Pavel Usau: Opposition needs to work at factories and plants

Euroradio: What is your attitude to the idea and realization of the People's Assembly?

Pavel Usau: It was a very good idea - to organize an assembly like this, in the first place, to show to the authorities that there is a rather big group of people dissatisfied with the policy implemented by the Belarusian regime, but this good idea was put into practice very poorly. Too few people participated in the assembly and the set aims were not fulfilled. I think that first of all the reason for that was that the assembly was not organized right when the economic and social shocks in the society had just started - after devaluation and price increase. The organizers postponed the assembly till autumn, and this facilitated the fact that people simply got used to the complicated situation, and realized that they would not manage to change anything, neither by demonstrations nor by assemblies. The society was the most active in summer. However, people did not feel that they change anything by their actions so the activity decreased. Even those who participated in the People's Assembly were not sure that their participation might cause any change. Moreover, the People's Assembly was organized by the same people who used to organize other unsuccessful events in the past. People do not trust opposition leaders, therefore we should not expect that other actions organized by the opposition will have any sense.

Euroradio: Besides, the organizers do not consider this action a failure, and appointed its resume on November 12. Will this resume make any sense?

Pavel Usau: The problem is that representatives of the opposition never recognized their mistakes. If we speak about achievement of some aims, this action was an absolute failure. The opposition just managed to demonstrate that it still existed and that there were people who come to their actions. There will be nothing on November 12. It would be good if they collect as many people as on October 8. However, people will not participate in the actions which have no results, they just see no point in it. We saw this at the example of "silent action" - people stopped participating thereof as they saw no changes. The opposition needs to work with working collectives, at factories and plants, to try to create solidarity committees there and to urge for strikes, not to expect people to come out to the streets on their own. To gather at Bangalore - far from central streets - is the same as to gather somewhere in the woods.