It was stunningly effective. I made a meme of it myself showing the comparison between European countries to mock all the liberals who said it was going to fail. (Edit I can’t post the meme since it’s too large but basically if you take a look at “post-Covid” inflation stats on European countries, Belarus in the post-Covid period was quite literally the best performer in terms of inflation control out of all of Europe beating out much richer countries like the UK or Sweden).
No inflation did not drop to literally 0% and contrary to popular belief it was not an absolute ban on inflation altogether, but Lukashenko and the Belarus state reintroduced price controls and are actually now in the process of constructing a computer network so that in the future the state can automatically manage and keep track of all prices across the economy although the official press release notifying people of that was recently deleted so they’re probably keeping quiet about it until it launches lol or are just keeping silent forever and will delegate enforcement agencies to handle it with this new tool in the future.
Some things to note:
Commanding heights of Belarusian economy are still nationalized
Agriculture is still majority collectivized
Belarusian police and investigative agencies are non-corrupt and highly efficient at holding private traders/capitalists to account (the security forces were initially Soviet loyalists and thus formed one of the earliest pillars of support for Lukashenko’s presidency and have continued to be one of the most reliable segments of Belarusian society to stand against privatization and liberal influences - can talk more about this another time if you’re interested)
Belarus is food self-sufficient and a major exporter of food
All of these facts combined meant that Lukashenko and the Belarusian state could easily step in and force compliance across society to combat an inflationary episode when so many economic and enforcement levers were already in the hands of the state.
But as a result of Belarus’s unique conditions, it’s probably also true that this policy would not be able to be replicated in non-socialist countries and would just generate shortages in accordance with the typical neoliberal talking point if undertaken in a typical bourgeois country.
It was stunningly effective. I made a meme of it myself showing the comparison between European countries to mock all the liberals who said it was going to fail. (Edit I can’t post the meme since it’s too large but basically if you take a look at “post-Covid” inflation stats on European countries, Belarus in the post-Covid period was quite literally the best performer in terms of inflation control out of all of Europe beating out much richer countries like the UK or Sweden).
No inflation did not drop to literally 0% and contrary to popular belief it was not an absolute ban on inflation altogether, but Lukashenko and the Belarus state reintroduced price controls and are actually now in the process of constructing a computer network so that in the future the state can automatically manage and keep track of all prices across the economy although the official press release notifying people of that was recently deleted so they’re probably keeping quiet about it until it launches lol or are just keeping silent forever and will delegate enforcement agencies to handle it with this new tool in the future.
Some things to note:
All of these facts combined meant that Lukashenko and the Belarusian state could easily step in and force compliance across society to combat an inflationary episode when so many economic and enforcement levers were already in the hands of the state.
But as a result of Belarus’s unique conditions, it’s probably also true that this policy would not be able to be replicated in non-socialist countries and would just generate shortages in accordance with the typical neoliberal talking point if undertaken in a typical bourgeois country.