WINNERS AND LOSERS

State independence is quite an intricate thing. It’s hard to understand for population whether they benefited or lost from it. Therefore, the public opinion divided into three and not into two groups when answering to the direct question about personal benefit/loss – about a third of respondents (31.6%) found it difficult to answer this question. However, the group of winners from Belarusian independence is larger than the group of losers (38.1% vs. 29.4%). This really encourages.

Where do losers mainly live? In the opinion of our chief independence warrantor, they live in small towns. He, chief warrantor, also defined the reason. Small town residents are still prisoners of Soviet style economy. The other model, known as the Belarusian economic model, seems to have not come into their places yet.

Independent sociologists agree with such statement. Now let’s look in Table 1.

Table 1. Distribution of answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?” depending on the type of settlement, %

If we exclude town residents from the list, dependence of winners vs. losers ratio on the type of settlement won’t be that obvious. Agrarian lobby yet under Khrushchev learned to turn financial flows in the desirable direction. It is not fortuitous that the notions “food safety” and “state safety” became nearly synonyms here. Small town residents didn’t receive such intercessor though. They appeared not demanded by industry generals or agrarian colonels. Deprived of an opportunity to supplement their tiny but regular wages at state-run enterprises with incomes from homestead lands, small town residents appeared true prisoners.

Is the feeling of benefiting from independence connected with personal welfare? Yes, it is. Asked the question “How has your welfare changed over the past three months?”, winners twice more often say that that it improved (29% vs. 14.6%). Growing number of winners with growing per capita income also proves this conclusion. (See Table 2).

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?” depending on average per capita income, %

Noteworthy is a small number of respondents who found it difficult to answer among the respondents with per capita income over 540,000 BYR. Let’s look closer at this group. It is pretty small – 145 persons (9.8% of the whole sampling), and it is mainly built of male respondents – 57.2% (the part of men on the whole sampling is 45.5%). Holders of the highest incomes are men in their most active age – from 30 to 49 (59.6%). There are almost no respondents with elementary and secondary incomplete education among them. From the viewpoint of status, 75.8% of the total number of this group falls on three social clusters (10 clusters total): public sector employees – 37.6%, private sector employees – 20.7% and individual entrepreneurs – 17.5%. To compare, pensioners make only 3.8% here while their number on the entire sampling is 28%. The Belarusian rich, strange it may seem, prefer to live in regional centers (39.1%) and not in Minsk (19.1%). In small towns, the number of respondents with high incomes is much lower – 13.7%. It should be noted here that the parts of residents of this settlement types are approximately equal on the entire sampling. Thus, it is possible to say that a Belarusian citizen with a high level of income is an educated man in his middle ages working by contract or as a free-lancer and residing in a regional center. The set of these characteristics contributes to the formation of active life stand. Probably, this is why 20.5% of respondents from this group have several jobs while the general number of workaholics on the entire sampling is almost threefold lower (7%). This is exactly active life stand which showed up in a small number of those who found it difficult to answer in this group.

Winners are all workers (See Table 3). They give higher importance to the role of labor in personal wealth gaining than their colleagues-losers. Difference in answers in the variants “Dishonesty” is also obvious which is quite natural. Losers tend to relate wealth of others with dishonest ways of its gaining. All other variants didn’t reveal big difference between the three groups which is quite strange. In the first turn, this concerns the education. Division into winners andlosers depending on the level of education is fairly sharp. Thus, 51.4% of respondents with higher education placed themselves among winners and only 20.4% – among losers (See Table 5). Those who didn’t receive secondary education showed mirror-like distribution of answers: 20.1% – winners and 49.1% – losers. It is entirely possible that this is … offence of the educated for their professional demand-deficiency which put educated citizens on the same stands with uneducated in their viewpoint on the role of education in welfare achievement.

Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question: “In your opinion, what leads to wealth more often?”, %

It is not easy for most of citizens to see personal benefit in country’s independence, so they are often led by the results of the previous year to find this out. However, a considerable part of respondents (13.4%) finds it difficult to answer the question in Table 4. Winners are less of all confused with the question and they are as well the leaders among those for whom the previous year was successful.

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question: “Was the year 2006 in general successful or not for you?”, %

Dependence of division into winners and losers depending on age is obvious, especially for losers. (See Table 5). Young Belarusians simply don’t have anything to compare with. There are 6.4% of losers among them which is compensated with a record number of those who found it difficult to answer. Turning point for losersis the age group of 50-59 in which their part starts exceeding winners. What is this connected with? Are these nostalgic reminiscences of the Brezhnev time or the loss of personal resources due to the age? Apparently, both factors play their role. Memories of the Soviet past must be even brighter in the group of 40-49 year-old, so personal resources must be dominating for them.

We should like to turn to the role of education once again. There’s an exception in the above regularity: the part of winners among respondents with elementary education is unreasonably high. How can this be explained? This group is mainly built out of female respondents (61.8%) aged 60 and over (97.5%) with monthly income 180,000-270,000 BYR (59.6%) and residing in the village (52.3%). However, according to Table 5, retirement age doesn’t contribute to growth of winners. So, the group of pensioners is most likely heterogeneous. Let’s see distribution of pensioners-winners depending on the type of settlement to check this conclusion. As it was mentioned, the part of pensioners made 28% (412 persons) on the whole sampling and 122 persons out of this number placed themselves among winners. A half of pensioners-winners (49.8%) lives in the village and only 6.2% – in the capital (8.3% – in towns). Naturally, pensioners with elementary education live in the village mainly. Unlike educated city-residents of their age, they are more often satisfied with their welfare. First, living in the village is much cheaper and, second, “those on foreign cars don’t go round”.

Table 5. Distribution of answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?” depending on age, education and status, %*

* Table is read across

You’ll be surprised with the analysis of distribution depending on the status. The smallest number of winners is in the group of directors of state-run enterprises! Just like housekeepers (!), they most often find it difficult to answer this question. Answers of directors at state-owned enterprises look striking at the background of answers of their colleagues from the private sector. It is important to remember that directors of state-owned enterprises are people with higher education which normally contributes to the winner feeling.

The above surprise is important to understand the Belarusian economic model. It turns out that under total bureaucratization there’s a group of bureaucrats in Belarus that feels losers from the changes that happened in the country! Exactly this group presently plays a key role in the country’s economic development. The bread of a director has never been sweet but within the framework of the Belarusian centralized model an economic director appears absolutely powerless. Regulations from above don’t protect him/her from market competition but on the contrary tie up his/her independence.

From the material questions we should like to pass to political questions. A new surprise is coming here. It appears that losers more often support the current development course of Belarus (See Table 6). So, they more often than winners trust to the author of this course (67.1% vs. 54.2%). Of course, they pin their hopes for country’s economic development on him (58.8% vs. 46%). As regards the political parties, neither losers nor winners pin their hopes on them, even thoughwinners do this twice as often as losers (5.2% vs. 10.9%).

Table 6. Distribution of answers to the question: “Do you think the country in general is going in the right or in the wrong direction?” depending on answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?”, %

Difference between political preferences of losers and winners is the most obvious in their assessment of the Belovezhskoe Agreement. (See Table 7). Thus, forlosers this is first of all a tragic event that entailed disastrous repercussions for the country and the people. Winners three times more often take it as a victory of democratic revolution. Certainly, not all have such an opinion about the Belovezhskoe Agreement: nearly 40% of respondents on the whole sampling assume that December events of 1991 were just an episode showing struggle for power.

USSR collapse should not be considered as loss of the status of a great power. For the majority of losers (and not only for them) memories about the USSR are first of all memories about golden age when they were young and a kilo of good sausage cost 2,20 rubles, and when for reasonable money they could travel around the sixth part of mainland to see their relatives.

Table 7. Distribution of answers to the question: “What is your attitude to events of December 10, 1991?” depending on answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?”, %

For some time the Belarusian authorities actively exploited the nostalgic feeling about USSR collapse which was particularly reflected in converting to the State Symbols of Soviet times. Data in Table 8 show that the society is getting accustomed to the new (old) symbols. Difference between winners and losers is insignificant among those who approve them which is not the case among those who disapprove. Yet, in general the part of those disapproving the current State Symbols is less than 1/5 even among winners.

Table 8. Distribution of answers to the question: “What is your attitude to the current State Symbols of Belarus?” depending on answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?”, %

Unlike the State Symbols, geopolitical choice of Belarus appears a much more sensible indicator, and so the part of those who found it difficult to answer the question below is lower than in general on the sampling. (See Table 9). The winners divided into two approximately equal halves while losers split 3 to 1.

Table 9. Distribution of answers to the question: “If you had to choose between integration with Russia and accession to the EU, which one would you choose?” depending on answers to the question: “Have you personally benefited or lost from that Belarus became an independent country?”, %

These data let us make a conclusion that state independence hasn’t become a priority value for the majority of Belarusian population. We deliberately use the term population and not citizens, as we think absence of the critical mass of citizens is the greatest political problem in the country. The very existence of authoritarian regime in Belarus proves this conclusion.

In the opinion of contemporary German philosopher J. Habermas, “The nation has two faces. While the nation of citizens (product of voluntary aspiration) is a source of democratic legitimization, the nation of fellow countrymen provides social integration”. The process of nation formation is yet very far from its completion in the modern Belarus. It is more difficult now as three national projects are being implemented at one time. The first is liberal and it aims formation of citizens. The second appeals to nationals and it attempts to integrate them by revival of lost cultural values. The third project is implemented by the power. Its goal is formation of a unified community of Belarusians by consolidating them around the figure of current president “the father”.

Simultaneous implementation of the three projects finds its reflection in controversial assessments of state independence by population. This is why their assessments are often ambivalent but this shouldn’t surprise because self-contradictoriness is one of basic characteristics of public opinion in any country. It is many times strengthened in modern Belarus due to unfinished nation formation taking place in the conditions of competition of the three national projects.