{"id":143200,"date":"2025-06-18T19:29:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T16:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/143200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T13:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:35:32","slug":"from-high-tech-to-potato-furrows-lukasenkas-war-on-modernity","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/143200\/","title":{"rendered":"From high-tech to potato furrows: \u0141uka\u0161enka’s war on modernity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Potatoes give the Belarusian ruler no rest. Objectively, the potato shortage has exposed deep flaws in Belarus\u2019 command-style, centrally planned economy. But instead of addressing structural issues, the Belarusian ruler continues to look for scapegoats.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He accused traders of plotting against him and blamed his governors for negligence. He also lambasted Americans for \u201cinventing\u201d the free market and criticized his \u201cfugitive\u201d opponents for fueling the public outcry over the potato shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the basic plough<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Belarusian strongman has not limited himself to conspiracy theories. He has even blamed consumers for the scarcity of the country\u2019s national staple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose who lament . . . are people who have dachas. Why are you lamenting, why are you fighting? We have enough seeds. So you [should plant] two furrows for yourself to [harvest] two sacks of potatoes,\u201d he suggested during a meeting with agricultural sector officials in Astra\u0161ycki Haradok, just outside Minsk, on June 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to criticize the younger generation: \u201cIf you think that our youth that follows us will work the same way [as the older generation], you are under a delusion and you are fooling yourselves. They won\u2019t. This youth is different. They thought that potatoes grow on the Internet, but it turned out [they grow not] on the Internet, but in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, the Belarusian ruler both acknowledged and denied the shortage, claiming that retailers had withheld supplies in a deliberate attempt to discredit him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when he [presumably a security officer] went there and put handcuffs on their table, the potatoes reappeared [on the counter],\u201d \u0141uka\u0161enka said on June 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, presumably, there was no need to worry\u2014or to labor at dachas on Sundays. Yet today, many people purchase dachas as a weekend retreat, not as a second job. \u0141uka\u0161enka, however, appears to see citizens as work mules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, planting potatoes in one\u2019s backyard is not particularly productive. Large farms are far more efficient in this regard. Over his 30 years in power, \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2014once a collective farm director\u2014has funneled massive public funds into large state-run farms. Was it all wasted if he now urges a return to subsistence farming?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If tomorrow government price controls caused a shortage of clothing, would he demand that citizens sow flax at their dachas, then pull it by the roots, ripple it, ret it, break it, scutch it, hackle it, comb it, spin it and weave it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potatoes grow on the Internet<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u0141uka\u0161enka often complains that officials are \u201closing\u201d young people\u2014typically in the context of ideological control\u2014yet he offers them backward lectures unlikely to inspire respect or enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belarusian ruler casts himself as a hardworking man with village roots and mentally remains in an era when survival depended on relentless manual labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For him, real work means hard physical toil. \u201cThey thought that potatoes grow on the Internet,\u201d he said, seemingly unaware that the comment underscores his technological backwardness more than youth\u2019s ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, a single IT programmer can generate more revenue for the country than a thousand farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IT sector and \u0141uka\u0161enka have been at odds since 2020, when he ordered mass arrests of IT professionals for participating in protests against election fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the 2022 exodus of tech workers and companies\u2014prompted by Belarus\u2019 role in Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine\u2014the IT and communications sector\u2019s contribution to GDP plunged from 8.3 percent to 4.4 percent in just two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanna Rabava, appointed last month as head of the Minsk-based High-Tech Park, said on June 12 that programmers were welcome to return\u2014provided they follow \u201cour country\u2019s rules and guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, these \u201crules and guidelines\u201d have little to do with coding. She was referring to political loyalty. It’s unlikely that many exiled programmers will be persuaded by her invitation\u2014especially if it comes with the added expectation of growing their own potatoes on weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Import substitution held together with duct tape and prayers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u0141uka\u0161enka seeks to impose his subsistence logic not only on Belarus, but also on the broader Union State with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He repeatedly claims that Belarus and Russia remain unaffected by sanctions, citing the Soviet Union as a self-sufficiency success story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as a historian by training, he appears to have forgotten that Josef Stalin\u2019s industrialization relied heavily on Western technologies. The USSR built 1,500 factories and plants with foreign assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant was designed and built in the late 1920s and early 1930s with help from Albert Kahn Associates, a Detroit-based architectural and engineering firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the equipment, machinery and expertise came from the United States. American engineers helped train Soviet workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plant, originally intended for agricultural tractors, later produced T-34 tanks during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gorky Automobile Plant based its production on Ford designs. Even Soviet nuclear advancements were built on stolen American blueprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite heavy investment in agriculture, the USSR increasingly relied on grain imports from Canada, the US and Australia. The \u201cdamned capitalists,\u201d as they were called, were in fact feeding the communist state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the technological gap with the West widened, the Soviet system eventually collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2014let alone Belarus\u2014has nowhere near the capacity the USSR once had. Nevertheless, Belarusian officials now propose absurd projects to develop domestic notebooks, smartphones, and even a national operating system to achieve \u201ctechnological sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern economy functions on the principle of international division of labor. Countries produce what they do best and use the earnings to buy what others produce more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the world\u2019s most isolated regimes\u2014North Korea and Iran, for example\u2014try to sustain themselves with duct tape and wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 2020, Belarus profited from close trade ties with technologically advanced European markets. These ties have now been severed due to Minsk\u2019s repression and its complicity in Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine. While China has stepped in to an extent, it cannot fully fill the void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u0141uka\u0161enka regime is now reaping the consequences of its reckless policies and flawed economic doctrine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the old joke goes: put a communist in charge of the Sahara, and it will soon face a sand shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 30 years of \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s rule, Belarus\u2014once proud of its potato production\u2014finds itself short of potatoes, with its leader blaming the people for refusing to embrace a subsistence economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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