Monthly Archive: October 2014

In IISEPS publications on the results of June survey the role of propaganda in relation to Belarusians’ attitude to events in Ukraine was already analyzed: “There is a hypothesis about the almighty propaganda. According to it Belarusians’ evaluations of Ukrainian crisis are defined only by this propaganda. This hypothesis is true only partially. Indeed, the level of support of Russian position is significantly higher among those who regularly watch Russian TV.

Threat of separatism in Belarus doesn’t seem currently important. Over all the years of independence there was only one faint resemblance not even to separatism, but to protoautonomism – movement “Polisse”. This movement quickly came (and was brought) to nought amid harshly negative attitude of all Belarusian political elite of that time. Moreover, we may add that ethnically Belarus is rather homogenous; there are no regions with high shares of representative of non-title ethnos.

One of the most cited results of the previous survey conducted in June became the answers to the question “If Russia annexed Belarus or its part, what would you do?” 14.2% of respondents answered that they would resist up in arms, 47.7% of respondents would try to adapt to new situation and 16.5% of respondents would even greet such changes.
In light of events in the East of Ukraine these figures are not very inspiring. These events weren’t over in September, when this question was asked in a slightly different form (Table 1).

(Русский) Тот факт, что все стороны конфликта в Украине избрали Беларусь площадкой для переговоров – это, кроме всего прочего, признание политических талантов белорусского президента. В этой сложной и опасной ситуации он сумел (по крайней мере, пока) сохранить добрые отношения едва ли не со всеми прямыми и косвенными участниками конфликта.

As it was repeatedly noted in IISEPS works, Belarusian society in its majority supported Russian position both on the annexation of Crimea and on the armed protests in Donbass. September survey showed that answers of Belarusians on according questions almost haven’t changed over the quarter. Nevertheless, that doesn’t testify that Belarusians are ready to personally support the cause in Ukraine they consider right. At the same time events in Ukraine significantly influenced geopolitical priorities of Belarusians. Although – all in due time.
Let’s begin with the evaluations of events in Ukraine in March-September 2014 (Tables 1-5).

Trust rating of oppositional parties froze on a minimal level amid the increase of A. Lukashenko’s ratings (Table 1). It has lost 5.9 points since December 2013. And it seems logic. Amid stormy political events in and around Ukraine the inability of oppositional parties and their leaders to make news, interesting for public opinion, became especially evident.

There was a hitch with Belarusian state ideology. And what an amazing start there was in March 2003. Let us cite the Report, made at the seminar on ideological work: “Ideology for a state is the same thing as immune system for a living organism. If immunity weakens, any infection, even the most insignificant, will become mortal. This is also valid for a state: when ideological basis of a society is destroyed, its downfall becomes only a question of time, no matter how strong and threatening may the state appear from the outside”.

“Everything’s not so bad, it’s possible to live”. This viewpoint on the current situation in the country is shared by a little bit more than one third of Belarusians (Table 1). This is by 6.9 points more than in September 2013 and in 2.2 times more in comparison with December 2011.

According to John Galbraith, an American economist, there are three main ways of forcing people to do something: ideal and material rewards and punishment. There are no societies where one of these ways would be absent. But their ratio in different societies may vary in wide ranges. In particular, societies, which pay greater attention to punishment, are called repressive. In the modern world they are opposed to merit-based societies.