The Eastern European country chosen for discussion is Belarus. This paper will first discuss the transition from communism based on the experience of living under communist rule. Second, the significant historical factors from 1920-1991 that led to the fall of communism will be given and traced as to how they affected the process of the transition. Finally, the choices made by Belarus during and after the transition period will be traced back to historical and transitional factors that influenced them. Inarguable evidence will be noted throughout the paper to prove the need for transition from communism and the problems with the transition. The country of Belarus is still in transition. How do they compare? Most if not all of the other former Soviet Republics have reached a post-transition status. The transition from communism is negatively experienced by Belarus due to the recurring problems with Russia in the former Soviet Union. The historical factors that affected transition are the emergence of Belarus nationalism, which is generally credited to the Nasha Niva, a journal published in the 1906-1915 period, and the abandonment of “belorusizatiia”, which was the policy of national language for each individual republic, in the 1930’s (Altshuler 1998). The ethnic-national conflict, which was created roughly over the past 80 years, was not solved with the break-up of the Soviet Union. This was because of Soviet national policy and how it established “independent” states that were solely dependent on the Communist Party Central Committee (Altshuler 1998). The possible unification of Belarus and Russia is also very important because of how it is affecting transition. The unification is slowing transition to a crawl, when looked at from the opposition to Lukashevko. Choices that are being made to day reflect an authoritarian renewal. The country of Belarus elected Aleksandr Lukashevko in 1994 ...
