A Belarusian woman complained on Threads that her child’s school is pressing hard for membership in BRSM, the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, and scaring them that otherwise the child will not get into any college. She has already been called in to see the principal for refusing. Zerkalo reported it on 29 September. By 4 October the post had about two hundred and fifty comments.

“Belarus. What is this BRSM joke? Why is the school pushing so hard to join this organization, scaring us that the child will not get into a single college? Is it like this for everyone?” wrote a user named Olga. The post is here. In a comment she added that when she herself studied in Baranavichy, this was calm. Now she is being called to the principal. She did not name the school where it is happening now.

What the comments said

Many people recognized their own school and their own university. Some remembered the same scare from fifteen years ago: “you won’t get in without BRSM” and “they won’t hire you.” A graduate of 2009 wrote that the most effective line then was different: if you are a couple of points short, “BRSM will help.” He called it a lie. In one account, on the third year of university four people out of fifty raised their hands. The next day an ideology officer shouted that without a card they would get neither a university place nor a job. After that, four more people signed up.

There was also a story of being enrolled without knowing it. The person refused to join, the only one in the group. Five years later, collecting a diploma, he found out he had been a member after all: he thinks the group leader filled in the form. For five years, 10 rubles of dues were taken from an 80-ruble stipend. Those are his words, not an audit.

Others wrote that refusing changed nothing. One commenter’s son got into a college last year without BRSM. There is no pressure at the college. The school insisted, but it is voluntary. A woman who was also scared at school never joined, and she got in. “It did not get in the way of my life.” Another mother told Salidarnasts that three of her children are at university and one is at college, none of them joined the union, and there were no problems with admission.

“Burning eyes”

The Homiel district committee of BRSM came into the thread. They wrote that young people come back from their events with pleasure, and that the union offers volunteering, student work crews, international projects and journalism. “We know hundreds of thousands of kids whose eyes burn with ideas and with the wish to show what they can do, to be useful to their country, and BRSM’s job is to support them in that.”

Olga answered: if it is as bright as you describe, why do people higher up not simply invite others to join, instead of forcing them and scaring them. In Zerkalo’s piece, the exchange ends there.

By law it is voluntary

BRSM is the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, a pro-government organization. Joining a public association is voluntary by law. That is article 4 of the law on public associations. Under 16, a parent’s consent is required. Without it a child cannot be signed up as a member. Zerkalo has already gone through this rule in another school case, citing the BRSM charter and lawyer Olga Smolyanko.

The threat “you will not get into a single college” is not in the admission rules. Commenters suggested opening dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s decree of 27 January 2022, No. 23, on admission to universities and colleges. They write that BRSM membership is not among the conditions for admission. The scare rests on a talk in the principal’s office, and on the school’s need for bodies at pro-government events. One comment under the post put it plainly: attendance is compulsory for BRSM members, and the organization needs a crowd.