Introduction

Belarus sought ways to get rid of its independence ever since it was thrusted on the country after the collapse of the USSR. Within two years after the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the newly emerged country joined a military alliance of former Soviet republics known as a Collective Security Treaty, and signed an agreement on re-creation of a monetary union. With the election of Alexander Lukashenko as President of Belarus in 1994, re-creation of a political union of post-Soviet states, primarily with Russia, has become the main goal of the Belarusian foreign policy. In April 1996, presidents Lukashenko and Yeltsin signed a treaty to establish a community of two countries, which was followed by inauguruation of the Union of Belarus and Russia one year later. Finally, in December 1999, the Treaty of the Formation of a Union State of Belarus and Russia was signed. In addition, Lukashenko has established a system of personalist authocracy in Belarus.
Belarus’s post-Soviet politics left few observers surprised. Their motives pointed to the economic and geopolitical factors, which made the status of Belarus as a separate country unfeasible. These included a high degree of economic and military integration between Belarus and Russia, and Belarus’s dependence on Russian energy supplies and on Russian domestic market for sale of Belarusian obsolete industrial products. Soviet legacy arguments explored the impact of the totalitarian past on the political culture of the Belarusian society and its political elite that prevented the country from chosing independence and democracy after the collapse of Communism. Cultural reasons included the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic proximity of the Belarusian and Russian nations, cemented by the extensive russification of Belarus; absence of a strong nationalist movement and pro-independence sentiments in Belarus; and the mutual lack of negative historical memories in both societies. As Samuel Huntington said, “Belarus is a part of Russia in anything but the name.”^[1] The Belarus’s post-Soviet political pathway can be explained by the lack of national identity. The absence of nationalism prevented formation of an active civil society and created a nurturing ground for a sultanistic regime that was based on unrestricted personal leadership and was deprived of legitimacy, and therefore had to be supported by a dominant power.^[2]Hence, what some observers described as Lukashenko’s ‘double project’ of concentrating authority at home and simultaneously surrendering it to Russia,^[3]becomes absolutely logical and coherent.
The above-mentioned interpretations, however, leave two questions unanswered. First, why, in spite of almost a decade-long effort on both Belarusian and Russian sides, their integration resulted in a mostly ceremonial union that fell short of relinquishing Belarusian sovereignty? Second, why Lukashenko, the main protagonist of the integration, was increasingly portraying himself as a state- and nation-builder and claimed the construction of the Belarusian statehood to be the major achievement of his presidency:
History decided that our generation of Belarusians was to lay the modern foundations of our statehood. Today, the question, “who are you?” will not be answered by the dumb “We are the locals.” The proud response will be “We are the Belarusians.” Regardless of all the discussions and differences in opinions, it is evident that Belarus is sovereign. And no matter what some irresponsible politicians would say, we are not going to sell our sovereignty to either West or East.^[4]
The major goal of this article is to explain the Belarus-Russia integration as an extension of President Lukashenko’s strategy of accumulating power outside the borders of his state. The political and economic relations between Belarus and Russia were crafted by Lukashenko as an integral part of his singular project of establishing a system of unlimited authority at home and providing it with a life support mechanism from abroad. Lukashenko’s ability to influence the conditions of the Belarus-Russia rapprochement enabled him to secure the support of the Russian political and economic elites in his domestic power struggle; to obtain important economic concessions from Russia that contributed to a relative success of his economic policy experiments and allowed him to maintain a substantial degree of domestic tranquility and public compliance with his rule; to minimize the consequences of the international isolation imposed on Belarus with the re-establishment of the authoritarian system; and, finally, to establish himself, for at least a short time, as a player on the Russian political scene. Lukashenko’s project, however, could be implemented only in the framework of a confederal state. Since confederation was the least acceptable option for Russia’s political elite, Lukashenko ended up restraining the process of Russia-Belarus merger. He legitimized the simultaneous advocacy of unification and independence by appealing to the most widespread public stereotypes and myths inherited from the Soviet era. One may conclude that Lukashenko managed to legitimize his rule by constantly calling to the mentality of the society, where “a complex coalition of forces, interests, political traditions, and institutions… required the rulers to use the minimum common denominator of the coalition as symbolic referent. This way, the rulers achieved the neutralization of a maximum of potential opponents...”^[5] Soviet ideology appeared to be this suitable ‘minimum common denominator’ that gave legitimacy to Lukashenko’s politics.
Finally, I affirm that the process and its outcome were highly dependent upon synergy between Belarus and Russia’s domestic and foreign policies. It lacked often enough to prohibit the merger, prolong the existence of Belarus as a sovereign state, and open a new opportunity for its political and national re-definition.

Belarus-Russia relations: first years since collapse of the USSR

Although the political change that swept the Soviet Union with the advance of perestroika was firmly resisted by the Belarusian Communist elite, and pro-independence sentiments did not gain a substantial ground in the Belarusian society,^[6], the collapse of the party state and the disintegration of the USSR could not have helped making a lasting impact on this former Soviet republic.Proclaiming the Republic of Belarus’s state sovereignty in July 1990 and its independence in August 1991 determined the status of the country as a neutral state. Belarusian was established as the only official language, and the white-red-and-white flag and the ‘pursuit’ coat of arms – the symbols of the Belarusian national movement of early 20^[7] century – were made official state insignia. The state-sponsored politics of promoting the Belarusian language in 1991-94 considerably advanced belarusization of the educational, cultural, and administrative spheres.
Collapse of the Communist party, however, brought only nominal changes in the distribution of power in Belarus – former party apparatchicks were transfered from party cabinets to the offices of the executive branch. The pace of political and economic reforms was painfully slow, as the nomenclatura began to seek the new union with Russia as the reform substitute, hoping that preservation of the ‘ruble zone’ and a continuous supply of Russian oil and gas at the Russian internal market price would salvage the still-existing command economy (and the political fortunes of the ruling elite alongside it). Lacking both a commitment to state building and strong political ambitions other than maintaining the status quo, the government was prepared to pay the political price for financial concessions. As early as September 1992, Prime Minister Viacheslav Kebich signed an agreement on military co-operation with Russia that extended the stay of Russian troops in Belarus until 2000. In March 1993, the Belarus government decided to relinquish the neutral status of Belarus and joined the CIS Collective Security Treaty as a condition to continue receiving Russian supplies of cheap fuel. In September 1993, Kebich signed a preliminary agreement on establishing a monetary union with Russia.^[8]It soon became clear that Kebich hoped to use the monetary integration as a trump card in the upcoming presidential race. Remarkably, it was after President Yeltsin confirmed the commitment to the monetary union in January 1994 when Kebich finally gave his concent to call presidential elections.
The presidential campaign scheduled for June 1994 was conceived by Kebich as a blitzkrieg. There were two problems with this seemingly perfect plan, however. First, the Russian leadership lacked a credible commitment to settle the union within weeks. The second problem was with Lukashenko, whose campaign picked up at a staggering speed. Lukashenko neutralized Kebich’s seemingly sound election strategy by switching the public attention from the Russia-Belarus monetary issues to corruption charges against top state officials. Lukashenko declared that the monetary union treaty signed by Kebich was against Belarus’s interests and promised monetary unification based on the ‘one currency – two national banks’ formula. Lukashenko’s own election platform promises would later dominate his integration rhetoric. He supported restoration of the USSR and integration with Russia, at the same time arguing in favor of full sovereignty and independence of Belarus.
Lukashenko’s resounding victory was accepted in the Kremlin with some reluctance, as the politician had already acquired an image of a maverick and an unpredictable outsider. Russia’s top government officials declared that their support for the monetary union was conditioned by the election of Kebich as President of Belarus only after the vote. A future standard-bearer of the integration thus started his presidential career with an effective torpedoing of his first meaningful achievement.

Marriage of convenience: pursuit of political re-union under Lukashenko

The winter of 1994-95 brought forward a crucial test of the credibility of Lukashenko’s leadership. The continuing economic decline undermined his popularity, and his approval ratings dropped by more than a half. In this context, Lukashenko turned for political, economic, and symbolic support to Russia. After more than six months of limbo, integration with Russia and restoration of the Union of former Soviet Republics re-emerged as a dominant issue on the Belarusian political scene. On February 2, 1995, Lukashenko informed the session of the Veteran’s Union about his intention to present the following issues on the nationwide referendum:

• Introduction of Russian as the second official language of Belarus;
• Re-introduction of Soviet-style coat of arms and flag as official symbols of Belarus;
• Approval of the President’s politics aimed at economic integration with the Russian Federation.

The approval of these proposals at the May 14, 1995 referendum demonstrated the shallowness of the Belarusian national renewal of the early 1990s. As nationalism proved to be weak to fill the ideological vacuum, the restoration of a customary worldview proved to be an efficient political maneuver. It did not only help to strengthen Lukashenko’s domestic legitimacy as a guardian of the political tradition that appealed to a large section of the population, but also unwound the propaganda bandwagon that helped prevent the election of a single nationalist candidate to the new Parliament.
Meanwhile, in February 1995 Lukashenko signed a Friendship and Co-operation Treaty with Russia. According to its provisions, Russia would retain its military presence in Belarus until 2010 and would secure free of charge use of the air defense facilities. The two countries established a customs union: the Northwestern frontier of Belarus was to be de-facto transferred to the military and customs border of the Russian Federation, as joint border patrols and custom offices were to be set. Belarus offered Russia a corridor to the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, while it abstained from levying fees on the transit of Russian goods, oil, and gas through its territory. In exchange, Belarus was assured of a continued delivery of discounted raw materials and was offered unlimited access to the Russian market. The treaty established Russia’s dominance in the military and security spheres, and gave way to the talks about a loss of sovereignty and an eventual incorporation of Belarus as a region into the Russian Federation.
While Lukashenko’s flirtation with Soviet political memories and symbols transformed him into an icon of Communist and nationalist opposition in Russia, his generous concessions in the political, economic, and military fields won him an across-the-board political support of the Russian elite. The only exception was two liberal parties, Gaidar’s Democratic Choice and Yavlinsky’s Yabloko, which, in their own words, opposed “the Union with Lukashenko” but still did not dare to voice the rejection of the idea of the Russia-Belarus union per se. The break-up of the USSR immensely traumatized the Russian society and its elite that had to redefine the political and civilizational identity of their country that was facing an irreversible weakening of a former superpower and a territorial contraction to the borders of the 17^[9] century pre-imperial Russia. The political instability and economic upheaval in the Russian political arena nurtured ultranationalist and Communist forces that scored victories in, respectively, the 1993 and 1995 parliamentary elections. Restoration of Russian Empire and rebuilding of Russia’s political and military dominance over the former Soviet republics returned as dominant topics into the mainstream political discourse. Anti-Western sentiments increased when the “romantic” period in the Russia’s relations with the West was cut short by the invasion into Chechnya and the growth of NATO that was set to proceed against Russia’s objectives. The country’s elite and general public grew sympathetic to the old-new geopolitical concepts of panslavism, Eurasianism, and “counter-alliance’ of Russian and Asian powers in the opposition to the expansion of the Western influence. And while re-integration of former Soviet states proved to be impossible, the availability of Belarus to build a quick and tangible political, economic, and military union gave the elites a chance to prove feasibility of the restorationist project to the domestic audience. In the rhetoric of most ardent protagonists, the Russia-Belarus union was presented as a potential bulwark against globalization and worldwide expansion of the Western political, economic, and cultural hegemony.
Lukashenko masterfully utilized these moods to his advantage. He scored enormous political success after a productive visit to Russia in March 1996, where a principal agreement to establish a Community of Russia and Belarus was paid for by Russia’s decision to write off approximately $1 billion of Belarus’s debt. The move was applauded by the Belarusian public, and Lukashenko’s approval ratings went to unreachable heights. The agreement also boosted Yeltsin’s re-election challenge engagement, as he was now capable of repudiating the opposition’s attacks on his weak leadership and his insufficient attention to Russian national interests. Yeltsin was given new legitimacy as Russia’s leader, as his sense of guilt that had developed due to his approval of Belavezha agreements was partly compensated for. His visit to the Brest Fortress on June 22, 1996 (just a few days before the runoff in the 1996 elections), the day of the 55^[10] anniversary of the beginning of World War II in the former USSR was particualrly symbolic in this regard.
When Lukashenko scheduled a constitutional referendum for November 24, 1996 (the new version of the Constitution de-facto established a regime of personal presidential authority), he again put his bet on the rising anti-Western sentiments among the Russian public and political elite. Those reached the highest point after NATO expanded eastward despite Russia’s objections. Lukashenko once again provided crucial guarantees for securing Russia’s geopolitical interests in Belarus. He backed the construction of the new Yamal-Western Europe gas pipeline by Gazprom and supported stationing of Russian troups in Belarus. On its part, Russia’s leadership demonstrated the superiority of pragmatism over ideology in dealing with Lukashenko. A group of Russian top officials successfully intervened into the standoff between Lukashenko and the Supreme Council of Belarus to prevent his impeachment and continue the referendum. A period of “bitter cordiality” had to follow, when Russia, still claiming to be democratic to the outside world, covered authoritarian Belarus on the international arena. Lukashenko, still despised by most of Yeltsin’s inner circle, had to be honored by Russia’s elite.

Life support for isolated autocracy: the political economy of the Russia-Belarus union

It cannot be denied that economic integration with Russia contributed to revitalization of Belarusian economy and provided a valuable alternative in the aftermath of the international isolation in which the country fell after the November 1996 referendum. Even the half-hearted economic reforms of 1990-1995 brought forth a significant re-orientation of Belarus’s economic connections that were almost equally distributed between Russia and ‘far abroad’ by 1995. Since them, Russia quickly re-established its role as Belarus’s dominant economic partner.

Table 1. Belarus’ main trading partners, 1999-2000

<img src=http://abimperio.net/pics/siltab1.jpg>

Source: Economist Intelligence Unit

Trading economic concessions from Moscow in exchange to the concessions in the military and political fields, became a part of the Belarusian President’s strategy to consolidate his personal rule. Subsidization of the Belarusian economy enabled ‘a Belarusian economic miracle’ – a period of a rapid growth of the Belarusian economy in the late 1990s. This made possible a certain form of implicit social contract between Lukashenko and the public – an exchange of patience for state guarantees of employment and income, even if it was no more than covering basic survival needs.^[11] In exchange for forming the Union, Belarus received unlimited access to the Russian market and maintained the opportunity to purchase oil and gas at the price normally offered to Russian consumers. The custom union between the two states placed Belarus in control of most of Russian exports and imports to the West, as they crossed Belarusian border. Belarusian authorities collected custom duties on the Russian imports. Although a part of the duties should have been transferred to Russia, the Belarusian side often retained the revenues. Only in 1998, the amount of the custom duties paid at the Belarusian border on foreign cars shipped to Russia (and withheld by Belarus) was approximately $600 million.^[12]
An even more important concession of Russia to Belarus was the conditions of trade between two countries. A large part of the trade was barter. The barter transactions usually took shape of the exchange of the goods where the sides had to supply each other with certain amounts of products at a price fixed in the US dollars according to the official exchange rates. Since the official exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble was overvalued, Russian purchasers had to overpay. The price of some goods (such as chemical fiber and sugar) that Russia thus paid Belarus a price was 60% higher than the world prices.^[13] Furthermore, clearing mechanisms and barter schemes allowed Belarus to pay much of its outstanding energy debt in kind rather than in cash. The price distortions saved Belarus some $300 million a year, and allowed it for the first time since the late 1980s to register a positive trade balance with Russia.^[14]
The tolerance of Belarus’ energy debt by Russia was the next source of financing the Belarusian economic miracle. This allowed Belarus to save up to 2.7% of its GDP per year. Moreover, Belarus continuously received Russian gas and oil at discounted prices (oil was sold to Belarus at almost half as much as it was sold on the world markets). Since oil and gas accounted for almost half of Russian imports to Belarus, this was another source of Russian subsidies to Belarus. (Although the case may be made that cheap oil and gas was the Russian payment for its free transit through Belarus.) ^[15]
Altogether, the annual amount of hidden Russian subsidy of the Belarusian economy was estimated at $1,5-2 billion in 1997-1998, a sum comparable with Belarus’s central budget.^[16]Analysis of the Russian economic concessions to Lukashenko leads to the conclusion that Belarusian President undertook a successful attempt to reinstate, at least in the economic sphere, the type of relations between Belarus and its former imperial metropoly that existed in the Soviet era and that triggered rapid modernization of the Belarusian economy since the end of World War II. Once again, Belarus exchanged its overpriced industrial products for underpriced oil and gas from Russia, whereas money played little role in the mutual trade. Sustainability of the Belarusian growth performance, therefore, depended primarily upon Russia’s consent with this type of relationship and its readiness to maintain it. Yet, there was another unexpected reason for the short-term success of Lukashenko’s policies. The expansion of exports to Russia in 1996-98 was partly caused by a strong growth of the Russian domestic demand, as a consequence of the pegged exchange rate, coupled with huge fiscal deficits, and the availability of the external borrowing system of financing it. The credit for the ‘Belarus miracle’ should have therefore been shared by Lukashenko and Russian liberals, who managed to get multi-billion loans from IMF by pledging reform but who lacked political tools to implement it; by the Russian Central Bank for its refusal to devalue the ruble until it collapsed in the August 1998 crisis; by the State Duma of Russia for its authorization of gigantic budget deficits; and, last but not least, by the international financial community for channeling cheap loans to Russia regardless of its reform record.
The unreformed Belarusian economy, however, created severe problems for the Russia-Belarus economic integration in the areas where marketization of Russia’s economy and its economic policymaking was most advanced. The stalemate in the economic integration was most visible in three areas. First, the prospects of the monetary union faded since the Belarusian government consistently refused to abandon money printing as a major tool of invigorating the state-run economy. Second, a lack of privatization or even a formal property transformation limited the penetration of the Russian capital into Belarus. Third, rent-extraction opportunities created by the transparent internal border and different trade regimes of the two states deprived Belarusian authorities of any incentives to honor the committments set by the customs union. Thus, Lukashenko’s anti-reform policy stalled economic integration in the most crucial areas where, if successful, it could have paved the way for a political merger. And yet, it appears that adoption of Belarus as a client was the only way for Russia to tie Belarus down economically. Even a short period of half-hearted market reforms in the early 1990s marked a rapid integration of Belarus into the European and world economy, and there is little doubt the same would happen once refoms were re-started, even at Russia’s insistence.

Drang nach Osten? Lukashenko’s alleged battle for the Kremlin

The discussions of the prospects of the Russia-Belarus integration was centered in both countries around the same issue: whether or not Lukashenko aspired to become the new Kremlin ruler and used the unification as a springboard towards the goal. Although personal intentions and hopes are difficult to document, Lukashenko’s own vision of the integration, the nature of demands of the Russian leadership he put forward before signing the new integration agreements, the content of his message to Russia’s public and political elite, and the consequences of his actions give some evidence to the existence of such aspirations. Moreover, even Lukashenko cannot decline that his pursuit of a greater role in the Russian politics was consistent throughout the years of his presidency.
Lukashenko’s victory at the November 1996 referendum was immediately followed by the transformation of the Community of Sovereign Republics into a formal political union. At that time, the initiative belonged to Yeltsin, whose letter to the Belarusian counterpart in January 1997 contained an explicit offer of unification. Lukashenko responded to those proposals with readiness, although in a manner that could hardly satisfy Yeltsin. In February 1997, Lukashenko addressed a meeting of orthodox Communists named “the Congress of the People of the USSR” in Minsk, pledging that the Russia-Belarus union will be the first step towards restoration of the Soviet Union. Within weeks, he publicized three conditions on which Belarus was willing to join the union with Russia. First, he demanded that the sovereignty and independence of Belarus were fully preserved in the new alliance. Second, Belarusian conscripts could not serve outside their home country. Third, the union had to be beneficial for both parties.
It became clear that Lukashenko’s immediate objective was not a merger but a confederation based on the equality of the member states that maintain a high degree of sovereignty. In the case of a successful implementation of this project, Lukashenko would have legitimized his interference into Russia’s domestic politics and would have kept his unlimited authority at home. This project fell just a few bits short of completion in April 1997. The draft treaty on the Union of Russia and Belarus foresaw delegation of a significant amount of authority in the areas of defense, security, fiscal and monetary policy, etc., to a supranational body named the Supreme Council of the Union. The Council had to be composed of four representatives of each country (presidents, prime ministers, speakers of the upper and lower houses of national parliaments), and one secretary elected by the eight permanent members. Their decisions had to be approved by a simple majority within the body, which made the Belarusian president – with the support of Gennady Seleznev, then a Communist speaker of the State Duma – a de-facto leader of the new union. The draft was already pre-approved by the working groups two days before the signing ceremony, when the information leaked into the Russian mass media. A political scandal broke out, as Russia’s liberals led by First Deputy Prime Ministers Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov accused the Communists and Lukashenko of masterminding the plot to remove Yeltsin from presidency and to strip Russia of its sovereignty. After days of inside battles, Yeltsin ordered re-writing of the Treaty. The content was watered down to transform the new agreement into a ceremonial pact.
The Communist Party has become Lukashenko’s major ally in pursuit of the confederal project on the Russian political scene. The Russian Communists’ unqualified support for Lukashenko was motivated by the absence of a charismatic leader with a broad political appeal, which doomed the party to be content with a perpetual second place in the presidential contest. Even if Lukashenko’s chances to eventually enter the Kremlin as a new leader were greatly overrated, he still remained a powerful cheerleader of the Communist cause on Russia’s political arena. But Lukashenko could perform this role only as President, the leader of the country that was presented by the leftist propaganda as a paradise of security and stability. His relegation to the position of a regional governor would deprive the Communists of a powerful resource and would ruin even hypothetical chances of returning to power through the backdoor of the Russia-Belarus union. Consequently, the Communist party became a staunch advocate of a confederal project.
Apart from strengthening the alliance with the Communist and nationalist opposition, Lukashenko secured support of Russia’s regional governors, many of whom actually belonged to anti-Yeltsin opposition. Since 1997, he undertook dozens of visits to Russian provinces, signing economic cooperation treaties, and actively campaigning to popularize ‘the Belarus model’ in the Russian countryside. Lukashenko’s speeches also included unmasked attacks on Yeltsin and the economic course of his government. His criticism was especially harsh when he was hosted by the governors who shared his fervor in opposing Kremlin’s policies. His rhetoric was usually warmly met. Krasnodar governor Nikolai Kondratenko, who shared Lukashenko’s political style and even the privilege to be nicknamed “bat’ka” (father) welcomed him as an ally, and, inspite of the age difference, as a mentor:
In our time of troubles, Belarusians show the example of how one should understand reality. We are glad that the Slavs have a leader like Alexander Lukashenko. We, the Slavs, need people like Lukashenko to save our children and grandchildren.^[17]
Since Lukashenko’s version of the union appealed to the anti-Yeltsin opposition exclusively, this only increased his supporters’ determination to derail the political union. According to Russian analysts, at that time opponents of integration prevailed over its supporters in the government bureaucracy and among opinion makers, and while pro-Lukashenko camp was stronger among the elected office holders, their clout in the real centers of power in post-Communist Russia was not matched by the might of bureaucratic and oligarchic networks of Yeltsin’s entourage. As Table 2 shows, the proponents of unification attracted more influential “public politicians” (i.e., elected officials and MPs), whereas the opponents dominated the inner circle of decision-makers within the Yeltsin administration.
Conscious of the potential damage the Lukashenko-Communist alliance could incur on their political existence, Russia’s liberals and their allies in the Yeltsin administration emerged as principal opponents of the Russia-Belarus union. However unlikely the prospect of a successful realization of Lukashenko’s alleged political plan could seem, this part of Russia’s political spectrum was not willing to take any chances. Since the public opinion grew increasingly supportive of the Russia-Belarus unification, reformers chose to attack the plans of the union charging on credibility of Lukashenko’s determination. They insisted that the only feasible way of unification was dissolution of Belarus as a state and incorporation of its six regions as separate federal units, or, alternatively, acception of Belarus into the Russian Federation as a republic. The logic of their argumentation was simple: it was impossible to create a union state between two constituent countries, one of which is fifteen times larger than another, on the basis of the equality of the participants. Anatoly Chubais, a Kremlin’s veteran insider, formulated this position as follows:
I do not believe we have to build our rapproachment with Belarus on the basis of full equality of the sides. I do not agree. There is no equality, and somebody needs to make it clear. Take any parameters: our population is fifteen times bigger, our budget is fifty times bigger, our GDP is 68 time bigger.^[18] …To throw diplomacy away and call the names, …the formula is simple: we have to insist on a normal process of incorporation of Belarus into Russia – not on the unification of equal partners.^[19]

Table 2. Indices of political influence of Russia’s principal supporters and opponents of the Russia-Belarus union in 1998.

<img src=http://abimperio.net/pics/siltab2.jpg>

Sourse: National News Service of Russia, http://www.nns.ru/analytdoc/rbprot2.html

The repudiation of Lukashenko’s confederate union project put him on the defensive. Facing impossibility of its immediate implementation and being effectively counter-attacked in the mass media, he had to retreat into defense of Belarus’s right to sovereignty and independence. Remarkably, his articulation of claims to the national statehood happened immediately after the Kremlin liberals prevented the signing of the initial version of the 1997 Union Treaty and voiced their demands of the incorporation of Belarus into Russia in the mass media.
There are borders that I am not at liberty to overstep. First of all, it is the state: the statehood and sovereignty of our republic. We cannot join any other state as a region or province. Our people, whatever union we create, should not travel to fight in “hot spots.” And, most important, all the unions should be formed on equal terms.^[20]
Furthermore, Lukashenko accused the “incorporation” project proponents of obstructing unification as such by deliberately suggesting integration terms that would be unacceptable for Belarus.
Today, Russian leadership is not prepared for unification. Russia’s leadership demands that Belarus join Russia. We cannot do it now. We have a Constitution that does not allow it. Someone wants to kill this idea, and says, “Let us incorporate Belarus into Russia.” But we were not a part of Russia even in the Soviet Union. We were a separate republic. And let me tell you, we had no less sovereignty than we have now.^[21]
Moreover, he began to actively resist the idea of a simultaneous referendum on the Russia-Belarus union, fearing that Russia will formulate the item to approve incorporation of Belarus. His line of defense was simple: Belarusians voted in favor of the union twice: in 1991 and 1995, and there was no need to carry yet another vote. This argument was weak from the legal viewpoint. The 1991 referendum was on preservation of the USSR – the country that ceased to exist – and the 1995 poll decided on the approval of the economic integration rather than of a political union. In fact, Lukashenko’s resistance to the referendum was a political maneuver aimed at preventing the least desired outcome of integration and at securing the freedom of action in the integration talks.
Even more ironically, despite being a proponent of ”brotherly friendship” between the two countries, Lukashenko was forced – by the accusations of becoming Russia’s client state – to enter petty calculations of income and outstanding debts, and eventually claimed that it was actually Russia that owed Belarus a round sum of $1 billion a year. The items on the bill included maintaining the border guard, servicing the air defense complex near Belarusian towns of Gantsevichi and Vileika that allegedly protected Russia’s airspace “from Kiev to Riga”; and creating at least 1.2 million jobs in Russia by only three Belarusian companies based on the decision to use Russian suppliers and contractors.^[22] All in all, nurturing his own political ambition required Lukashenko to appeal to the national pride and dignity of the Belarusian people. Whenever political logic dictated, Lukashenko advocated something that was inconceivable for Russia’s political elite – the right of Belarusian people to their own statehood.
Evidently, the formation of the political union came into standstill not only because of political rivalry between conservative Lukashenko and his Communist and nationalist supporters in Russia, but also due to an incompatibility of the dominant strategies of principal political players in Russia and Belarus and their expectations about the union. The most preferred outcome of the integration for one side appeared to be least desired for the other. As a result, the status quo was to persist.
Lukashenko’s hopes revived after the 1998 financial crash caused a legitimacy crisis in the Kremlin. The crisis was solved by appointing Communist party veteran and former intelligence chief Yevgeny Primakov as the new Prime Minister. Primakov managed to establish himself as the most trusted politician in the country and a potential frontrunner in the race to succeed Yeltsin as Russia’s President. Apparently, Lukashenko found Primakov to be a suitable political ally, as the latter was backed by the Communist party. Furthermore, as the immediate impact of the Russian economic crisis on Belarus caused the growth of public discontent at home, Lukashenko needed a quick political action that would give the constituencies at least a promise of a positive change., The embattled Russian President, who, on the top of the domestic pressure, had to confront the prospect of NATO military action in Kosovo, needed the same. The inability of the Russian diplomacy to prevent NATO’s attacks threatened to prove Yeltsin’s weakness once again and to reduce the likelihood of successful elections. Once again, the re-emerging political synergy produced a new integration campaign. On December 25, 1998, Lukashenko and Yeltsin signed the Declaration of Intention to Create a Union State of Belarus and Russia.
The political situation in Russia, however, quickly changed. Yeltsin got rid of Primakov in May 1999, and the new Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, a veteran liberal inspite of his past association with KGB, expressed no interest in the Union. The new Union Treaty, prepared under Stepashin’s supervision and publicized in June, was met by the President of Belarus with indignation, for it lacked the provision that Lukashenko was most insistent upon: the presidency. Instead, all decisions of the Union were to be confirmed by a unanimous decision of the two countries’ presidents, who had to approve the acts of the Union’s parliament and government. This way, the document truncated the institutions that could potentially be manipulated by the Belarusian President to assume a larger clout in Russian politics (i.e., the Parliament and the Supreme Council, where the Communist support in Russia’s half gave him a majority, as well as the Union presidency). Furthermore, the range of prerogatives of the supranational bodies was cut down from Lukashenko’s proposals. Taken together, the Treaty effectively blocked him from exercising any substantial impact on Russia’s internal politics. Lukashenko declared the document to be “empty”, accused Stepashin of torpedoing the integration, and even threatened to reorient his country’s foreign policy and “normalize relations with the West” if Russia refused to honor his initiatives. Stepashin met the latter threat with irony. He welcomed the proposed change in Belarus’s foreign policy, by saying, “The Union of Belarus and Russia will never be an obstacle to Europe’s unification.”^[23]

Legitimizing ‘singular project’: political culture, national identity and Lukashenko’s political strategy

In his opposition to a simple absorption of Belarus by Russia, Lukashenko was supported not only by a larger part of Belarusian nomenclatura, to whom abolition of the country’s sovereignty would have meant downgrading their status to the level of Russia’s provincial bureaucracy, but also by a vast majority of the Belarusian public as well, who, surprisingly for outsiders, were not keen to join Russia at any price.

Table 3. Support for the union with Russia in Belarus

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Source: IISEPS poll. Published in: Zhizn’ v Nashe Vremia // IISEPS News. December, 1999. No.4. Pp. 20-45. * Novak laboratory data, see: RFE/RL Daily Report. 1994. 9 June. **Novak data, see: Vladimir Podgol. Struktura Mentaliteta Grazhdan Belarusi // Hramadzianskaja Supolnasć i Prablemy Nacyjanalna-Kulturnaj Identyfikacyi u Bełarusi. Brest,1996. P. 70.

The opinion poll data show a high level of public support for some sort of integration with Russia and, at the same time, little enthusiasm about its outcome that would strip Belarus of its statehood. This choice of political status for Belarus was to a large extent dominated by pragmatism: the Union was seen by many in Belarus as a convenient formula that allowed to boost living standards through paying a lower price for Russian oil and gas, while being relieved from duty to pay for the privilege by sending youngsters to Chechnya. The reluctance to join Russia in a union or to become a part of the country grew when Russia’s internal situation deteriorated due to the economic or military crisis. First time it happened after the break-up of the first Chechen war; the second episode was the August 1998 financial crisis; and the third was the renewal of the military conflict in Chechnya in August 1999. Vice versa, the support for unification grew when the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo was used by the official propaganda to spread anti-Western attitudes; and when the accession of Putin to the Kremlin was viewed by many in both Belarus and Russia as a beginning of revitalization of Russia’s economy and a renewal of its strength as a world power. This dynamic produced an uneasy choice for Lukashenko. Although Russia’s crises gave him an opportunity to vindicate his domestic politics in the eyes of the Belarusian public and to contrast the “Belarusian model” with the Russian chaos, his overshooting criticism of the Slavic neighbor greatly reduced the enthusiasm about his ultimate political project of integration. Hence, Lukashenko’s advocacy of the union with Russia was self-limiting. He extolled the virtues of the merger by quoting economic and geopolitical advantages for Belarus, at the same time promising not to allow “thieves, including Russia”^[24]to participate in the privatization of the Belarusian industry. He evoked memories of World War II to consecrate his political project only to declare, at one point, that “As it was in 1941, Belarus, is in a circle of enemies. The enemies have entrenched themselves in the leadership of Russia, our closest ally.”^[25]It was partly due to this rhetoric that, inspite of demonstrating strong support for integration, only a tiny minority of Belarusians (less than 1%) saw contemporary Russia as a model worth imitating.
The existence of three sizeable constituencies favoring, respectively, independence, union, and incorporation into Russia, shows the depth of division on the issue in the Belarusian society. This division reflects a competition of discources – alternative reinterpretations of the vision of Belarusian history and its national identity – that betray an incompletion of the nation-building process in the 20^[26] century and a lack of common understanding in the society of what Belarus and being Belarusian mean. It is possible to identify three alternative visions that made an impact on the consciouseness, self-identification, and attitudes of different parts of the Belarusian society and were manipulated by political actors to obtain legitimacy of their programs and actions.
The ‘national-democratic’ discourse was built on the perception of modern Belarus as a historical successor of the Great County of Lithuania, considered to be a medieval Belarusian state by Belarusian nationalist historians. This vision of the past treats Belarus as an inalienable part of the Western civilization until its incorporation into the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th century. In this discourse, Russia (as well as the Soviet Union, considered a reincarnation of the Tsarist empire) is an opressor responsible for diverting Belarus from its European path, eliminating its national language and culture, destroying its political elite, and denying its right to separate statehood and independence. The Belarusian national program that was based on those premises explicitly called for derussification of Belarus. The proclamation of independence of the Belarusian Democratic Republic on March 25, 1918 was considered a sacrosanct historic event, that was marking the beginning of a renewal of the modern Belarusian statehood.
The ‘(White) Russian’ discourse considers Belarus an inalienable part of the East-Slavic “trinity” of Great, Little, and White Russia. It denies both Belarus’s right to exist as an independent state and a separate Belarusian ethnicity. White Russia is considered to have been taken away from its homeland by historic circumstances.^[27]
The ‘Soviet’ discourse takes the center position between the two antagonistic visions. It accepts the “White Russian” claim about the common origin of the ‘Great, Little, and White Russia’ (i.e., Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), but still considers these to be three separate, yet closely related, national entities. It accepts the right of each one to the separate statehood of Belarus (and, for this reason, Ukraine) under the umbrella of the Union state. Belarusians are considered the most Soviet of all the people of the former USSR, as Sovietization politics were nowhere as successful as in Belarus. Systematic linguistic russification in the second half of the 20^[28] century and the absence of a memory of separate statehood in the public consciousness weakened the capability of the national-democratic alternative to compete with Soviet discourse as a foundation of the nation’s self-understanding. Yet, instead of destroying national identity, it repainted it in the colors of the Communist ideology. First, the Soviet regime bestowed upon itself the birthright of the Belarusian statehood in the form of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in 1919. Second, it developed a core political and historic myth, according to which the guerilla resistance during World War II was the epitome moment in forming the ‘Soviet’ Belarusian nation.^[29] Third, it claimed a crucial role of the Communist regime in the economic development and reconstruction of the republic after World War II, and specifically emphasized the paternalistic relations between state and society that were inherited from popular Soviet-era republican leaders Kirill Mazurov and Piotr Masherov (both guerilla leaders during World War II).^[30]Soviet myths and dogmas were thus tightly connected to the living memory of the World War II generations. Consequently, a low level of public enthusiasm about ethnonationalism and the fact that the society – except for a tiny community of artistic and cultural intelligentsia – was largely unfamiliar with the “national democratic” discourse,^[31]does not equate to the absense of national identity in Belarus. “It is not surprising thar many Western observers have fallen prey to the misconception that Belarusians consider themselves Russian. They do not; but neither do many know what “Belarusian” is outside the Soviet context.”^[32]

The strength of the Soviet mythology in the mass consciouseness is partly reflected in the continuous support for the union of two independent states. This gave a high degree of domestic legitimacy to Lukashenko’s simultaneous pursuit of “full integration” and “full sovereignty”. Restoration of the Soviet historical and political discourse as a dominant theme of Lukashenko’s practical ideology was also a suitable instrument of legitimating his political ambition. Indeed, only the Communist period could be used as a point of reference for even a theoretical equality of Russia and Belarus as co-founders of a joined state, and thus justified the Belarusian president’s extended influence in Russian politics. Besides, the Communist period reflected the political culture of a dominant societal group that created a backbone of Lukashenko’s grassroots support. (Remarkably, when he replaced the state insignia adopted in 1991 with a modified Soviet-era flag and coat of arms of the BSSR, Lukashenko turned to his most loyal voters, the veterans, claiming that what was really returned was their identity and pride. “We have returned to you the flag of the country you were fighting for. We have returned to you the memory and the sense of human pride.”^[33] He proceeded to strengthen this connection by reinstating July 3, the day Minsk was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, as the “Independence Day.”) Sovietization returned the public to the customary symbolic and cultural surroundings of the Brezhnev era, to the familiar way of life and social atmosphere. From the official point of view, the history of Belarus once again began in 1917. In Lukashenko’s own words,
The foundation of the BSSR was a real start of the construction of our state. The BSSR has become the first real national state in the history of our people, with all its state attributes. For the first time, the state apparatus and the system of education and science, professional arts and culture, were created. ...It is in these years that developed industry and a highly efficient agriculture were created, and a powerful scientific potential was accumulated. Our country made a giant leap from the agrarian North-Western territory to an industrialized state in a short time. It is due to the potential created in these years that we managed to overcome the crisis created by home-bread political losers in the beginning of the 1990s.^[34]
Aligning with Soviet tradition created an illusion of imminent return to normal life for those who remembered the Communist era as the best period of their lives. Lukashenko nourished this illusion by making pubic orders to the government and regional officials to restore the volume of industrial production and grain harvest, or the assortment of communal services in the rural areas to the Soviet-era level, using the latter as a benchmark for norm. Furthermore, the desintegration of the Soviet Union gave Lukashenko an easy explanation for the economic difficulties and helped him divert the blame from his own policies.
It is obvious that our people’s life is not as good as they deserve it to be. Do not forget, however, that the current living standard resulted from the negative influence of external factors, of the break-up of the USSR, of the mindless shock therapy. The situation in the country was extraordinary: closed factories, high unemployment rates, crime explosion , divided military, and trampled, disoriented youth. In a little while, Belarus would have fallen into an abyss of economic destruction, powerful social cataclysms, and nationalist genocide.
Importantly, while the politics of Sovietization was an instrument of de-legitimizing the national-democratic alternative, Lukashenko interpreted it as a battle for ‘true’ Belarusianness – something that was endangered by the nationalists. Thus, the attack of the official propaganda on Vasil Bykov (the most celebrated Belarusian writer and one of the architects of the national revival of the early 1990s) was concentrated on his “anti-Belarusian” ideas and activities.^[35]Even the politics of integration and creation of the union with Russia was defended by Lukashenko’s concern about preservation of the Belarusian sovereignty and independence.^[36]
Lukashenko’s message was thus carefully crafted to both avoid political russification of the mass opinion and de-legitimation of his own right to supreme authority, and to boost the legitimacy of his integration proposal (and his outbound political ambitions). This could only be done by constantly maneuvering between the three distinct political-cultural minorities of the Belarusian society, and by forming coalitions of minorities. Whenever heneeded to promote the integration agenda, Lukashenko appealed to the pro-Russian part of the society. Vice versa, if political logic dictated him to defend the Belarusian state and his political base, he made advances to the nationalistic part. Hence, his rhetoric contained different opportunistic swings – from claiming Russia to be another homeland of his people to asserting the sacred right of Belarusians to independence and sovereignty. On the one hand, Lukashenko boosted his image of a standard-bearer of the Slavic cause by promoting cultural events such as the Slavonic Bazaar pop music festival, and actively engaging in the Russian Orthodox Church events. On the other hand, he incorporated the national-democratic discourse themes when interpreting the red color on the official flag as an inheritance of the standards of Grunwald (the place of the battle between the united army of Poland and GDL against the Teutonic order in 1410) and comparing his role in the Belarusian history to that of Leu Sapieha – the chancellor of GDL in the 16^[37] century.
Likewise, Lukashenko was capable of constructing threats and demonizing alternatives by connecting them to the most dominant cultural symbols and historical myths pertaining to the Soviet political discource. Thus, ‘Nazi,’ a powerful symbol reflecting the deep historic trauma of World War II, was extensively used and misused by Lukashenko’s propaganda to brand and discredit his political opponents. Lukashenko was successful in discrediting the nationalist opposition by comparing its leaders to the alleged Nazi collaborators in the Belarusian emigre community, with whom nationally-oriented parties maintained close contacts since perestroika. Similarly, the post-perestroika national symbols – the white-red-and-white flag and the ‘pursuit’ coat of arms – were portrayed by the official propaganda exclusively as the attributes of the Nazi collaborators during the period of German occupation in 1941-44. Furthermore, Lukashenko used the comparison with the Nazis to discredit the Russian nationalist movement in Belarus. For example, commenting on the street fighting between the opposition activists and the members of Minsk chapter of the Russian National Unity (a neo-Nazi party of Alexander Barkashov) in February 1999, Lukashenko asked “not to be involved into the fighting of two Nazi groups,” promising “to tear off heads and legs of both.”^[38]
Sovietization of the public consciouseness in Belarus explains the differences in perceptions of integration that existed in the Belarusian and Russian societies. In Belarus, the integration was seen as a process leading to the restoration of a country that was founded on the principles of equality of the constituent parts and, according to the official doctrine, was a birthplace of Belarus as a state and a distinct entity. But the USSR was distinct not only from the “nationalist” Belarus, whose creation in 1918 was portrayed in the Soviet and White Russian discourses as a plot of the Kaiser Germany; but also from the imperial Russia, that was denounced by the Communist propaganda as “a prison of nations.” The concept of the Russian Empire certainly did not ring the bell in the Belarusian public, as in the country’s only free parliamentary elections of 1995 the offsprings of Russia’s ultranationalist parties fared even worse than nationalists that were crashed in the vote by Lukashenko’s allies.
In Russia, meanwhile, the integration was increasingly viewed as the first step towards the recovery of the great country that was created by Peter I and Catherine II, but not by Lenin, who was just another chapter in its history. Unification with Belarus was important for the political elite “to restore faith in itself, to overcome and eradicate a heavy inferiority complex”^[39] that was caused by the loss of the superpower status in the post-Soviet era. There was no room for Belarus as a sovereign and equal partner in the new union. Remarkably, the aspirations of Russia’s political elite were congruent with the public opinion, that regarded the merger with Belarus the most preferred outcome of integration, compared with either confederation or a continuing existence of two sovereign states. As Table 4 shows, the Russian public strongly favored the model of unification based on incorporation of Belarus into the Russian Federation, which was the formula least favored by the Belarusian society. Thus, the stalemate over finding a political formula for the Russia-Belarus union could not be ascribed to the elite politics alone. It was also deeply rooted in the diverse understanding by Belarusians and Russians of themselves and each other.

Table 4. Support for the union with Belarus in Russia

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Source: Public Opinion Foundation

Furthermore, the two societies somewhat differed in their expectations of the Russia-Belarus unification. Belarusians hoped for improvement of the living standard, whereas Russians saw the union predominantly through the prism of restoring Russia’s superpower status.

Table 5. Expectations of the union in Russia and Belarus

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Source: for Belarus: IISEPS; for Russia: VTSIOM.

Ironically, the greatest hope of the Belarusian public was at the same time the biggest fear of the Russian society. When asked about possible disadvantages of the union, Russians first and foremost mentioned economic problems.^[40] Likewise, Belarusians feared what Russians expected most from the integration: 63% of Belarusian respondents worried that Russia’s pursuit of the superpower status would result in bringing Belarusian conscripts to the areas of military conflicts across the former USSR.^[41]
The rise of public support for independence in Belarus continued in spite of the politics of russification that were re-launched by Lukashenko since his arrival to power. The claim about Belarusians being almost entirely a Russian-speaking nation can be disputed, though. Research shows that even though Belarusian is spoken exclusively by a mere 5% of the population, Russian is the sole means of communication for about 40%. About one-fifth speak both languages on the day-to-day basis, and the rest use a mixture of two, called trasianka, or hodge-podge. Moreover, the results of the 1999 general census produced a sensation. First, it turned out that 81% of the population identify themselves as ethnic Belarusians, an increase from 77% in the Soviet era. The relative decline of Belarusians as a proportion of the total population was reversed for the first time since 1959. Furthermore, 73% of the population declared Belarusian to be their native tongue. The most shocking number was 37% of those who declared they use Belarusian at home, which means that in more than a half of ethnic Belarusians their reluctance to use their native language does not hinder their national self-identification. But, surprisingly, there is also a negative correlation between the use of Belarusian and the support for the Belarusian national program. According to the 1997 opinion poll, 50% of Belarusian-speakers and only 23% of Russian-speakers in Belarus supported unification of Russia and Belarus into a single state. Complete independence (with no option of the union of independent states) was supported by correspondingly 19% and 40% of the respondents in these categories.^[42] This fact allowed an observer to conclude that “there is a growing distinction between linguistic and political russification. Russian in Belarus in many cases is as much a language of cultural renewal of the country and its independence as Belarusian. There may be, even if the comparison is distant, a similarity to English in Ireland or German in Austria.”^[43] Thus, the Belarusian language is an attribute of two distinct societal groups. On the one hand, it is a symbol of backwardness and parochialism in the countryside. On the other hand, it is a trademark of the city intelligencia, who use Belarusian when (and often only when) they need to identify themselves as democrats and the opposition.
This mismatch between language use and political orientation partly explains Lukashenko’s ability to successfully defend his claim to legitimacy from both Belarusian and Russian nationalist alternatives. The Russian-speaking majority in Belarus remained a source of opposition rather than support for the Russian nationalists’ political agenda. Belarusian nationalism, meanwhile, was driven by the aspiration to build an ethnonational state according to the model of Baltic countries – a project that foresaw complete Belarusization of the country’s public life. Failure to soften its stance on the linguistic issue disrupted its connection to what appeared to be its principal political base.