ABOUT POLITICAL TECHNOLOGISTS AND POLITICIANS

In Pasternak’s poem "High illness" there is such a line about Lenin: "He led the direction of thought and only then the country". The brilliant poet, as it is known, did not study the course of political science, which did not prevent him from distinguishing management of real events from manipulation of their reflection in the heads of people. Today we name experts in management of "thought direction" "political technologists", and the experts in management of real events within the scope of a country we name "politicians". The latter have always been in deficiency. Whether it is good or bad it is a different question, but universal belief in almost unlimited possibilities of political technologists became commonplace. It is enough to recollect the well-known formula: "Everything is real if it is shown on TV". However, recent Soviet experience denies the formula given. When daily activity of people starts to contradict "pictures" on TV, political technologists lose their magic force.

In Belarus such misbalance between reality and "pictures" reproduced has not come yet, more precisely, it has come, but not for the most part of the society.

Nevertheless, Belarusian political technologists have all the resources for power retention. Let’s look at Table 1. It is difficult to put the question about career possibilities for the youth into the category of politically sharp ones. However, distribution of answers to it strongly depends on the degree of society’s mobilizing excitement, which, as it is known, is at its maximum level during presidential election campaigns (see the data of April, 2006). The role of a manipulating factor is proved by the increase of affirmative answers when reading the Table across from younger age groups to seniors ones (in the group of people younger 29 years there are 32.3% of affirmative answers, and in the group of 60 and older – 70.2%).

In the Soviet times there was a popular anecdote about a steadfast Party-member who was hesitating synchronously along with changing the course of the party. In Belarus of today A. Lukashenko's supporters are successors of the Party-member from the anecdote. They rather actively respond to any change in the official course. So, today the talks about the increase of foreign investments became fashionable, so already 60.3% of the Belarusians are for foreign investments as such investments create new workplaces and raise population incomes. Simultaneously they are against privatizing large enterprises. And it is clear. Corresponding convincing "pictures" about advantages of privatizing haven’t been shown on TV yet.

There have been outlined changes in connection with building the atomic power station in the country. The number of the opponents of its building is greater than the number of supporters (Table 2). But the power has already arrived at the definitive decision on its building. It even has not spent much money for a serious agitation campaign, but the fact of arriving at the definitive decision was sufficient to start the mechanism of public opinion change.

The ease with which the public opinion is capable to change (at times, into the opposite direction) becomes more noticeable in the years of crises. So, at Gorbachyov’s referendum which took place on March, 17th, 1991, 82.6% of Belarusians have expressed their agreement with the preserving the USSR, but in the end of the year they unanimously welcomed signing of the Belovezhsky agreement which they rejected in three years having voted not for "signer" S. Shushkevich, but for the supporter of reconstruction of the USSR, sovkhoz director A. Lukashenko.

Why such distortions were possible? Is there any guarantee that similar events will not happen in the future? There are no such guarantees. The Belarusian society is atomized. People no more are linked with traditions as it was in the non-industrialized epoch, the centralized power cannot bind them any more. Having concentrated its power of taking decisions in the upper chambers it deprived people of the feeling of responsibility for the state and society. Besides, the power unconsciously, but more often consciously blocks the processes of forming institutions of the civil society. In such conditions the public consciousness becomes defenseless before political technologists.

Atomizing of the Belarusians should not be confused with individualization of people from the western countries. Atomization is disintegration of the traditional collectivism, whereas individualization is the growth of individual consciousness of the person as the subject of public relations.

The atomized person, as it has already been mentioned, is an ideal object for modern political technologists, however, real processes are not subject to such experts. As an example it is enough to remember inability of A. Lukashenko and created by him "vertical" to stop corruption or tax burden. The more the power makes decisions, the less it influences existent processes in the country.

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