Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader who challenged Lukashenko in 2020 after her husband was imprisoned, compares this period to the years when Poland’s Solidarity movement operated underground. Solidarity had survived nearly a decade underground; the communist regime had divided, and negotiations were opening the way to partially free elections. The moment the regime splitWhat is particularly fascinating about Poland’s transition is that Solidarity entered 1989 weaker than it had been in 1981. The decisive development came inside the communist regime, where economic collapse produced a political split. Belarus found its own Solidarity moment in 2020.