Someday.

Then... He often turns the conversation on this topic even when he is not asked about it.

This is usually how they talk about something that is truly disturbing and unsettling.

What is this?

  • Loyalty test of loved ones, checking their reaction?

  • Coquetry, characteristic of all long-term dictators?

  • An attempt at self-justification and self-suggestion?

Convincing himself and others that his 28-year presidency is not what they think it is, not "blue fingers" clinging to the throne, but something else, noble and sublime?

For example, self-sacrificing service on behalf of one's comrades ("otherwise you will be flayed");

for the sake of the country's sovereignty ("I will not allow a quarter of a century of my service to be crossed out");

concern for own children ("I won't be here - how will they live?").

Lukashenko at the funeral of Makei, Minsk, November 29, 2022

Lukashenka has been talking about his future resignation, about the fact that he will not hold on to the presidency with "blue fingers" for twenty years - approximately since the end of his first two presidential terms, which, according to the 1994 Constitution, his power was limited.

Once, at the beginning of the "zero years", Lukashenka even defiantly disappeared for several weeks from the public space, clearly checking how those close to him would react to this disappearance.

If you try to collect all his statements on the topic of obscenely long hold on power, you will get a good book volume.

Therefore, we will limit ourselves only to the most recent period of time - the autumn months of 2022.

"How can I go?

Your skin will be flayed without me!"

09/01/2022.

("Open lesson" for students and schoolchildren):

"We are a generation that is leaving, and my task as president is to hand over this baton to you with dignity.

The main thing is not me, believe me, but you.

Are you ready to take it?.. Silence.”

Speaking on September 1, Alexander Lukashenko accused Vasyl Bykov's relatives of having sold the writer's medals on the market for $30

"There is no more difficult job than the presidential job.

This is not a job, this is a service.

If you, as the president, cannot afford to be on vacation.

Irregular working day.

You are just attached to your work.

You can be found anywhere, you spin like a squirrel in a wheel.

Many say: so many years, how can he?

And you get used to it.

I think, okay, tomorrow I will not be the president.

And what will I do?

Okay, I woke up, skied, roller skated, played hockey, and what's next?

I can't imagine life without this "squirrel wheel".

(Answering the question of whether he will surrender sovereignty):

"The question is not about the address.

Not with me.

I don't know about you.

There will be no connection.

To hand over Belarus to someone, to annex it, means to erase more than a quarter of a century of my service.

How can you betray the fact that you have been gluing with your own hands for more than one decade?

This is impossible under the current president."

09/23/2022

(Visit to Khatyn, in a conversation with journalists of the "Presidential pool"):

"When they say: "Here is Lukashenka, how long will he be there..." Listen, I'm already sick of it.

I don't know what I'm at the expense of at all ... It will soon be 30 years: both day and night you are always on guard."

"And on the other hand, I think: "Okay, okay.

Spat, left.

By and large, no one will throw a stone at me.

And what will happen to you?

And where is the guarantee that... Well, okay, we will bring to power (we still have enough) normal people.

And where is the guarantee that they will keep this power?

Where is the warranty?

There is no guarantee.

And then you will start slowly, from the bottom up or from the top down, the skin will peel off.

And I, if I live, how will I live?

Or my children - I will not be there, how will they live?

They are all next to me, in line."

07.11.2022

(competition in the firewood ring, reflection on why it still holds power):

"Listen, it's none of my business.

Today it is about our children.

We must leave them a normal country.

This is even our generation together, but we have to create a system."

Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting with journalists after the firewood ring competition

25.11.22

(meeting on agriculture in Gomla):

"Believe me, the time is very serious: do we remain a state, or do we need to think about other options — but it's already without me"... "What else is needed?

If you want to go under someone's whip, go.

But then no one will talk to you in such a composition.

They will take a whip and run ahead.

Accumulate, as the people say, you will fall behind - you know what will happen."

SEE ALSO: "The Kremlin is getting ready for a radical option regarding Lukashenka," — political scientist Rudkovsky

Seven checks of Stalin

Lukashenka is far from the first dictator who so willingly and so often reflects on the topic "I'm leaving - what will you do without me, you will disappear!".

Historians have calculated that the "leader of all times and peoples" Joseph Stalin asked his party comrades at least seven times about his resignation from one or another high position.

They say that in this he took an example from his ideological predecessor, the despot and autocrat Ivan IV (the Terrible).

The first of the Russian tsars allegedly "abdicated" the throne from time to time, defiantly left the Kremlin chambers for Aleksandrovskaya Slobada near Moscow, and there he waited for the boyars to crawl to him on their knees to return, because without him they would be lost.

And crawled.

And those who didn't crawl ended their lives on the gallows or impaled.

19th Congress of the CPSU.

Joseph Stalin is on the podium.

Moscow, 1952

Stalin used roughly the same tactics.

And for the same purposes: to check who is on the hook, to show disloyalty and to claim power.

The last such theatrical production took place in 1952, a year before the leader's death.

The 74-year-old Generalissimo at the turn of the century somehow decided to demonstrate the democracy of party life and after a 13-year break decided to convene another congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine (b).

And at the first plenum after the congress, the Central Committee suddenly spoke about the fact that he was already old, that he was tired, that sooner or later he had to give way to the young.

And wouldn't the comrades in this regard "consider" his request and release him from the position of the general secretary of the party?

Stunned members of the Central Committee looked from the hall at the cunning squint of the leader, like rabbits in the eyes of a widow...

Participant of that plenum, writer

Konstantin Simonov

, later wrote that seasoned party members, who had known Stalin's temper for a long time, immediately understood that he was not going to go anywhere.

That it was a test, a feel of the soil, finding out the degree of their loyalty, an attempt to expose potential traitors.

No one took the bait.

Everyone well remembered what happened to the majority of delegates to the 17th congress of the party ("congress of the winners"), who in 1934 tried to oppose Stalin during the voting.

It ended with the fact that 1108 of the 1956 delegates of that congress were arrested as "enemies of the people", many were later shot.

Stalin and Beria with Stalin's daughter Svetlana

Therefore, at the memorable plenum in 1952, immediately after Stalin's unexpected initiative, the delegates rushed to the front to assure him that there was no one better in the world, that no one else would be able to cope and that only under his wise leadership... etc. at the next mention of Stalin's name, the hall exploded with cheers and ovations.

Khrushchev, Maliankov, Beria, Molotov, Kaganovich,

Varashilov clapped louder and more energetically than others, prompting the audience to get up from their seats

...

Stalin watched them squinting.

His last "resignation" was only aimed at once again testing their loyalty and unconditional obedience.

The leader clearly had doubts: will they remain faithful after his departure, or "continue the cause and name of the great Stalin throughout the ages?"

Doubts were fully justified.

But watching how his former loyal subjects would tear down his monuments and curse his name, in reality, the great leader was not meant to.

SEE ALSO: The dictator will leave — will the dictatorship remain?

How will the attempt to create a "collective Lukashenka" end?

"Why are you, Leonid Ilyich, scaring us with your departure?"

Leonid Brezhnev

was usually careful and circumspect in his public speeches, he did not commit the sin of blackmailing about his possible quick resignation from the high stands.

But in conversations in a narrow circle, among his associates, he also sometimes cast such a fishing rod.

And then he observed the reaction, depending on which he drew serious conclusions.

Leonid Brezhnev with pioneers in the Artek camp, 1979

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, one of the influential members of the Politburo was

Dmitrii Polyansky

, the first deputy head of the Union Government.

At one time, he was even considered a possible successor to Brezhnev.

With Brezhnev, he has been on "you" for a long time, and sometimes he bravadod it inappropriately.

In the first years in a high position, Leonid Ilyich treated it with condescension, and then he got tired of it.

Russian journalist

Leonid Mlechin

describes such an episode in his book "Brezhnev".

Sometime in the early 1970s, during a heated dispute with his Politburo colleagues, in which they did not agree with his point of view, Leonid Ilyich said:

- In such a situation, I am unable to work: I will submit a resignation letter!

What will you do without me?

To which Polyansky responded, as usual, without thinking:

- Why are you, Leonid Ilyich, scaring us with your resignation?

You leave - another will come.

Brezhnev came to his senses and remained silent, but did not forgive the offense and remembered the remark.

And this failed loyalty test cost Polyansky dearly.

SEE ALSO: Lieutenant Colonel Lukashenka's dream and Colonel Putin's mission.

A war that could only be started by those who themselves have never fought

Shortly after that, on February 2, 1973, during another meeting of the Politburo, when the agenda was supposedly exhausted, Leonid Ilyich unexpectedly spoke about the position of Minister of Agriculture.

For example, the position is being vacated, and the work area is very responsible, it is necessary to appoint a verified person:

- This must be a well-known person, authoritative in party and Soviet circles.

I thought about such a candidacy for a long time and I am making a proposal to appoint Comrade Polyansky as Minister of Agriculture.

US President Richard Nixon, Dmitry Polyansky and Leonid Brezhnev

It should be noted here that collective farm agriculture in the USSR was a hopelessly backward, depressed sphere, and therefore condemned to eternal criticism.

For Polyansky, the offer sounded like a bolt from the blue.

He did not even immediately understand that the conversation was about him.

He tried to deny it: they say, his health is not the same.

To which Leonid Ilyich did not deny himself the pleasure of trolling an overconfident old comrade:

— What if you don't need health to work as the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers?

I think that Polanski's statement is unfounded.

We are all sick to some extent, but we still work.

For some time after that, Polyansky still remained in the Politburo, but soon he was expelled from there and sent as ambassador to Japan.

He never had the opportunity to tell Leonid Ilyich boldly "You leave, another will come" in his life.

SEE ALSO: "Russia's goal in Ukraine is the same as in Belarus in 1654."

Polish historian about the true causes of the war and the roots of Russian imperialism

"I'm tired, I'm leaving..."

If the leader of the country is really going to leave his post, he just leaves.

Approximately as

Boris Yeltsin

did on the memorable evening of December 31, 1999, entering history with the phrase "I'm tired, I'm leaving..." (True, the phrase sounded a little different: "I'm leaving, I've done everything I could" but it does not change the meaning).

Boris Yeltsin resigns.

On the left is his successor, Vladimir Putin.

Moscow, December 31, 1999

If instead of "I'm tired, I'm leaving..." it sounds: "I'm tired, I'll leave, but not yet...";

if a dictator for years and decades conducts long flirtatious conversations about his resignation, which will take place "someday", "later", "soon, but not now", it is a sure sign that he is not going to leave.

Nowhere and never.

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