europe lacks the tradition of checks and balances that has long safeguarded Western democracy. Unlike Poland’s de facto ruler, PiS chairman Kaczyński, Donald Trump does not ignore judicial decisions (so far, at least).

Or consider Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump and his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mueller was appointed by US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a government official who is subordinate to Trump within the executive branch. But while Trump has the authority to fire Mueller or Rosenstein, he didn’t dare to do so. The same cannot be said for Kaczyński.

Another major difference is that Eastern Europeans tend to hold more materialist attitudes than Westerners, who have moved beyond concerns about physical security to embrace what sociologist Ronald Inglehart calls post-materialist values. One aspect of this difference is that Eastern European societies are more vulnerable to attacks on abstract liberal institutions such as freedom of speech and judicial independence.

This shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, liberalism in Eastern Europe is a Western import. Notwithstanding the Trump and Brexit phenomena, the United States and the United Kingdom have deeply embedded cultures of political and social liberalism. In Eastern Europe, civil society is not just weaker; it is also more focused on areas such as charity, religion, and leisure, rather than political issues.

Attractive for Losers and Winners

Moreover, in the vastly different political landscapes of Europe’s post-communist states, the left is either very weak or completely absent from the political mainstream. The political dividing line, then, is not between left and right, but between right and wrong. As a result, Eastern Europe is much more prone to the “friend or foe” dichotomy conceived by the anti-liberal German political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Each side conceives of itself as the only real representative of the nation and treats its opponents as illegitimate alternatives who should be disenfranchised, not merely defeated.

Another major difference between Eastern and Western European populists is that the former can count on support not only from the working class, but also from the middle class. According to research conducted by Maciej Gdula published in Krytyka Polityczna, political attitudes in Poland do not align with whether one benefited or lost out during the country’s post-communist economic transformation. The ruling party’s electorate includes many who are generally satisfied with their lives, and are benefitting from the country’s development.

For such voters, the appeal of the populist message lies in its provision of an overarching narrative in which to organize positive and negative experiences. This creates a sense of purpose, as it ties voters more strongly to the party. Voters do not develop their own opinions about the courts, refugees, or the opposition based on their own experiences. Instead, they listen to the leader, adjusting their views according to their political choices.

The success of the PiS, therefore, is rooted not in frustrated voters’ economic interests. For the working class, the desire for a sense of community is the major consideration. For their middle-class counterparts, it is the satisfaction that arises not from material wealth, but from pointing to someone who is perceived as inferior, from refugees to depraved elites to cliquish judges. Orbán and Kaczyński are experts in capitalizing on this longing.

Dissimilar Twins

Stalin, in the first decade of Soviet power, backed the idea of “socialism in one country,” meaning that, until conditions ripened, socialism was for the USSR alone. When Orbán declared, in July 2014, his intention to build an “illiberal democracy,” it was widely assumed that he was creating “illiberalism in one country.” Now, Orbán and Kaczyński have proclaimed a counter-revolution aimed at turning the European Union into an illiberal project.

After a day of grinning, backslapping bonhomie at the 2018 Krynica conference, which styles itself a regional Davos (Orbán was named its Man of the Year), Kaczyński and Orbán announced that they would lead 100 million Europeans in a bid to remake the EU along nationalist/religious lines. One might imagine Václav Havel, a previous honoree, turning in his grave at the pronouncement. And former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, another previous winner, must be aghast: her country is being ravaged by Russia under President Vladimir Putin, the pope of illiberalism and role model for Kaczyński and Orbán.

The two men intend to seize the opportunity presented by the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum, which demonstrated that, in today’s EU, illiberal democrats’ preferred mode of discourse—lies and smears—can be politically and professionally rewarding. The fusion of the two men’s skills could make them a more potent threat than many Europeans may realize.

What Orbán brings to the partnership is clear: a strain of “pragmatic” populism. He has aligned his Fidesz party with the European People’s Party (the group in the European Parliament that brings together conventional, center-right parties including Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU), which keeps him formally within the political mainstream and makes the German chancellor an ally who provides political protection, despite Orbán’s illiberal governance. Kaczyński, however, chose to ally the PiS with the marginal Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, and he quarrels almost ceaselessly with Germany and the European Commission.

Cynic vs. Fanatic

Moreover, Orbán has more of the common touch than his Polish partner. Like Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who has served as President of the European Council since 2014 (and whose tenure is about to end), he plays soccer with other politicians. Kaczyński, by contrast, is something of a hermit, who lives alone and spends his evenings watching Spanish rodeo on TV. He seems to live outside of society, whereas his supporters seem to place him above it—the ascetic messiah of a Poland reborn.

It is this mystical fervor that Kaczyński brings to his partnership with the opportunistic Orbán. It is a messianism forged from Polish history—a sense that the nation has a special mission for which God has chosen it, with the proof to be found in Poland’s especially tragic history. Uprisings, war, partitions: these are the things a Pole should think about every day.

A messianic identity favors a certain type of leader—one who, like Putin, appears to be animated by a sense of mission (in Putin’s case, it is the same mission proclaimed by the czars: orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality). So, whereas Orbán is a cynic, Kaczyński is a fanatic for whom pragmatism is a sign of weakness. Orbán would never act against his own interests; Kaczyński has done so many times. By attacking members of his own coalition government, for example, Kaczyński lost power in 2007, only two years after he had won it. He seems to have no plans. Instead, he has visions—not of fiscal reform or economic restructuring, but of a new type of Poland.

Orbán seeks nothing of the kind. He doesn’t want to create a new-model Hungary; his only aim is to remain, like Putin, in power for the rest of his life. Having governed as a liberal in the 1990s (paving the way for Hungary to join both NATO and the EU) and lost, Orbán regards illiberalism as the means to win until he takes his last breath.

Different Motives, Identical Methods

Kaczyński’s illiberalism is of the soul. He calls those outside his camp “the worst sort of Poles.” Homo Kaczynskius is a Pole preoccupied with his country’s fate, and who bares his teeth at critics and dissenters, particularly foreign ones. Gays and lesbians cannot be true Poles. All non-Polish elements within Poland are viewed as a threat. The PiS government has not accepted a single refugee of the tiny number—just 7,500—that Poland, a country of nearly 40 million, agreed with the EU to take in.

Despite having different motivations for embracing illiberalism, Kaczyński and Orbán agree that, in practical terms, it means building a new national culture. State-funded media are no longer public, but rather “national.” By eliminating civil-service exams, offices can be filled with loyalists and party hacks. The education system is being turned into a vehicle for fostering identification with a glorious and tragic past. Only cultural enterprises that praise the nation should receive public funding.

For Kaczyński, foreign policy is a function of historical policy. Here, the two men do differ: whereas Orbán’s pragmatism keeps him from antagonizing his European and US partners excessively, Kaczyński is uninterested in geopolitical calculation. After all, a messiah does not trim his beliefs or kowtow; he lives to proclaim the truth.

So, for the most part, Kaczyński’s foreign policy is a tendentious history seminar. Poland was betrayed by the West. Its strength—today and always—comes from pride, dignity, courage, and absolute self-reliance. Its defeats are moral victories that prove the nation’s strength and courage, enabling it, like Christ, to return from the dead after 123 years of absence from the map of Europe.

The Four Lessons of Populist Rule

The conventional view of populism posits that an erratic ruler will enact contradictory policies that primarily benefit the rich. The poor will lose, because populists have no hope of restoring manufacturing jobs, despite their promises. And massive inflows of migrants and refugees will continue, because populists have no plan to address the problem’s root causes. In the end, populist governments, incapable of effective rule, will crumble and their leaders will either face impeachment or fail to win re-election.

Kaczyński faced similar expectations. Liberal Poles thought that he would work for the benefit of the rich, create chaos, and quickly trip himself up—which is exactly what happened between 2005 and 2007, when PiS last governed Poland. But the liberals were wrong: PiS has transformed itself from an ideological nullity into a party that has managed to introduce shocking changes with record speed and efficiency. In fact, recent years have brought us four lessons about what makes populist rule more durable.

First, no neoliberalism. Between 2005 and 2007, PiS implemented neoliberal economic policies (for example, eliminating the highest income-tax bracket and the estate tax). But since returning to power in 2015, it has enacted the largest social transfers in Poland’s contemporary history. Parents now receive a 500 złoty ($120) monthly benefit for every child. As a direct result, the poverty rate has declined by 20 to 40 percent, and by 70 to 90 percent among children. And that’s just the most discussed example. In 2016, the government introduced free medication for people over the age of 75. The retirement age has been reduced from 67 for both men and women to 60 for women and 65 for men. The government is also planning tax relief for low-income taxpayers.

The 500 złoty child subsidy has changed the political paradigm in Poland. Now, no electoral promise that is not formulated as a direct offer of cash can have any hope of appealing to voters. PiS won big in the European elections in May 2019 thanks to its promise of paying out a 13th month of retirement benefits, which was enacted a week before voters went to the polls. In the campaign ahead of the Polish parliamentary elections in October 2019 the party ran on a promise of almost doubling the minimum salary (from 2250 złoty in 2019 to 3000 złoty in 2020 and 4000 złoty in 2023).

Second, the restoration of “order.” Independent institutions are the most important enemy of populism. Populist leaders are control freaks. For populists, it is liberal democracy that leads to chaos, which must be “put in order” by a “responsible government.” Media pluralism leads to informational chaos. An independent judiciary means legal chaos. Independent public administration creates institutional chaos. And a robust civil society is a recipe for chronic bickering and conflict.

But populists believe that such chaos does not emerge by itself. It is the work of perfidious foreign powers and their domestic puppets. To “make Poland great again,” the nation’s heroes must defeat its traitors, who are not equal contenders for power. Populist leaders are thus obliged to limit their opponents’ rights. Indeed, their political ideal is not order, but rather the subordination of all independent bases of power that could challenge them: courts, media, business, cultural institutions, NGOs, and so forth.

Third, electoral dictatorship. Populists know how to win elections, but their conception of democracy extends no further. On the contrary, populists view the separation of government powers, minority rights, and independent media—all staples of liberalism—as an attack on majority rule, and therefore on democracy itself.

The political ideal that a populist government strives for is essentially an elected dictatorship. And recent US experience suggests that this can be a sustainable model. After all, everything depends on how those in power decide to organize elections, which can include redrawing voting districts or altering the rules governing campaign finance or political advertisements. Elections can be falsified imperceptibly.

Fourth, might makes right. Populists have benefited from disseminating fake news, slandering their opponents, and promising miracles that mainstream media treat as normal campaign claims. But it is a mistake to think that truth is an effective weapon against post-truth. In a post-truth world, it is power, not fact-checking, that is decisive. Whoever is most ruthless and has the fewest scruples wins.

To Defeat Populism, Be Ruthless

Populists are both unseemly and ascendant. Trump’s supporters, for example, have come to view tawdriness as evidence of credibility, whereas comity, truth, and reason are evidence of elitism. Those who would resist populism must come to terms with the fact that truth is not enough. They must also display determination and ruthlessness, though without becoming the mirror image of their opponents.

In postmodernity, nationalism does not disappear into thin air. Unfortunately, in Poland and elsewhere, the only ideology that has survived in the post-ideological era is nationalism. By appealing to nationalist sentiment, populists have gained support everywhere, regardless of the economic system or situation, because this sentiment is being fueled externally, namely by the influx of migrants and refugees. It does not have to be real; imagined dangers also work well. Polish anti-Semitism does not need Jews, anti-communism works without communists. Another good example are anti-migration feelings, which can be whipped up without a single migrant or refugee around.

Mainstream politicians, especially on the left, have no effective message on the issue. Opposing migration contradicts their ideals, while supporting it means electoral defeat.

But the choice should be clear. Either populism’s opponents drastically change their rhetoric regarding migrants and refugees, or the populists will continue to rule in Eastern Europe. Migrants and refugees lose in either scenario, but in the second, liberal democracy does as well. Such calculations are ugly—and, yes, corrosive of liberal values—but the populists, as we have seen, are capable of far nastier trade-offs.

Kaczyński had succeeded in establishing control over two issues near and dear to voters: social transfers and nationalism. As long as he controls these two bastions of voter sentiment, he is safe.

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