EVERYBODY'S "NO" TO RUSSIAN RUBLE

A Belarusian has many appearances, as any person of any nationality has. Another matter is that any person of the given nation always has its own set of "appearances", always a unique one. Mostly the uniqueness of this set determines the "appearance" of the nation, it means characteristics which are typical only to the nation given.

The Belarusians differ from their neighbours by the level of Sovietness. In the far yet 1989 in one of the first nation public opinion polls in the limits of one country 69% of Belarusians (the matter concerns namely Belarusians) answered, they considered themselves first of all citizens of the USSR, and only than citizens of their own country. Such a level of Sovietness appeared to be at a record high among title nationalities of the Soviet Union.

Presidential elections of A. Lukashenko in 1994 resulted rather rapidly in transformation of a young Belarusian state into a distinctive diminished copy of the former Soviet Union and this event in its turn decreased the sense of nostalgia for the USSR among the Belarusians. A high rate of positive answers to the question: "Would you like to give another birth to the USSR?" (Table 1) can be explained by preserving this copy today. Pay attention to decreasing positive answers in April of 2006. It is natural: at the very peak of electoral campaign and, hence, of social payments, the nostalgia for the USSR substantially decreased. But, however, when the electoral campaign came to its end, the situation returned to its previous stage.

But devotion to the Soviet ideals comes into the surface not only when the respondents answer to the question about their attitude to the former USSR revival. "A Soviet citizen" is first of all a supporter of a strong state, in which there is no place for private business. It is evident such a man appears to be opposing entrepreneurship. It is a pity, as it can be seen in Table 2, the rate of people opposing privatization has drastically increased for the last five years. But symmetrical decrease of its supporters has not been seen. It became possible due to reduction of the rate of those who were not able to answer the question.

There is nothing surprising that in the group of those trusting Belarusian head of the state and opposing privatization people there appeared to be twice more people. However, it is worth mentioning that among those distrusting President one in three people doesn't support the idea of privatization of large state-owned enterprises. This tendency presupposes a potential possibility of a growing rate of "a Soviet citizen".

And as for using Russian investments in privatization of Belarusian enterprises there were no great distortions in the questionnaire among those trusting and those distrusting A. Lukashenko (Table 3). But the opposing Belarusian politicians should pay attention to the fact that among those distrusting A. Lukashenko the rate of respondents encouraging Russian investments for privatization is a little bit higher (+7.4 points).

To find one reason to such alike opinions of opposing to each other groups of Belarusians is, of course, impossible. On the one hand, people distrusting A. Lukashenko are mostly "market people", than those opposing them. That is why they must be for privatization. But, on the other hand, they are apt to resolve the eternal for the Belarusians dilemma "East-West" for benefit of West countries, hence, it would be natural to suppose that they should have been against Russian investments. And the people opposing them according to this scheme are anti-market and anti-West people. And this fact also doesn't help to define clearly their attitude to participating Russian investments in privatization. Besides, the opinions of those trusting A. Lukashenko mainly depend on his current statements, and this creates another difficulty analyzing opinions of his supporters.

One more nuance of Table 3: when the rate of supporters of using Russian capital remains the same the rate of those who are against this has remarkably grown for the last six years (+9.5 points). Thus the change marked came into existence not due to transition of voices from one group into another but due to polarization of public opinion.

Since the time when V. Kebich was Prime minister between Belarus and Russia the talks about transition to unified currency, as the Russian ruble must appear, have been conducted. In terms of systematic crisis of the 90-s of the last century the initiator of such unifying was Belarus. More over, public pronouncements on this occasion gave at that time large dividends. But since then much time has passed, and today Russia proposes its stabilized ruble to its partners in the countries of the former Soviet Union, yet in vain.

Ordinary citizens of Belarus only ought to observe the struggle and opportunely change their opinions in accordance with the latest official directions. This is done better, and this is quite natural, by those trusting A. Lukashenko (Table 4). But the general tendency is impressive. The number of those opposing Russian ruble has increased by two times for the last eight years, and this can be an illustration of effectiveness of the motto "For Belarus!"

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