Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus. How the Belarusian communists changed. Azgur refused to return the sculptures to the museum

The average Belarusian citizen can only learn about the Belarusian left from a short thirty-second TV report on November 7, from rarely updated party Internet resources, or by accidentally stumbling upon a picket of some left-wing organization, which is practically impossible until the next elections are approaching the country. But, like everywhere else, there are many communist organizations here. In this note I would like to offer an overview of the largest of them.

Belarusian Left Party "Fair World"

Perhaps we should start with the Belarusian leftist party “A Just World” (until 2008 it was called the Belarusian Party of Communists), because it was with it that the history of the leftist movement in independent Belarus began. In August 1991, the activities of the PBC-CPSU were suspended in the country. And already on December 7, 1991, at the founding congress, the Belarusian Party of Communists arose. All 281 delegates unanimously adopted a policy statement according to which she “inherits the best traditions of the CPB and resolutely dissociates herself from those officials of the CPSU and the CPB who compromised and betrayed its ideals.” The new Communist Party had 14 thousand members, most of whom had previously been members of the old CPB-CPSU. However, in February 1993, the ban on the activities of the PBC was lifted and a situation was created of the parallel existence of two large communist parties in the country. On May 29-30 of the same year, the Second Congress of the PKB, called “unification”, took place, where the entry of the PBC into the PKB was confirmed. However, the unity did not last long. By 1996, as a result of an internal party crisis, a split occurred over the issue of attitude towards the policies of President Lukashenko. Much later, already in 2009, the PKB removed all references to communism from the program and changed the name to the following: “Belarusian Party of the Left “Fair World””

The reader will probably be interested in why the name of the PKB changed? The leader of the party, Sergei Kalyakin, is confused in his testimony and first states that the name was changed due to the unpopularity of the word “communist”, then refers to pressure from the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus and the Ministry of Justice’s dissatisfaction with the existence of two communist parties in the country. The most plausible explanation is an attempt to make the PCB “wide left”. After the renaming, the “Kalyakinites” even tried to add the word “united” to the name, since they absorbed the women’s organization “Nadzeya” (Russian - “Nadezhda”), one of the many Social Democratic para-party formations, and several other small organizations. It is not surprising that it is a stretch to call some of the groups with which “A Just World” has united even social democratic.

Until 2009, the PKB from the outside looked like a completely left-wing social democratic party, in opposition to the Belarusian government. Today, “A Just World” advocates for privatization, the introduction of paid medicine and other far from socialist transformations. Among the Belarusian left, she is famous, first of all, for her cooperation with openly anti-communist forces, such as the UCP (the Belarusian analogue of the Russian Right Cause party), the conservative Christian party Belarusian Popular Front within the framework of the 5+ coalition. Member of the European Left (since 2009) and the Forum of Socialist and Social Democratic Parties of the CIS. Most likely, Kalyakin residents will continue to unite with small near-left organizations, and, in the end, will not gather the required number of people required for re-registration. Moreover, in 2009, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus announced that there were about 1,250 members in the ranks of the “Fair World”. Theoretically, the situation may improve due to the creation of a new youth organization “Modern View” under the party, which replaced the old youth organization that operated until 2008 with the historical name Leninist Communist Youth Union of Belarus.

Communist Party of Belarus

It was formed in 1996 after a split in the above-mentioned PKB, from which some of the communists broke away and supported the policies of President Lukashenko. The new communist party took its historical name - the Communist Party of Belarus. Immediately after the split, attempts began to unite the PKB and the PBC, and even a common Central Committee was created for the two parties. However, the unification did not happen. After the PKB changed its name, the PKB became a monopoly on the name “communist” in the official political field of Belarus. The ideology of the CPB is largely determined by its social composition. Most of the members of the CPB are old members of the CPSU, a small and middle-level bureaucracy that did not accept the collapse of the USSR. Only 3-5% of the party (about 300-500 people) are young people under 31 years of age. As for ideology, the party program reflects any provisions on socialism and communism only as a matter of nostalgia. In essence, the CPB program expresses the ideas of left-wing social democracy; it contains discussions that smack of Great Russian chauvinism about the Slavic-Russian identity of Belarusians and their attraction to Russia. True, unlike the Russian Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Communist Party of Belarus does not have such strong problems with religiosity and nationalism. The PBC does not yet have an economic program; according to party leaders, it is in the process of being created. Judging by the statements made by the leadership of the Belarusian communists in the media, the economic program will have to reflect the interests of the nationally oriented bourgeoisie and recognize the progressive role of small and medium-sized capital. The CPB unconditionally supports the Lukashenko regime, justifying all the miscalculations of the authorities from left-wing positions. The party has grown very closely with the state apparatus, all decisions of the Central Committee and local committees are coordinated with government policy. As a result, the CPB serves as the left trailer for the state apparatus. The leader of the party today is the deputy chairman of the Minsk City Executive Committee, Igor Vasilyevich Karpenko. According to official documents, the number of the party is 6,000 people. The party has 6 seats in parliament. The newspaper “Communist of Belarus” is considered the printed organ of the Communist Party of Belarus. We and Time”, published in 2000 copies. The CPB has not created an official youth organization, but the party’s reserve is the de-ideologized Belarusian Republican Youth Union.

Belarusian Communist Party of Working People

BCPT was created in 2010. It included members of the CPB and PKB who left both parties. BCPT does not have state registration and the Ministry of Justice has already refused them more than six times.From 2010 to 2012, the party held four Founding Congresses. The BCPT is firmly affiliated with such organizations as the republican public association “For the Union and the Communist Party of the Union,” which included communists expelled from the CPB and PKB, as well as the Belarusian branch of the NBP and with the Belarusian branch of the CPSU (b) Nina Andreeva. The leader of the BCPT isIvan Ivanovich Akinchits – Doctor of Philosophy, Professor.Nothing is known for certain about its numbers. In terms of ideology, the BCPT is often compared with the Russian RCRP, of which the BCPT is in fact a branch. According to the members of the BCPT themselves, the party is a proletarian, Leninist party and a “constructive” opposition to the Lukashenko regime.

Belarusian Green Party

The Greens are another left-wing party in Belarus. The leader of the party is a veteran of the Trotskyist and anarchist movements Oleg Novikov, better known as Lyolik Ushkin. There are several currents within the party: the left, a group of “national” anarchists, and the Eurogreens. The left side of the Greens does not have any clearly defined program. According to one of the most prominent activists of the party, Yuri Glushakov, the ideology of the left wing of the party can be defined as synthesized socialism with elements of anarchism and populism, the core of which is Marxism-Leninism. The party also has a discussion platform “Left Club”, and some of its members are members of the organizing committee of the left social movement “Razam” (Russian - “Together”). It is noteworthy that the Greens are the only party that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs defines as neutral in relation to the current government. On this moment The positions of the left in the party are becoming more and more precarious, and there is a danger of a right-wing turn in the party.

Thus, these four parties consistently cover the left spectrum in the political field in Belarus. We can conclude that so far the communist movement in the country has no tendency to unite, but rather the opposite. With the exception, perhaps, of the Greens, who are constantly striving to gather around themselves as many small left groups as possible. Therefore, all these structures in Belarusian society have practically no influence and not only will not be able to lead the masses, but will most likely turn out to be unviable in the event of severe economic and political upheavals.

This situation did not arise at all because of the unpopularity of leftist ideas among Belarusians. The ideas are quite popular, as evidenced by the presence of diverse left-wing parties and small groups not covered in this review. However, these forces are not “on horseback”. And both objective circumstances and the socialists themselves are to blame for this. The authoritarian regime and strict legislation prevent any political activity in the country (even the Belarusian Criminal Code provides for an article for the creation of an unregistered organization). Moreover, Lukashenko is pursuing a confident Bonapartist course, catering to business, although he constantly maneuvers between it and the people. Among other things, the president skillfully plays on the field of the socialists themselves, which is why people who do not really delve into the situation may find Lukashenko to have a “left deviation.”

And the fault of the socialists themselves is that they have still not been able to adapt to such circumstances and continue to carry out work that gives a certain effect only with the proper level of political liberalism, but not with authoritarian-bureaucratic capitalism.

To be continued

It was created on December 30, 1918. The idea of ​​​​creating the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of Belarus was voiced at the conference of the Belarusian sections of the RCP (b), held in Moscow on December 21-23, 1918. Delegates from the Moscow, Petrograd, Saratov, Tambov, Minsk and Nevelsk sections, representing more than a thousand Belarusian communists, took part in the conference. The delegates elected executive agency– The Central Bureau of the Belarusian Communist Sections, headed by a Belarusian writer, a native of the city. Kopyl, Minsk region - Dmitry Fedorovich Zhilunovich (Tishka Gartny - literary pseudonym).

The conference of the Belarusian sections of the RCP(b) pointed to the need to create a Belarusian Soviet government. The Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Soviet Government of Belarus from the Belarusian sections of the RCP(b) included D.F. Zhilunovich, A.G. Chervyakov, O.L. Dylo, D.S. Chernushevich, A. I. Kvachenyuk, I. I. Puzyrev. At the end of 1918, Belarusian sections of the RCP(b) appeared in Belarus.

On December 30-31, 1918, the VI North-Western Regional Conference of the RCP (b) was held in Smolensk. It was she who declared herself the first and founding congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus. The congress elected the Central Bureau of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus, headed by Alexander Fedorovich Myasnikov. The created party was an integral part of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The first congress of Belarusian communists decided to create the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus.

From 1918 to 1952 it was called the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus.

From March 1919 to November 1920 it was united with the Communist Party of Lithuania into the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Lithuania and Belarus. The formation of a unified Communist Party of Lithuania and Belarus was decided at the unification congress of the CP(b)B and CP(b)L that took place on March 4-6, 1919. The Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Lithuania and Belarus was represented at the First Congress of the Comintern, held on March 2-6, 1919 in Moscow.

With the restoration of the SSRB on July 31, 1920, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) decided to separate the Communist Parties of Lithuania and Belarus. Restored Soviet Socialist Republic Belarus became one of the four Soviet republics that signed the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR on December 30, 1922.

After the creation of the USSR in 1922, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus was renamed the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The governing body of the CP(b)B until May 1924 was the Provisional Belarusian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), created in connection with the return of the eastern Belarusian territories that were previously part of the RSFSR to the Belarusian SSR.

After the First World War, the Communists of Belarus carried out enormous organizational, political and educational work to revive the national economic complex and strengthen the country's defense capability. The party strengthened ties with the working class and the working peasantry, and fought against bourgeois ideology and the Trotskyists.

At the VIII Congress of the Communist Party of Belarus, held on May 12-14, 1924 in Minsk, instead of the Provisional Belarusian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Provisional Control Commission, the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party (b) of Belarus were elected.

The focus of all party bodies in Belarus was on issues of socialist industrialization, collectivization, education and science, development national culture and healthcare systems.

During the Great Patriotic War, the CP(b)B became the leading core of the nationwide anti-fascist Resistance movement. There were over 35 thousand communists in the partisan detachments and underground in the occupied territory, there were 10 regional committees, 185 inter-district and district committees of the Communist Party and 1316 primary party organizations. Almost all the post-war leaders of Soviet Belarus had a partisan background, among them comrades A.E. Kleshchev, V.I. Kozlov, K.T. Mazurov, P.M.Masherov, I.E. Polyakov, P.K. Ponomarenko, S.O. Pritytsky, F.A. Surganov and others.

After the liberation of the republic by the Soviet army in July 1944, the Communist Party of Belarus took the lead in efforts to restore the country's national economy.

On June 25, 1945, the BSSR signed the UN Charter, which entered into force on October 24, 1945. Among 51 countries in the world, Belarus is one of the founders of the UN.

In October 1946, the ranks of the Belarusian communists numbered more than 80 thousand members, of which over 72% joined the party during the Great Patriotic War. In January 1970 the PBC grew to 416 thousand members. As of January 1, 1990, there were 697 thousand people in the party ranks of the republic.

Since 1991, the CPB has experienced quite a lot of difficult moments in party history and party building. Together with the CPSU, the Communist Party of Belarus shared the bitterness of temporary defeat in socialist construction. After the ban of the CPSU in Moscow, the Supreme Council of the Republic on August 25, 1991 adopted a decision “On the temporary suspension of the activities of the CPSU-CPSU on the territory of the Republic of Belarus” and “On the departition of state authorities and administration of the Republic of Belarus, state enterprises, institutions, organizations and property of the Communist Party of Belarus and the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Belarus."

The Supreme Council instructed the Prosecutor's Office to carry out an audit of the activities of party bodies of the CPB-CPSU at all levels to determine their involvement in the activities of the State Emergency Committee and to take measures in accordance with the law. The Council of Ministers was instructed to immediately seal the premises of the archives, secret office work, government telephone communications of the CPB-CPSU and the Leningrad Communist League of Youth.

Being in euphoria from the “parade of sovereignties”, the Supreme Council of the Republic on December 10, 1991, by Resolution No. 1293-XII “On the Property of the PBC-CPSU”, declared state property: everything movable and real estate, owned by the KPB, cash, located in financial and other institutions and organizations located on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, as well as the property of the Communist Party of Belarus located in other union republics and abroad.

In response, some communists in October 1991 created the Initiative Committee for the resumption of the activities of the CPB, which on December 7 of the same year held the founding congress of the new party, called the “Belarusian Party of Communists.”

Having found no illegal actions on the part of the leadership of the Communist Party of Belarus, the Supreme Council, by resolution of February 3, 1993 No. 2161-XII, declared its previous resolution of August 25, 1991 “On the temporary suspension of the activities of the CPB-CPSU on the territory of the Republic of Belarus” to be invalid.

Thus, all legal claims of the newly-minted democrats to our party were removed. But the decision “On the property of the PBC-CPSU” was upheld. In order to preserve the unity of the communist movement of the country, the XXXII (extraordinary) Congress of the Communist Party of Belarus on April 25, 1993 decided to transfer its powers to the newly created PKB and called on all communists of the republic to actively join the fight against the onset of bourgeois reaction and anti-communist hysteria.

However, the courage and ideological conviction of the communists were soon betrayed by the leaders of the PKB, who entered into a conspiracy with the leadership of the radical bourgeois parties during the “round table”. Having signed a declaration on joint actions with the right and nationalists on behalf of the communists, the leadership of the PKB embarked on a path of departure from the fundamental Marxist-Leninist provisions. Due to personal political ambitions and the ingratiation of individual party leaders to the West, the party began to drift from the left political flank to the right.

On November 2, 1996, healthy party forces, in difficult conditions for the country, resumed the activities of the Communist Party of Belarus, and on November 26, 1996, this fact was officially registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus.

It was a difficult but necessary decision, very painful, but fundamentally important for the future of the party. And the past two decades of practical party activity have convincingly and objectively confirmed the well-founded correctness of such a decision.

On March 15, 2001, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus denied the Party of Belarusian Communists legal succession in relation to the CPB-CPSU.

Having exhausted the possibility of dialogue with the leadership of the PCB on the unity of the communist ranks, the VII (XXXIX) Congress of the PCB, by its decision on December 13, 2003, disavowed the decision of the XXXII (extraordinary) Congress of the PCB on the entry of the Communist Party of Belarus into the PCB, and canceled the transfer of powers and succession to it as not justifying the hopes of the communists.

Secretaries - First Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)/CPB of Belarus:

1918-1919 - Myasnikov Alexander Fedorovich.

1919 - Mickevicius-Kapsukas Vincas.

October 2012-present -
Karpenko Igor Vasilievich.

The CPB, based on the creative development of Marxism-Leninism, sets as its main goals the orientation of society towards the socialist path of development, leading to the construction of a society of social justice based on the principles of collectivism, freedom, equality, advocates democracy, strengthening of Belarusian statehood and the restoration of a state union on a voluntary basis Soviet peoples.

The main objectives of the PBC are:
– active participation in the political life of society, assistance in identifying and expressing the political will of citizens, participation in elections and referendums to ensure genuine democracy in the Republic of Belarus;
– political education of citizens, introduction of communist ideology, patriotism and proletarian internationalism into the public consciousness.

Representatives of the CPB work as part of the Union of Communist Parties - CPSU.

Celebrating its anniversary, the Communist Party of Belarus takes an active part in the social and political life of the republic, implements the decisions of the Tenth Congress and its Program, joined the election campaign for the election of deputies of local councils of deputies of the twenty-seventh convocation, and is preparing for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the republic from Nazi Germany invaders.

The Central Committee, the Council and the Central Control and Audit Commission of the party congratulate the party veterans, all their members and compatriots who share the position of the PBC on the development of our Motherland in modern conditions, on their 95th anniversary!

We wish everyone good health, success in all their affairs and endeavors for the benefit of the Belarusian people.

Communist Party of Belarus (CPB; Belarusian Kamunistychnaya Party of Belarus)- political party in the Republic of Belarus. Supports the President, Alexander Grigorievich. The leader of the party is.

Story

On November 2, the XXXIII (I restorative) congress of the CPB took place. The 400 delegates represented the 1,160 founders of the party, which declared itself the successor to the CPB-CPSU. Strategic goal party - building communism, immediate tasks - orientation towards socialism, restoration of the USSR, invalidation of the Belovezhskaya Accords. E. Sokolov was elected Chairman of the Party Council, V. Chikin was elected 1st Secretary of the Central Committee. At the beginning the party had 7 thousand members. The party supports the policies of President A. Lukashenko and is the largest communist organization in the republic.

Ideology

Defending communist ideals, the CPB is a proletarian party, the ideological and organizational successor of the CPB-CPSU on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, expresses the interests of wage workers, and consistently opposes all forms of exploitation and oppression of humans. The CPB, based on the creative development of Marxism-Leninism, sets as its goals the orientation of society towards the socialist path of development, leading to the construction of a society of social justice based on the principles of collectivism, freedom and equality, advocates democracy, strengthening the Belarusian statehood, and re-creating on a voluntary basis the state union of peoples , formerly part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Main goals

The main objectives of the CPB are active participation in the political life of society, assistance in identifying and expressing the political will of citizens, participation in elections and referendums to ensure genuine democracy in the Republic of Belarus; political education of citizens, introduction of communist ideology, patriotism and proletarian internationalism into the public consciousness.

Activity

The Communist Party of Belarus has its representation in the highest Legislative body and in local Councils of Deputies. As a result of the elections held, 408 members of the Communist Party of Belarus became deputies of local Councils of Deputies of the 25th convocation. Of these: 7 people - deputies of the Brest, Gomel, Grodno regional and Minsk city Councils of Deputies, 25 people - deputies of city Councils in cities of regional and district subordination, 206 - deputies of district and 170 - deputies of township and rural Councils of Deputies. The Central Committee of the CPB actively carries out international relations with foreign communist and workers' parties. Bilateral meetings and negotiations, international conferences and seminars are regularly held. Representatives of the CPB work as part of the Union of Communist Parties - CPSU (). Information about the activities of the PBC is posted on the international Internet portal “Salidnet”.

An important stage in the development of the international communist movement was the 9th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. The meeting was organized by the Communist Party of Belarus and the Communist Party Russian Federation. The meeting took place in Minsk on November 3-5

Belarus, in a certain sense, is one of the cradles of the Russian social-democratic labor movement. It was in Minsk that the first congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was held in the spring of 1898. It took the left forces less than 20 years to come to power in Russian Empire. For 70 years, the Communists held a political monopoly over a vast territory and influenced the development of dozens of states in different parts of the planet.

© Sputnik / Yu. Ivanov

Hard times

The last 24 years have been some of the most difficult for the communist movement. Communist symbols were banned by several European countries, including Belarus’ immediate neighbors - Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia.

In the republic, the activities of the Communist Party of Belarus, a regional branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were officially suspended in the summer of 1991 after an attempted coup in the USSR.

By this time, about 670 thousand Belarusians had communist party cards. They did not go to rallies and demonstrations, but simply forgot about their party affiliation one day. Only a handful of committed supporters of Marxism-Leninism registered a new party in 1992.

© Sputnik / Yuri Ivanov

In 1994, the Belarusian communists nominated Vasily Novikov as a presidential candidate, a functionary who had experience in party work since 1977 and Soviet times rose to the position of assistant to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPB. About 4% of voters voted for Novikov - this is still the best figure among candidates - leaders of political parties in modern history independent Belarus. But, of course, this is a depressingly low figure for a country in which at that time the absolute majority of voters had a worldview formed on the basis of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Novikov was forced to leave.

Kalyakin and Chikin

The new leader of the Belarusian communists was Sergei Kalyakin, also an experienced party functionary - as they wrote in biographies then: since 1977 in Komsomol, party and Soviet work.

The crushing defeat in the first serious political battle did not weaken the communist movement in Belarus. In the parliamentary elections of 1995, the communists received the most parliamentary seats - 44. After the pro-presidential group "Consent" and the agrarians, which some deputies joined, the communist faction in parliament became the third force, which was no longer impossible to ignore.

© Sputnik / Alexander Polyakov

The political reform of 1996, after which Belarus became a presidential republic, led to a split in the national communist movement. Some communists, led by Kalyakin, opposed the constitutional referendum, while another part supported Alexander Lukashenko’s initiative to centralize power and form a bicameral National Assembly instead of the Supreme Council. Half of the communist deputies of the 13th convocation of the Supreme Council submitted applications for inclusion in the House of Representatives.

Some communists, led by Viktor Chikin - in the Soviet past, second secretary of the Minsk city committee of the CPB - established a new Communist Party of Belarus. The very next year, communist Chikin received the high position of deputy chairman of the Minsk City Executive Committee, and in 2000 he was appointed head of the Belarusian State Television and Radio Company.

At that time, only the head of the Agrarian Party, Mikhail Rusy, who served as minister in the second half of the 90s, had a more successful career as a civil servant among party bosses. natural resources and environmental protection (in the Soviet past, by the way, also a member of the CPSU, who graduated from the Minsk Higher Party School in 1989).

Having been forced out of the systemic opposition, the communists who supported Kalyakin did not stop trying to regain power. Sergei Kalyakin tried to stand as a candidate for presidential elections 2001, but its weakened party structures were unable to collect the required number of signatures to nominate a candidate.

Old footage

In the early 2000s, Chikin was replaced by Valery Zakharchenko at the post of communists supporting the policies of President Lukashenko. In the BSSR, his party career flourished in the Brest region - he rose to the post of second secretary of the Baranovichi city party committee. His experience in government work was again in demand in the mid-90s, when Zakharchenko was invited to chair the Baranovichi district executive committee, and with the formation of the Communist Party of Belarus he was elected leader of the communists of the Brest region. His career developed rapidly: he became deputy chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee, a deputy of the House of Representatives, and also headed the Communist Party of Belarus after the departure of Viktor Chikin.

Zakharchenko died suddenly in 2004. He was replaced as the leader of communists loyal to the government by Tatyana Golubeva, who worked in the 90s as Deputy Minister of Construction Materials Industry and Minister of Architecture and Construction, and later became a deputy of the House of Representatives. It is curious that when going to work in parliament, Golubeva first pointed out her non-partisanship, but therefore unexpectedly made a dizzying party career in the Communist Party of Belarus, achieving the post of first secretary in just a few years.

During the 2000s, the pro-government Communist Party managed to get its supporters into parliament - they received from three to eight seats in different convocations. In the current convocation, six deputies declare their communist affiliation.

Who is the future?

The communists who remained loyal to Kalyakin experienced a certain ideological transformation, the result of which was the renaming of the Belarusian Party of Communists into the Belarusian Party of the Left “Fair World” in 2009. The main motive was to avoid mentioning communism, which, according to politicians, prevented them from attracting new supporters to their banner. This, however, did not stop the process of shrinking the party ranks of the left: from the beginning of the 2000s to the present time from eight to just over one thousand members. The party leadership claims that in reality the number of their supporters is much larger - they simply do not want to make their party affiliation public for fear of problems at work or in the service.

© Sputnik Viktor Tolochko

There are about 6 thousand official supporters of the CPB, but there are much fewer active party members, judging by the two thousand circulation of the party newspaper "Communist of Belarus. We and Time".

Long-term monitoring by the Institute of Sociology shows the very low popularity of the two left parties in society - in the event of voting on party lists in parliament, “A Just World” and the Communist Party of Belarus could count on the support of less than one percent of Belarusian voters each.

At the same time, the potential of the Communist Party of Belarus, which supports President Alexander Lukashenko, looks much more powerful. Firstly, the current leader of the CPB, Igor Karpenko, occupies the high position of deputy chairman of the Minsk City Executive Committee, overseeing the ideological sphere of the Belarusian capital. Secondly, the CPB considers itself the successor to the Communist Party of the BSSR and is part of the Union of Communist Parties of the Former Soviet Republics, headed by Gennady Zyuganov. Thirdly, the CPB actively cooperates with the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, which considers itself the successor to the Soviet Communist Youth Union, and the Belarusian Republican Youth Union can be a personnel base for expanding party ranks.

Do Belarusian communists have a chance of returning to power in Belarus? As we see, some of them are already there, and some simply do not advertise their ideological affiliation. After all, Belarus remains the only former Soviet republic that still remembers the day the Bolsheviks came to power almost a century ago. public holiday and is not working.

The political events that preceded and followed the State Emergency Committee putsch on August 19-21, 1991, devalued the importance of socialist realist art in the dying Soviet Union.

The rector was more worried that the curtain was missing, not the painting.

It was during the collapse of the USSR that the chief custodian of the funds began to take the so-called deposits to the museum - paintings and graphics, which were transferred to government institutions for interior decoration: sanatoriums, clinics, ministries. Everything went according to the papers, but sometimes paintings of a decent size simply disappeared!

One day Nikolai Pogranovsky arrived at the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus with an unusual mission - to examine a whole layer of commissioned works by socialist realists. Photo: radiokultura.by; book "Minsk. Encyclopedic reference book"

A painting by the Mogilev master Nikolai Fedorenko, which depicted the Krichevsky cement plant, disappeared from the walls of the Higher Party School on Karl Marx Street (now in this building the philological department of BSU). “Lost? Stolen? - the rector of this institution could not put his mind to where she had gone. True, he complained more not about the painting - they say, it’s kind of gray - but about the huge curtain, which they also “made legs for,” recalls Nikolai Pogranovsky.

The art critic suggested that Fedorenko paint the author’s repetition of the painting, since it had settled in someone’s interiors. Like, there is a black and white photograph, and you will remember the color of the Krichevsky cement plant. But the artist’s answer was: “This is a masterpiece! How can I repeat it? It would be nice if there was still a canvas before my eyes...”

At first I thought: is the image of the Krichevsky cement plant a masterpiece? And then I remembered that Fedorenko has a unique tonality, the finest nuances of gray. This lost painting was made very realistically - you can directly feel the cement dust,” recalls Pogranovsky.

After the collapse of the USSR, the art critic had the opportunity to look for works by fellow countrymen not only in Belarus. During the Soviet years, there was a procurement system of the Union Ministry of Culture, when works by artists from all the Union republics were purchased. From Belarusian masters, for example, they bought works of painting by Mikhail Savitsky, Leonid Shchemelev, Gabriel Vashchenko.

These paintings, graphics and sculptures could be the property of a specific museum (for example, our Art Museum). But physically they were located in the Vuchetich VPHO in Moscow, which regularly distributed its funds throughout the USSR - bringing culture to the masses.

I went there to pick up works that, on the orders of the USSR Ministry of Culture, were bought for the Art Museum of Belarus, because the political situation was changing before our eyes,” says Pogranovsky. - I remember how I later called Arlen Kashkurevich, Georgy Poplavsky, Georgy Skripnichenko, Nikolai Seleshchuk, Valery Slauk, Vladimir Savich and distributed their works to them against receipt.

But the works that ended up in Moscow for the future Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts of the USSR never returned. The building was just being designed, but best works from each republic, by order of the Minister of Culture of the USSR, were provided free of charge.

Until now, no one knows where they are, because the museum never took place,” Pogranovsky complains. - These are wonderful works of ceramicists, tapestry makers, glass makers.

Azgur refused to return the sculptures to the museum

Sometimes the artists themselves sought to preserve their creative heritage. For example, in the mid-1990s, People's Artist of the USSR Zair Azgur held an exhibition in his studio (now there is a museum-workshop of the sculptor, where Nikolai Pogranovsky is also the main custodian of the funds. - Ed.).

At one time, the Art Museum purchased a number of works by Azgur. Among them were those translated from plaster into stone (for example, a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore) weighing 2.5 tons, but much more - plaster castings. Zair Isaakovich asked to hand over several sculptures to him for display for a couple of months. But after the exhibition, the sculptor was in no hurry to return the work. As the custodian of the funds, I began calling to remind them that everything needed to be returned. And he says: “These are my sculptures.”

Pogranovsky did not argue with Azgur - he wrote a letter to the then Minister of Culture Alexander Sosnovsky. After all, it was with his permission that this temporary transfer took place. When the minister talked with the artist, it became clear: the museum would receive the works only after his death, because Azgur had long had the idea of ​​leaving all his creative heritage to the state, and not to his relatives, so as not to provoke possible conflicts. And so it happened: Azgur died in 1995, a museum-workshop was created on the basis of the workshop, and the sculptures returned to the National Art Museum...

By the way, when Soviet power fell, Zair Isaakovich took a brigade and took the one and a half ton heads of Marx and Lenin from the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus to his workshop. At that time, a kilogram of bronze cost $7.50, so one can imagine how someone could make money by melting them down.

Soon after the putsch, Nikolai Pogranovsky had a chance to visit the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus. Or rather, in his basements. The curator of the funds received a call from the commandant of the building and offered to look for something for the Art Museum.

The employees moved paintings and graphics on Leninist and communist themes from their offices to the basement, recalls Nikolai Mikhailovich. - But there was nothing interesting there - mostly custom-made works that were written as if on an assembly line. True, in this basement (I specifically counted) there were 47 portraits of Lenin by Mikhail Savitsky. Such paintings were well priced back then - by today's standards, probably $3.5 thousand for a canvas measuring about a meter by three-quarters. But it’s worth paying tribute to Mikhail Andreevich - these are not one-to-one copies: either Lenin sat with a book, then leafed through its pages, then propped up his head. I don’t know where these portraits went. I never visited the basements of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus again...

AND AT THIS TIME

The painting at the Moskovsky bus station was almost buried under a pile of concrete

Sometimes, literally before our eyes, not only paintings or sculptures disappeared, but entire monumental creations: for example, the facade of the capital’s Loshitsky Palace of Culture (formerly the Palace of Culture of the Worsted Factory), which, before renovation, was decorated with two huge works by folk artists Gabriel Vashchenko and Vladimir Stelmashonok. They are now under a layer of building materials and cannot be restored, experts say. During the renovation, the painting of Zoya Litvinova and Svetlana Katkova in the former Vilnius cinema on Kalinovsky Street also disappeared.

The triptych “Balada ab Batskaushchyne” by artist Viktor Khatskevich adorned the second floor of the Moskovsky bus station for a decade and a half. When the building was demolished, after the noise raised by the author, the work was still removed, and not buried under a pile of concrete. The work is currently in storage.

We can say that the mosaic “Youth” by Vitaly Korneev in the foyer of the Vostochny bus station was lucky - it was simply covered with sheets of metal.