Back to the USSR?

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As a presidential candidate, Alexander Lukashenko was not what one would call timid. A dark horse with little experience in domestic or international politics, the former collective-farm boss launched his bid for the presidency of Belarus by pledging that his first official act, if elected, would be to throw the Prime Minister in jail. Then he promised to ban private property, purge the government and squelch free enterprise. Finally, in a televised debate, he named Felix Dzerzhinsky, the ghoulish founder of the Soviet secret police, one of his most admired heroes.

Lukashenko's temerity paid off handsomely. Last week he swept up a smashing 80% of the vote to become the first elected President of this Kansas-size country sandwiched between Poland and Russia. Key to his victory was a program of reform that would have been unthinkable three years ago, when Belarus was sprinting off in the direction of independence. Instead of turning his back on Moscow, as most in the former Soviet Union did in 1991, Lukashenko proposed that salvation lay in closer links with Russia.

His win, along with that of Leonid Kuchma in neighboring Ukraine, was a measure of the deep disillusionment bedeviling many of the 15 republics that used to make up the U.S.S.R. Since the giddy days of 1991, when the republics scattered like schoolchildren at recess, independent life in what Russians call the "near abroad" has proved tougher than anticipated. Euphoria has slowly been replaced by disgust at the hardships of post-Soviet life: ethnic strife, political instability and government corruption. In the face of these problems, incompetent nationalist leaders, while touting the trappings of independence, have failed to deliver on essentials, such as economic prosperity and domestic tranquillity. The West, to which many of these new nations optimistically looked for salvation, has been both parsimonious and sanctimonious -- long-winded on advice about the ABC's of capitalism, short on change when it came to providing financial support. The disenchantment has altered the national demeanor of these prodigal states. After taking a new look at their Soviet past, some have tempered their defiance and long for the ! economic stability -- though not the Russification and political repression -- of U.S.S.R. days. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of new thinking about the old union came last week, when voters in both Belarus and Ukraine tossed out those who had led them after independence and replaced them with men who promise deliverance from economic chaos through closer ties with Russia.

Such offers were bound to strike a chord in Belarus, a country suffering from 500% inflation, whose national currency, adorned with the image of a hare, is derisively referred to as the "bunny rabbit." Says Moscow economist Stanislav Zhukov: "The Belarussian economy is so unreformed, it has nowhere to go. It continues to produce goods that are so bad that even Russians don't want them."

Lukashenko, with a Reaganesque promise of "simple answers to complicated questions," asked Belarussians whether they could possibly imagine being worse off than they are today. When crowds answered him with the inevitable no, the flamboyant populist declared, "Without Russia's help, we don't have a way out of the current crisis. Ruptured economic relations between the former Soviet republics must be restored."