Autocratic Power and Older Citizens: The Political Subjectification of Retirees in Belarus

Turning to or away from the State to Resist Ageism in the Job Market

Stimulating longer careers is among the priorities of the National Strategy ‘Active Longevity – 2030’. But with the pensionable age still relatively low, the pension system tacitly discourages people from earning a wage and a pension at the same time. While there is no mandatory retirement, only fully retired citizens receive the full old-age pension. The predominance of fixed-term contracts often allows employers to prioritise younger workers by offering those of pensionable age shorter contracts. Belarusians of working age who are registered as unemployed are eligible for free retraining, but citizens of pensionable age do not receive this benefit. While individuals who wish to retain post-pensionable-age employment are officially recognised as vulnerable workers (R 25 February 2020), they are largely left to their own devices to deal with formal and informal age discrimination.

The ratio of the average pension to the average salary in Belarus is about 40%. With a pension as the only source of income many retirees cannot afford expenses beyond those of energy bills and basic food. In this case, older Belarusians manage their expectations in relation to the quality of their lives, like Dana, a retired worker: ‘What is poverty when you’re 30 is enough to get by when you’re 70.’ However, the media promote the image of older people as satisfied with their financial situation: ‘You rarely hear our elderly complain about empty pockets’ (SG 10 October 2020).

A few of my blue-collar interviewees shared that they had been happy to retire upon reaching pensionable age. Some of white-collar participants stated that they had not faced a pressure to end their careers and worked till their mid-70s. However, the struggles of Belarusians to retain jobs past pensionable age was also a recurring theme in the media and many interviews, although the approaches of citizens to secure employment differed between the two data sets.

In the news people of pensionable age were depicted as seeking state protection from what ultimately is the lack of anti-discriminatory regulations. Conversely, my interviewees who struggled to find jobs often mentioned resorting to the courses of action that can be defined as tricking the system. These participants relied on undocumented employment or used a younger relative as a proxy to work in their place to earn additional income.

Job-seeking difficulties often featured in the media coverage of the regular telephone helplines and ‘public receptions’ hosted by officials that the regime has designed to monitor social discontent and turn it into a source of its legitimisation (Astapova et al., 2022: 17). To illustrate: ‘A 60-year-old resident of Berezino wants to work to have some extra income in addition to her pension. The pensioner will be assisted in finding a suitable vacancy’ (SB.BS 12 June 2020).

As the regime does not allow critical debates in state-run media, the problems citizens bring up at such events are framed as private issues or as resulting from the negligence of individual bureaucrats that can be solved with the intervention of senior authorities. The officials who host the meetings are portrayed as the protagonists of such reports although their role is to collect complaints and redirect them to other competent organisations. While seeking state intervention can be seen as a proactive approach to solving problems created by the system, the attendees of the ‘public receptions’ are pictured as vulnerable supplicants grateful for the protection the regime provides for them.

On the contrary, my interviewees emphasised their agency in finding ways to earn some extra income. For instance, Vanda, aged 73, shares: ‘After raising three children, my pension wasn’t great. My part-time cleaner job didn’t cut it. So, my daughter got a cleaning job too, and I worked in her place to make ends meet.’ Another participant, Kapitalina, aged 77, recalls struggling to secure a job in her late 50s and resorting to working unofficially in her brother’s firm.

The difference between individual approaches featured in the two data sets can be attributed to the varied employment prospects in rural and urban areas. While the attendees of the ‘public receptions’ are usually rural residents, most of my interviewees resided in cities where there are more employment options. At the same time, the media only select cases that present the regime as an effective manager successfully solving citizens’ problems, whereas some of my interlocutors felt safe enough to anonymously tell me about the illegal methods they used to ensure their post-pension-age employment.

Similar to the media reports, most participants did not attribute ageism in the job market to unfair state policies, instead blaming it on individual employers. Yadviga, aged 63, a retired manager who now works as an undocumented carer, sheds light on the depoliticisation of this problem. She explains that being on fixed-term contracts, ‘people don’t talk about it out of fear of losing a job’.

The lack of intergenerational solidarity in standing up for older citizens’ labour rights is reinforced by the expectation featured in many interviews that individuals of pensionable age will prioritise looking after their grandchildren over holding paid employment. The decades of living under authoritarian rule also instil scepticism in Belarusians about the possibility of rapidly changing the situation: ‘Even if we start talking about it, we won’t see much change during our lifetime’, reflects Yadviga, on her lack of motivation to engage in collective action to resist labour discrimination.

In summary, by portraying officials as regularly helping older individuals find jobs, the media implicitly reflect that this group faces institutionalised ageism in employment. Some citizens use the co-optation mechanisms created by the regime to maintain the status quo. Enacting the role of vulnerable supplicants that the regime imposes on older people might be the only means available to them to secure post-pension-age jobs. Others overcome age discrimination by bypassing official regulations.

In any case, although many citizens’ disagreement with their marginalisation in the job market is not articulated in political terms, struggles over needs are also struggles over values, to use Scott’s (1985: 1) terms. By seeking post-pension-age employment, Belarusians confront the dependent position the regime offers to them. Thus, by engaging in everyday defiance, they consequently although not necessarily intentionally challenge the tricks of the autocratic system to remain in power.

Demanding State Intervention to Challenge Exclusion in Urban Development

Although my interviewees did not mention being involved in urban activism, many media stories reported older individuals campaigning for better transport links between rural and urban areas, confronting road constructions that violated the interests of local residents and drawing public attention to environmental problems. While I am aware of at least one time when one of the participants, whom I had known prior to my study, was involved in urban activism, this person did not bring this experience up in their interview. This discrepancy can be explained by the interview schedule that was not originally designed to ask the participants about their involvement in urban activism.

But by 2020, initiatives by citizens concerning urban infrastructure were widespread and welcomed by the regime as a form of channelling public discontent (Astapova et al., 2022: 17). As reflected in the media, however, the participation of older people in urban activism involved a distinct power dynamic. The reports often included cases of older people living in residential areas who were challenging administrative urban development regulations that tacitly prioritised the interests of younger and more economically advantaged citizens.

Based on my analysis, the transformations of their environment that older citizens have disputed were similar in some ways and different in others from gentrification. In western countries this process is defined as neighbourhood renovations that draw in people of higher social status and drive out the current residents (Buffel and Phillipson, 2019: 989). In Belarus, younger, more affluent residents who, for example, work in the IT sector, prefer to move into more expensive central or newly built residential areas of the capital. The problems discussed in the media, however, concerned less privileged social groups, including retirees and younger employees living in neighbourhoods that were built during the Soviet era in provincial towns.

While the social background of dwellers in the same residential areas may be relatively similar, their generational disparity often results in a certain economic difference as for many retirees an old-age pension is the only source of income. This economic difference produces a status hierarchy reinforced by renovation plans that prioritise the interests of younger residents over those of retirees who are seen as no longer contributing to the economy and therefore less important.

Moreover, the new routines and activities that renovations bring to residential communities often undermine existing identities and customary forms of attachments to the place. As a result, older residents feel that they are no longer valued in their neighbourhoods (Burns et al., 2012: 1). While older residents are often portrayed in the media as standing up for their right to have a say on urban developments, their civic actions as a rule have no effect on top–down decisions.

To illustrate, NG (14 February 2020) addresses a conflict that took place in a town where the local administration had decided to expand a car park adjacent to the courtyard shared by several apartment buildings. Designed in the 1970s, the parking area was no longer able to accommodate the growing number of residents’ cars. The renovation, which involved cutting down several trees in the courtyard, outraged some of the residents who were not car owners but had been regularly socialising in the courtyard enjoying its green spaces.

A local activist had sent a letter to a state-funded newspaper, which was the reason why the media outlet investigated the conflict. As the redesign of the courtyard divided the residents into two camps, the article provides a space for those on both sides to express their perspectives, and for the local administration to explain their decision.

The pro-trees camp claimed that, according to the sanitary standards, the percentage of trees should have been increased, not cut down. The other camp argued that with a broader road, their cars would have more space to park further away from the apartment buildings, which is a more eco-friendly arrangement. A representative of the local administration explained that the renovation had been planned in accordance with formal regulations and new trees were planted to replace the lost ones. While the official reasoning seems to accommodate the interests of both groups, it tacitly prioritises the interest of the car owners and dismisses the symbolic loss the older residents claimed due to the reconfiguration of their neighbourhood.

In summary, the position taken by the urban development authorities that prioritises the interests of younger residents is always framed in the media as based on optimal solutions. In the absence of intergenerational solidarity regarding urban infrastructure, telephone helplines and ‘public receptions’ often serve older activists as the only available means of articulating their grievances. While the media represent them as vulnerable citizens in search of state protection, the press also unintentionally document how older people regularly confront the marginal social status that various administrative urban development regulations offer to them.

Insisting on One’s Decency during COVID-19

Belarus was among the countries that did not introduce a lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contrary to the regime’s widespread reputation as paternalistic, the official response to the pandemic delegated to the population the responsibility for managing the risks of catching the virus. In terms of epidemiological safety, the media sent mixed messages: while medical officials advised citizens to maintain a safe distance, wear facemasks and sanitise their hands, Lukashenko repeatedly denied that the disease was dangerous and disdained recommended anti-COVID measures (SB.BS 19, 27, 31 March 2020).

Comparing this approach to strict COVID-19 restrictions in other countries, many of my interviewees considered it insulting. For instance, Zoya, a 62-year-old employee felt that it was ‘unsafe having to go to work during the pandemic’ and that ‘public events should’ve been cancelled’.

Other participants mentioned that Lukashenko’s dismissive comments about the danger of COVID-19 stimulated them to engage in mutual aid networks. Vera, aged 65, who works part-time recalls: ‘People felt that the state didn’t value human life. They took matters into their own hands. Some started to sew facemasks, others delivered food to doctors or older neighbours who were self-isolating.’ Another interviewee, Matvey, a 71-year-old retiree shared that he ‘got vaccinated not to let others down’. Overall, many participants indicated that during the pandemic they had found ways of being appreciated for taking care of others.

The media, however, largely ignored the self-organisation of civil society. The official media campaign focused on advising older people to stay indoors, based on the widespread assumption of their greater susceptibility to the virus. In some cases, news reports specified that it was not chronological age per se that exposed individuals to the danger of the infection but various chronic diseases that often accumulate as people grow older (SB.BS 24 April 2020). However, to represent the state as an effective manager protecting the vulnerable, media stories often portrayed older people as infantile individuals in need of repeated expert guidance on their safety:

On the underground during the rush hour, I see people who are far over working age. Some of them can barely walk but they are socialising out of doors. One of my older relatives dismisses my advice: ‘Well, what’s wrong? I’m only popping in to the doctor’s, or a concert.’ Older people ignore calls to be careful with the carelessness of children. (SG 9 April 2020)

Expert interviews and opinion columns about COVID-19 frequently objectified older people by addressing the younger readership and referring to older adults in the third person. The work of volunteers from state-approved organisations who delivered food and medicine to older people without immediate family was framed as a noble pursuit, in contrast to the portrayal of older citizens as passive recipients of care who were rarely given a voice in such reports.

At the same time, there was no clear definition of the ‘older people’ who were persistently told to stay indoors. While in some reports individuals in their late 40s (SB.BS 28 January 2020) and 50s were marked as ‘older’ (R 25 February 2020), in others the increased risk of catching the coronavirus was attributed to groups aged over 65 (SB.BS 20 March 2020) or over 75 (SB.BS 21 March 2020).

The absence of a clear definition of ‘older people’ deemed susceptible to the virus allowed some Belarusians to disidentify from the ageist objectification that the media were imposing. With no lockdown in place, they could easily challenge the idea of old-age vulnerability and dependence by engaging in social activities. While some of my interviewees had followed the advice to stay at home, others maintained their pre-pandemic routines because they did not associate themselves with the vulnerable older people in need of protection. For example, Antonina, a 74-year-old retiree shared that she had continued to attend theatres as her way of overcoming pandemic-related anxiety.

Unlike many other reports, a few opinion columns framed older people’s desire to remain active not as a sign of supposed age-related cognitive decline but as an expression of their will for life: ‘Recently the local doctor and I drove around and saw five pensioners sitting on a bench. They don’t care about the coronavirus. They have no fear or panic. And maybe that’s a good thing’ (SG 16 April 2020).

The desire of older people to participate in social life despite the pandemic was overtly celebrated when it served the regime’s ideological objective of justifying the decision not to introduce a lockdown. One of the main strategies by which the Lukashenko regime aspires to legitimise itself is its identification with the victory of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) (Marples, 2014: 7). This explains why the possibility of holding traditional mass events on Victory Day in May 2020 was not questioned in the official rhetoric.

In some media stories covering the 75th anniversary of the Victory, veterans of the war who were self-isolating were interviewed while watching the celebrations on television in their homes. Other articles, however, featured former soldiers attending the festive events in person, like a 93-year-old veteran who brought flowers to lay on a war monument: ‘I wasn’t afraid to go to the front when I was 16, how could some virus scare me today?! I was and will always be a defender of the motherland’ (SB.BS 11 May 2020).

The regime traditionally frames patriotic statements such as the one above as an expression of support for the government. In other cases, older citizens were portrayed as taking advantage of the state during the pandemic. For instance, in SB.BS (7 April 2020) the manager of a social service agency reprimands a 64-year-old man living in a village for requesting some food products delivered to him from the nearest city: ‘Then it turned out that he actually goes to work every day and even owns a car.’

The manager explains that during the pandemic social services only deliver food and medicine to older people who are self-isolating and do not have immediate family. The man from the media story, however, ‘could go to the mobile shop that comes to his village but doesn’t do it out of principle’. This case illustrates how the dominant perspective fails to acknowledge that the citizen from the report used the official COVID-19 rhetoric to insist on his ‘minimal cultural decencies’, to use Scott’s (1985: xviii) terms. He took advantage of the persistent reference to older people’s vulnerability to request the delivery of goods otherwise unavailable in rural areas.

Overall, despite an extensive media campaign promoting the role of the state in taking care of the population, many citizens from both data sets demonstrated that they did not trust the state during the global crisis. This concern motivated Belarussians en masse to take care of others, triggering unprecedented intergenerational solidarity in solving shared problems. Simultaneously, the regime ignored the self-organisation of civil society because the mutual aid networks did not voice political statements. As a result, the freedom to mobilise that Belarusians unexpectedly had during the pandemic turned into the driving force of the mass protests that followed later in 2020.

Becoming Political Subjects

Some of my interviewees shared that they supported the regime, while others avoided discussing politics during the interview. However, half of the participants in the study told me that the experience of self-organisation during the pandemic inspired Belarusians to protest in August 2020, when it was announced that Lukashenko had won the presidential election for the sixth time. Among the latter group of interviewees there were those who, like Gleb, a 65-year-old employee, attended the main protest rallies on Sundays to which citizens were invited via Telegram channels. Gleb recalls:

I cried with happiness at the sight of the endless queue of those who had come to give their signatures for opposition leaders to register as candidates. When I realised that they had fooled us again, I didn’t care about the pandemic, the illness or death. The only thing that mattered was to act to change the country. The pandemic taught us how many people wanted it.

Other interviewees, like Vera, a 65-year-old retiree, joined the ‘Pensioners’ Marches’. The idea of old-age vulnerability informed the tactics used by both the attendees of the ‘Marches’ and the state in the arena of the political struggle. Vera reminiscences that apart from demanding the release of political prisoners and a new transparent election, the ‘Pensioners’ Marches’ aimed to stop state violence by putting the group commonly associated with vulnerability right in front of the riot police: ‘When they started to detain us, it destroyed my faith in justice. I thought that was a line they’d never cross.’ This quotation illustrates both the willingness of older citizens to face the risks of the street protests and the expectation that their identity-based activism would protect them from state violence.

Butler (2016: 24) argues that political resistance relies fundamentally on the mobilisation of vulnerability, in the sense of one’s exposure to potential violence. For Butler, the agentic exposure to the possibility of harm is simultaneously the condition of resisting one’s vulnerability associated with passivity. From this perspective, to get their demands across, older activists used the double nature of vulnerability by putting themselves at risk but also testing the regime’s limits in carrying out violence.

Participating in the rallies was not the only way of contributing to the mass mobilisation featured in the interviews. Some of my interlocutors did not attend the demonstrations, but they, for example, donated money, food and medicine to support fellow citizens detained for political reasons. In 2020 alone, the number of people who went through prison for protesting exceeded 30,000 (Kapustina, 2020). Supporting dissenters in Belarus can lead to prosecution, and arrests on political grounds have continued up to the present moment (Viasna, 2023).

The courage of older activists contrasted with the notion of old-age vulnerability exploited in media reports following the election campaign: ‘Older people especially appreciate peace and quiet. This is what they are voting for’ (SB.BS 9 August 2020). The metaphor of ‘peace and quiet’ in this context refers to the stability of the regime and the dominant media narrative that frames the payments of state-guaranteed old-age pensions as Lukashenko’s personal merit.

Nevertheless, the ‘Pensioners’ Marches’ sent a message that a portion of the older generation see the situation differently. Vera, whom I quoted above, explains her reasons for protesting: ‘I’m fed up with Lukashenko. He cannot buy me by “paying my pension”. I earned my pension. I just can’t bear his lies.’

To discourage citizens from engaging in the collective action, the media repeatedly portrayed the main rallies as dangerous to protesters considered vulnerable: ‘It’s terrible that pregnant women, women with children and the elderly go [to the protests] and don’t understand that any surge of emotions can result in a stampede’ (SB.BS 8 September 2020). However, this quotation also illustrates that the full range of social groups were involved in the protests. To discredit the mass mobilisation, many reports also represented older people as victims of the protesters, who were disrupting the normal functioning of urban infrastructure and attacking those who supported the government.

Three months into the protests, the Minister of Labour and Social Protection, Irina Kostevich admitted that the previously stable notion of the social contract between the state and older citizens was no longer valid: ‘My colleagues and I find it particularly distasteful that people towards whom the state has a special attitude are being dragged into this confrontation with the authorities – pensioners and the disabled’ (SB 28 November 2020). By framing older people’s activism as orchestrated by external agents, the minister represents this group as vulnerable and lacking their own political will, but also implicitly acknowledges that the protests persisted for months, causing massive turmoil to the system.

By the end of 2020, the media were still seeking ways to discredit the participation of older citizens in the protests: ‘“The Pensioners’ Marches” don’t mean to criticise the authorities after all, it’s a cry of loneliness from those who aren’t listened to and get ignored by their children’ (SB.BS 2 December 2020). While framing the motivation of older people to join the protests in terms of psychological problems, the media implicitly acknowledged the important role played by this group in the biggest anti-authoritarian resistance in Belarusian history.