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DO THE PEOPLE WANT BELARUSIAN-RUSSIAN INTEGRATION?

The poll was staged when the Russian economic crisis was in full swing, which yielded interesting results on its influence on the Belarusians’ opinions of the Russian-Belarusian union and Russia itself. The respondents were asked to compare living standards in Belarus with those in the neighboring countries. The same question was asked during the 1996 poll, which lets us see a number of trends (see Table 1).

Table 1. Distribution of answers on living standards in the neighboring countries, %

Variant of answer

Living standards

higher than in Belarus

the same as in Belarus

lower than in Belarus

1996

1998

1996

1998

1996

1998

Latvia

83.5

74.8

9.8

15.0

1.6

4.2

Lithuania

79.5

74.1

12.3

15.5

2.8

4.2

Poland

85.8

81.5

8.7

11.3

1.8

1.8

Russia

67.4

21.9

26.5

35.4

2.7

37.8

Ukraine

14.5

8.2

33.7

31.0

47.6

55.6

As seen from the table, over the last two years the Belarusian people have lost many of their illusions, concerning the life in neighboring countries. However, at the moment three out of four Belarusians still believe that life in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland is far better than in Belarus. The respondents have rated living standards in the Ukraine as low, both in 1996 and 1998. However, there has been a major change in the estimates of living standards in Russia: the proportion of those, who think that they are higher than in Belarus shrank threefold, while the number of those who said that life in the Russian Federation is harder than in Belarus grew 16 times. Such change can be viewed as a trend in popular beliefs, which affects the Belarusians’ other ideas of their eastern neighbor.

For the first time in the last few years of polling, more than half of respondents think Belarus and Russia should maintain their relations as two independent states. A notable fact is that since the time of the last poll (December 1997), the share of people, who think so has increased almost 1.5 times (from 34.5% to 50.8%). That is also a reaction to the Russian crisis, which indicates that the people’s hopes did not come true.

The distribution of answers to the question about the effect of the Russian-Belarusian union on the population of Belarus provide another valuable indicator to sociologists, covering the whole spectrum of arguments which can be heard in integration disputes (see Table 2).

Table 2. Answers on the results of integration with Russia

Easier travel to Russia was the most popular answer. Easier trade was mentioned a little more seldomly. This answer could be more popular, but at that time Belarusian law enforcers activated their efforts in fighting unauthorized trade with Belarus’ eastern neighbor, having been instructed by the president to do so.

According to almost a quarter of respondents, the union created a jeopardy for Belarusians to participate in armed conflicts in Russia’s “hot spots”. However, such gloomy perspectives trouble many more Belarusians, than their answers to the question about a preferred model of Belarus’ future development could indirectly suggest. 60.8% of respondents said that Belarus must be an independent neutral state. So, although many more people want a military union with Russia than Belarus’ membership in NATO (19.8% and 11.6% respectively), the majority still wouldn’t like to see their country as a member in Europe’s two major power centers, be it NATO or Russia.

So, according to the results of the poll, the economic crisis and political havoc in the Russian Federation cause growing scepticism over Russian-Belarusian integration in this country.