“The narrative that on August 25, 1991, someone made a beautiful speech and everyone changed their views — that's for a feature film”

The truth is that these truly heroic 30-plus deputies of the BPF opposition only won when their efforts on a certain issue situationally or strategically coincided with the interests of the majority, the interests of the nomenklatura.

Therefore, the beautiful version that on August 25, 1991, Zianon Pazniak delivered such a speech, after which all communists suddenly decided to vote for independence — is deeply romantic, but confuses cause and effect.

The thing is that they, the nomenklatura, had already decided that they needed to vote for independence at that moment.

Several events occurred. A day earlier, on the evening of the 24th, Ukraine voted for independence. They felt that against this backdrop, it was a bit frightening to be left alone with Yeltsin's democratic Russia. And they needed to defend their own interests and the interests of Belarus.

Let's recall that in addition to the decision on independence, a decision was also made that same day that all "union" enterprises on the territory of Belarus would become the property of Belarus. Without independence, this would have been impossible to do.

First, they voted for independence, then they voted for all enterprises to transfer to the ownership of Belarus — so that the union center could not subordinate or seize them. They understood that in this situation, this needed to be done to be on an equal legal footing in any negotiations with Moscow.

After Pazniak's speeches, there were speeches by high-ranking nomenklatura officials, all of whom urged a vote for independence, and most importantly, Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich spoke, saying that yes, Zianon Stanislavavich's proposal should be supported.

No one "opened their eyes" for them. As of the evening of August 25, they were already ready for this decision. Whether Pazniak spoke or not, it would have made no difference. 256 voted for, 0 against, 9 did not vote.

But when something did not coincide with their interests, however beautifully the opposition deputies spoke, it had no effect on the majority.

Already in 1992, the Supreme Soviet voted against a referendum on new elections. The referendum proposed holding elections based on a new democratic electoral law, developed by the BPF opposition, and creating a professional parliament. This would have meant a change not only in the composition but also in the very type of the political system. This was not part of the nomenklatura's plans.

And everyone spoke beautifully, Pazniak, Navumchyk, Dzeyka, Siamdzianava, Hiarmianchuk, and others. Zero effect. Only 35 deputies voted "for" the referendum. The same happened in 1993, when the majority voted for Belarus to join the CSTO. And so on.

Working daily as a parliamentary correspondent in the Supreme Soviet from 1990 to 1996, I can recall perhaps only one truly emotional vote — for the white-red-white flag and the Pahonia emblem. At that time, indeed, many deputies changed their position precisely as a result of debates and discussions.

But this, by the way, was part of the nomenklatura's strategy, which as if said — "take independence, the flag, language, education, culture — we are not against it. But property and power will remain ours."

The BPF faction in the Supreme Soviet consisted of approximately 30 people. It was influential intellectually and politically, managing to achieve state symbols, the renaming of the country, "Belarusianization," and other fundamental decisions. But numerically, it remained a minority, and objectively could not win on issues where the majority did not feel their interests aligned.

And the narrative that someone made a beautiful speech and everyone changed their views — that's for a feature film.

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