How FPB became a tool for putting pressure on students in Belarus

“Salidarnast” continues exploring what the current Trade Union Federation of Belarus is about. The next episode is the FPB activities in the HE students setting.

After the 2020 presidential elections, students of Belarusian higher education institutions (HEIs) took an active part in the protests rolling over the whole country in those days. Many of them were detained and expelled. Besides, 12 twelve people were sentenced to actual terms in prison from two to two and a half years in the so-called “students trial”. 

And, of course, the authorities were quick to understand that the students’ milieu merited special supervision. As the majority of current State officials were born and raised under the Soviet system and the mentality of today’s youth was quite beyond them.

They were justifiably apprehensive of the youthful maximalism, the keen sense of justice, and something they saw as abominable above all else – an “open mind” (if we list but a few features of this notion like openness to all things new, lack of bias, absence of conservative views, thinking and analytical skills, it becomes clear what makes such people particularly dangerous for an authoritarian regime).

This meant that the authorities had to make sure that no unexpected outbreaks and no new protest precedents occur.

Since by that time the Trade Union Federation of Belarus had already become a precisely functioning part of the State machinery, ready to perform the tasks it was set, its involvement in the process of the ideological “purge” of the students’ masses was quite natural.

September 30, 2020. Building 5 of the F. Scorina State University in Homyel. On yet another day of students’ individual and mass protests the administration erected barriers in front of the entrance

Yauhen Dzianisenka, a Board member of the “Union of Belarusian Students” entered the Belarusian National Technical University in 2020:

“It was exactly the time of protests and various students’ initiatives were born, so the University administration was looking for their members among their own students. I was detained several times. After one such detention at the University, I got a disciplinary sanction.

“Unfortunately, while I was in my first year at the University I, out of ignorance, joined the State Student’s Union. And the collective agreement between the Union and the University administration stipulated that in case a student was facing a disciplinary action, the Union should endorse it. So the administration contacted the Union directly in this regard and the Union gave its consent, while I wasn’t even notified about any of that.

“I asked how come? Why haven’t they talked to me? I managed to get the Union’s Committee meeting convened and addressed its members: guys, you do realize that the decision you are taking now is purely political! You are the Union, you should defend me!

“Many just lowered their eyes but the next day I learnt that they had signed the union consent form. The meeting was a sheer formality, everything had been agreed beforehand because in such matters freedom doesn’t figure at all. They just sign the papers.”

“Some members of the faculty would tell me not to talk too much.”

Today, Belarusian Higher Education Institutions (HIEs) have an actively functioning system of “screening” for students and the faculty in terms of their loyalty to the regime. For instance, each year employees are given a questionnaire to fill in where they should state what trade union they are affiliated to or give reasons for not being a union member.

Although even that is often redundant; today’s unions who never tire of reminding everyone of their 4 million members are not particularly who and how they recruit as new members.

Christina studied in one of the colleges in Minsk. She tells “Salidarnast”:

“Around the end of my second year in the college our whole group was given union membership cards, although our curator told us that we should have received those at the start of our first year. Because as soon as we became students we automatically joined the union. Naturally, they wouldn’t even inform us about any of this. Moreover, they hadn’t told us a single word about what this membership actually meant for us, what benefits it offered, etc.”

Today, the unions are but an auxiliary structure in the system of ideological “screening” operating in higher education. The main “screeners” are Vice-Rectors for Ideology and Education, many of whom are former KGB officers.

Yauhen Dzianisenka says that it was exactly the BNTU Vice-Rector who detained him in 2020.

“At the time, their number one task was to suppress the unrest, search for protest participants, Telegram-channels administrators. Next came the surveillance task, the identification of dissidents, including those among the faculty members. I think all other Vice-Rectors and even the Rector himself were a quite fearful of this “ideological” Vice-Rector. His task was to expose the disloyal ones, and then repressions began.

“Some members of the faculty would tell me not to talk too much.  In October 2020, when Lukashenka said that all participants of the 2020 protest actions were to be expelled, University Rectors showed a lot of zeal carrying that instruction out. The BNTU alone expelled 54 people.

The BNTU main building, Minsk, Spring 2025

“They let me study for another year, probably because I was a minor. But by that time I had already had two disciplinary punishments on my record, so I understood full well that as soon as I turned 18 they’d slap a third one on me and then expel me. It is for this reason that I decided not to wait and go to study abroad.”

Marya Taradzetskaya, Vice President of the Free Trade Union of Belarus (SPB), tells “Salidarnast” that the authorities were keeping a close eye on any developments in the students’ milieu, particularly after the 2020 protests:

“On March 7, 2021, we were holding the founding conference of the Students’ Associations League. Masked security officers broke right into the conference hall, although the event was absolutely legitimate and we as a Union organized it in full compliance with the rules, having met all requirements for the creation of sector-based organization bringing together students’ associations.

Nevertheless, the conference was attacked by the authorities. There were no objective legal claims they could through at us, so they just performed a totally unlawful procedure without offering any explanations. All conference participants were put in prison trucks and taken to various district militia stations in Minsk.

This action resulted in a resonant international response as one of the authorities’ blatant violations of the freedom of association, not to mention the breach of the national Law on Trade Unions in Belarus.

“If you live in Belarus and voice a different point of view on the developments, you are guaranteed to find yourself behind bars.”

The PhD candidate at the Charles University in Prague Aliaksandr Parshenkou studied for a master’s degree at the Belarusian State University in 2020 and was a victim of repressions for his trade union activities.

“In October 2020, we announced that our Free Trade Union of Belarus was setting up its workplace affiliate at the University and that we’d be collecting membership applications in the library ante-room. And almost instantly after the announcement bursting into the room was the then Head of the BSU Education Department Alexei Bahamazau with two security guards at his heels.

“He began telling us that we were engaged in an illegal activity. I took my time explaining to him that we had the right to do what we were doing and we were breaking no rules. Eventually, Bahamazau started making threats and I realized that there was no point continuing the conversation.

“We left then but we collected quite a lot of applications on that day. A bit later an order was published saying I had been given a disciplinary punishment. And that, of course, was a direct violation of the law on non-interference in trade union affairs, all the more so that we were collecting applications for membership in an officially registered structure, the Free Trade Union of Belarus. While the University administration stated in their report that the organization was unregistered.

“Then I was detained for taking part in a trade union conference: we wanted to establish a League of Students’ Associations. Then I had problems defending my Master’s thesis: they wrote the so-called “black” review, trying to make sure that I didn’t get my degree. But I managed to defend my thesis, regardless.

“However, I realized that staying in Belarus was not safe for me, that sooner or later they would come after me, so in October 2021 I left for Prague.

“Many of my friends and colleagues have left. If you live in Belarus and voice a different point of view on the developments, you are guaranteed to end up behind bars.”

Georgy like Aliaksandr also attended the master’s course at the Belarusian State University:

“Throughout 2020 and 2021, the BSU students were under considerable pressure. There were constant interviews with the dean, other officials, including the official union’s officers. They kept saying; you have to give up this activism of yours, time to stop! I was not the only one they talked to, other students also got their share.

“When talking wouldn’t work, they’d resort to other methods. To defend my thesis I had to meet stricter requirements than others. I just could not meet them. For instance, my thesis, just like everybody else’s, was the standard 45 pages long but a week before the viva they suddenly told me that the number of pages should be 65 – impossible to achieve at such a short notice.

“However, the situation then was not as harsh as it became later on. In 2020, I took part in the protests in Homyel and Minsk and I was also involved in the setting up of a workplace SPB affiliate at the BSU. 

“In March 2021, I was detained and spent 15 days in confinement. I was dismissed from my job (I worked half-time) and expelled from the University. Then I worked in the private sector in Belarus, but they detained me again in August 2021. Then it became clear that sooner or later I’d end up in prison. So, in 2022, I left Belarus.”

Now, the authorities have destroyed independent trade unions and HEIs only have workplace unions affiliated exclusively to the pro-Government FPB which operates in close tandem with the “loyalty” curators: all trade union events fall within the jurisdiction of Vice-Rectors for Ideology.

Many HEIs have whole sections and divisions for ideological and educational work with leaders of student’s unions on their staffing lists.

And, of course, only people who “have proved themselves” are appointed to these positions; and the unions themselves, according to our interlocutors, have turned into an ideological mediator between the administration and the students. As for other areas of activity of the FPB structures, they have been largely reduced to sports events and leisure activities.

Just one example: in 2024 the workplace union at the Belarusian National Technical University was awarded the first prize… in a contest for the best organization of mass sports and health improvement events.

In February 2024, while meeting the members of the National Board of HEI Rectors, Aliaksandr Lukashenka stated: “Education has never been and cannot be beyond the world of politics. You do not simply teach a profession, you form young people’s worldview.”

And in today’s Belarus, it definitely looks like these two tasks will swap their order of priority very soon, if they have not done so already.

Victoria Leontieva

Read this text in рус