Thread by @akoz33

Lukashenko is not openly displaying a political prisoner in public forced to make Stalin style public confessions, praise the Great Leader and beg for mercy. But comparisons with Stalin are only very superficial.

The victims of Stalin’s show trials were severely tortured but were never displayed publicly until all the signs of torture had disappeared. Torturers were instructed not to leave visible signs. This time the signs are very visible and it is not an accident.

This is Lukashenko saying to the West: I can will do whatever I like and you can stuff yourself with your talk of human rights - you will do nothing. And they will do nothing although it is a lie that nothing could be done.

Another familiar aspect of this situation are the various “experts” who are telling us that Putin has nothing to do with this, that Luka is independent and that it would be a mistake to link the two murderous tyrants.

In fact, through the Agrofuhrer Putin is also sending a message: see, you can’t do anything this pathetically weak and bankrupt puppet, so now try to imagine what I can do if I decide to.

And, of course, Navalny is not forgotten - note that even Biden who promised that “Belarus will be discussed” did not say “Navalny and Belarus”. It would have been a small but not insignificant point to make - but even this is too much too expect of the current US administration.

Here again “not” replaced “now”. “not forgotten” should have been “now forgotten”.
(Using Twitter on mobile devices is a terrible experience 🙁)

One more thing about Stalin and Lukashenko. It was still important for Stalin to hide the torture (although he demanded it personally) because the world was full of “useful idiots”, i.e. believing communists & “fellow travellers” convinced that the Great Leader of International

Proletariat would not countenance such a thing. But Lukashenko is in a different situation, and the purpose of these nightmarish, horror-film like displays, is quite different. Luka doesn’t care that nobody will believe in these confessions - the purpose is not only to terrify

the opposition but also to humiliate the West.