aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] PUBLIC OPINION, UNIONS, AND NATIONALISM IN THE THREE EASTERNSLAVIC STATES


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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 172, Part II, 12 September 2002


END NOTE

PUBLIC OPINION, UNIONS, AND NATIONALISM IN THE THREE EASTERN SLAVIC
STATES

By Taras Kuzio

    The public disagreement in recent months over the future of
the Belarus-Russia Union gives rise to two questions. First, what
value do opinion polls and public sentiment have in the three eastern
Slavic states of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus on issues such as
unions with neighboring states if those expressions of popular
preference have little relationship to the realm of the possible and
elites are unwilling to implement them? Second, how can new unions be
formed when all three eastern Slavic states understand their
relationship to one another differently?
    Since the disintegration of the USSR in December 1991, there
have been countless opinion polls conducted by Belarusian and
Ukrainian organizations as well as Western governments and
institutions that deal with foreign-policy preferences. These polls
invariably register strong support in all three eastern Slavic
countries for some form of union. In Russia and Belarus this support
is evenly distributed throughout the population, while in Ukraine it
is confined to its eastern regions.
    But, can these sentiments be translated into policy? The gap
between the common people and the elites that dates back to the USSR
has grown, rather than shrunk, in the post-Soviet era. Ruling elites
still feel they have the sole right to control issues of "national
security" (i.e., foreign policy, the military, control over the
security forces). In all three countries the militaries, which are
mainly geared toward dealing with external threats, have been
downsized, while internal-security forces have grown
disproportionately.
    These internal security forces are under the control of the
executive and their focus is on dealing with internal "threats," such
as that emanating from citizens who might wish to increase their
level of political influence. Internal "threats" are seen as more
threatening than external ones, despite all the rhetoric about a
Western and NATO threat to Belarus and Russia or a Russian threat to
Ukraine. 
    The ruling elites in the three eastern Slavic states take
little heed of domestic opinion on most matters, especially on
foreign policy. The local population understands this perfectly well.
Opinion polls indicate low levels of perceived political
effectiveness, and declining participation in civil society (e.g.,
membership in NGOs, parties, demonstrations, etc.,) throughout the
1990s. 
    What use then do opinion polls have in determining state
policies, particularly in areas of "national security?" It would seem
very little. Russian, Ukrainian, or -- as we now see -- even
Belarusian elites are not going to implement the policies that
logically follow from their citizens' preferences as reflected in
opinion polls. 
    Second, the growing dispute between Belarus and Russia over
their union project, launched in 1996, has failed to resolve the
dilemma of what kind of union is to be created. Russia's view of its
ideal relationships with Belarus and Ukraine differs considerably
from its view of its optimum relationships with other former Soviet
states. Belarus and Ukraine are not "foreign" in Russian eyes, but
temporarily separated regions of one spiritual-cultural space within
which Russia is the "elder brother" and the Russian language the
language of modernity and culture, in contrast to the Belarusian and
Ukrainian languages, which Russians consider remnants of the village
and the past. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been
willing to go along with this conception, thereby reinforcing the
Russian view of Belarusians as essentially the same people. In
addition, Belarus and Russia have adopted variations of the Soviet
Belarusian and Soviet anthems, respectively.
    Eleven years of defending Ukrainian sovereignty vis-a-vis
Russia and the outside world have forced Russians to begrudgingly
realize that Ukraine is different from Belarus. This is something
Putin has understood, and he has adopted different policies toward
Ukraine. The only political forces in Ukraine that have supported a
union with Russia and Belarus are on the extreme left (the
Communists, Progressive Socialists, Slavic Unity, etc.,). No member
of any centrist political group in Ukraine, which are President
Leonid Kuchma's main support base, supports Ukraine's membership of
the Russia-Belarus Union.
    The reasons for these conflicting views of what kind of
"union" is to be built are to be found in Soviet nationalities
policies that helped entrench among non-Russians a twin allegiance to
their republics and to the USSR. Belarus and Ukraine were unique
among the former non-Russian republics in that they even had United
Nations representations and small foreign ministries. Russia was
different. It had no republican institutions until 1990 and Russians
therefore identified with the USSR as their "homeland," not the
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
    Prior to 1917, Russia did not have a developed sense of
national identity nurtured within an independent nation-state, and
the blurring of Russian-Soviet identity therefore added to an overall
confused identity, particularly toward the eastern Slavs. In
contrast, Serbia had a nation-state throughout most of the 19th
century and republican institutions within Yugoslavia. Some Western
scholars have therefore characterized Russian ethnic nationalism as
"weak," as seen in the lack of Russian diaspora mobilization, unlike
Serbian nationalism in Yugoslavia.
    The Russian understanding of a union with Belarus and Ukraine
is closer to the tsarist view of Belarusians and Ukrainians being
"Russians" who should simply be absorbed into Russia. But to
Belarusian and Ukrainian elites, including those on the extreme left,
such a proposal is worse than the policy of sblizhenie (drawing
together) that was the cornerstone of Soviet nationality policy
during the final years of the USSR.
    Allegiance to their Soviet republican territory and borders
is strongly entrenched among the Belarusian and Ukrainian elites and
public. Separatist movements have been nonexistent or weak and pure
Russian nationalist groups have never been able to obtain public
support in Belarus or Ukraine. In Ukraine, Russian nationalist groups
did not obtain more than 2 percent of the vote in the 1998 and 2002
elections. 
    In answer to Putin's referendum proposals on a merger of
Belarus and Russia, Lukashenka has ruled out any steps that would
"liquidate" Belarus as a country, even though opinion polls in both
states support such a step. Lukashenka's views on the ideal union are
similar to those of the extreme left in Ukraine; that is, a new
confederal USSR where republics would enjoy more sovereignty than in
the former Soviet Union. But this is not what Putin has in mind.
Lukashenka's defense of his country's sovereignty vis-a-vis Russia
and domestic supporters of Putin's proposals is consequently making
him sound increasingly like his nationalist opponents.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Centre for Russian and
East European Studies and adjunct staff in the Department of
Political Science, University of Toronto.





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