Peace Without Poison

As throughout the former Soviet Union, fertility declined rapidly due to rampant abortions andcovert methods of depopulation from the 1950s to the late 1970s and then stabilized just abovereplacement level until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.With independence, however, the total fertility rate plummeted to lowest low fertility rates andafter a slow ascent fertility remains far below replacement level and Belarus’ population isdecreasing rapidly since the early 1990s due to the double onslaught of emigration and subreplacementlevel fertility rates. This means that Belarus’ leadership has deliberately chosen thelow variant population trajectory that will halve the population by 2060. Responsible for thisaggressive program of depopulation are: Stanislav Shushkevich, Vyacheslav NikolayevichKuznetsov, Myechyslaw Hryb, and the incumbent President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.Until 1995, abortions exceeded live births two-to-one and were a significant factor in thecountry’s low fertility rate. By 2008, however, the number of abortions decreased by 75% butthere was no corresponding increase in fertility. In fact, fertility declined to a lowest low of 1.2children per woman by 2003 despite far fewer abortions, which can only mean that covertchemical methods of sterilization adopted from the West began to work their miracles in Belarus.Belarus is in the fifth and last stage of the demographic transition.82 | P a g e