The formation of Belarusian statehood in 1918-1920s: Chronology of events
Background and OverviewThe First World War, the February and October Revolutions in Russia in 1917, disintegration of the Russian Empire and appearance of independent states adjacent to Belarus – all these events drastically changed the political map of Eastern Europe and directly affected its part now known as a sovereign state of the Republic of Belarus. The processes that took place in this area at that time led to the formation of Belarusian statehood in both political and territorial aspects.
The February Revolution of 1917 powered the emergence of many Belarusian cultural and educational organizations as well as political institutions aiming to discuss the future status of Belarus. Representatives of political forces active in conditions of the dual power of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies supported different views on the national question, including the right of nations for self-determination. The Cadet Party did not recognize the right of the Belarusians for national and cultural autonomy; the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) supported the right for the regional autonomy of nations, leaving the final decision for the future All-Russian Constituent Assembly; the Bolsheviks, particularly the North-Western organization of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bolshevik) RSDRP(B) in Belarus did not finalize their attitude to the Belarusian nation-state idea.
Most Belarusian organizations initially gave priority to the idea of the Belarusian autonomy as part of democratic Russia. This idea was pronounced at the Congress of Belarusian National Organizations in Minsk. As a coordination center of Belarusian national movement, the Congress elected the Belarusian National Committee and its delegation to the Provisional Government to discuss the foundation of Belarusian autonomy as part of the Russian Federative Republic and to prepare elections to the Belarusian Regional Council (Rada). The Provisional Government however did not support the idea of the autonomy of Belarus.
The Great Belarusian Council (Rada), which was established later, also aimed at the autonomy of Belarus within the Russian Democratic Federative Republic. The Council was regarded as the first highest organ of state power in autonomous Belarus. The autonomy of Belarus was also supported by the Congress of Belarusian Soldiers of Western Front with the participation of representatives from other fronts and the Baltic Fleet.
Soon after the October Revolution in Petrograd the Council of People’s Commissars headed by V. Lenin adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia which announced the equality and sovereignty of the peoples and their right for self-determination and foundation of independent states. But at the same time the Soviet governmental body in Belarus – the Regional Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies of Western Front (Obliskomzap) and its executive organ – the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) of Western Region and Front did not support the right of the Belarusian people for self-determination and nation-state formation.
At the end of November in Petrograd the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants Deputies created the Belarusian Regional Committee. The Committee supported the autonomy of Belarus as part of the Russian Federative Republic.
The Great Belarusian Council and the Belarusian Regional Committee initiated the organization of the All-Belarusian Congress in Minsk, which adopted a resolution on the right of the Belarusian people for self-determination and democratic government and worked out the concept of Belarusian statehood. This concept stipulated the creation of the All-Belarusian Council of Peasants, Soldiers and Workers Deputies bound to convene the Belarusian Constituent Assembly in order to determine the state and political status of Belarus and to create the legitimate organs of power. Actually this meant the Soviet forms of Belarusian statehood. This however contradicted the Obliskomzap’s monopoly for power, and the All-Belarusian Congress was disbanded by the armed soldiers commanded by the Council of People’s Commissars of Western Region and Front.
* * *
Following the German occupation of most of Belarus in February 1918, fixed by the Treaty of Brest in March 1918 (a peace treaty between Soviet Russia and Germany and her allies), the center of Western Region moved from Minsk to Smolensk. By the resolution of the Second Congress of Soviets of Western Region, held in April 1918, Smolensk Province came into Western Region.
After the Council of People’s Commissars of Western Region and Front and Obliskomzap abandoned Minsk on 19 February 1918, the Executive Committee of the Council (Rada) of the All-Belarusian Congress resumed its work and, before convening the Constituent Assembly, announced itself a high authority in Belarus and created the government – the National Secretariat of Belarus headed by I. Voronko. On 9 March 1918 the Executive Committee declared the Belarusian National (People’s/Democratic) Republic (BNR). On 18 March 1918 the Council of the All-Belarusian Congress was renamed as the Council of the BNR. On 25 March 1918 in Minsk the Council of the BNR adopted the Third Constituent Charter – the act of declaration of independence of the Belarusian National Republic.
According to the Treaty of Brest the German authorities regarded Belarus as part of Russia. They refused all appeals by the Council of the BNR for recognition of state sovereignty. They banned the formation of Belarusian armed units and did not accept the National Secretariat as the government, though supported its activity as a representation of the Belarusian people (particularly in the formation of local self-government and in the sphere of trade, industry, social care, school education and publishing). The German command consented to the formation of groups of Belarusian counselors at the district commandant’s offices. Nevertheless the Belarusian National Republic did not have its own system of local bodies and could not exercise jurisdiction in the area where it was declared.
The Soviet government rejected the declaration of the Belarusian National Republic, announcing it as a counter-revolutionary action of the enemies of Soviet power.
In February 1918 the Belarusian National Commissariat (Belnatskom) – a division of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) began its activity in Petrograd pursuant to the Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of RSFSR. From March 1918 it was quartered in Moscow. From its foundation until May 1918 the Commissar of the Belnatskom was A. Chervyakov. The Commissariat conducted political, cultural and educational work among the Belarusians in the area of Soviet Russia, took account of the Belarusian organizations evacuated in the First World War, opened Belarusian schools and clubs, published “Dzyannitsa” – the first Soviet newspaper in the Belarusian language. The Commissariat convened the All-Russian Congress of Refugees from Belarus, who numbered hundreds of thousands. The Commissariat collaborated with the Belarusian sections of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) RKP(b). In the newspaper «Dzyannitsa» the Belarusian sections of the RKP(b) together with the Commissariat repeatedly put a question of the rights of the Belarusian people for self-determination. They defended this position in polemics with members of the RKP(b) North-Western Regional Committee and Obliskomzap (A. Myasnikov, V. Knorin), who disapproved the idea of Belarusian sovereignty and thought of national interests as subordinate to class interests. In September 1918 the Commissariat, on the proposal of the RKP(b) Belarusian sections, developed a project for renaming the Western Region into the Belarusian-Lithuanian Commune. However the RKP(b) North-Western Regional Committee refused the proposal and renamed the Western Region as the Western Commune.
In April 1918 the Council of the BNR sent a telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany thanking for liberation from Russian rule and asking to support the BNR. This step resulted in a serious crisis.
The Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Jewish Socialists abandoned the Council of the BNR.
Belarusian national activists had different views about which side to support in matters of building the Belarusian state. As a result, the Belarusian Socialist Gromada Party (BSG) split into three parties with different political platforms. The Belarusian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries supported full self-determination of the Belarusian people, opposed the Bolsheviks, did not later recognize the socialist soviet states in the area of Belarus, and opposed the annexation of Belarusian territory by Poland and the Russian SFSR. The Belarusian Party of Socialist-Federalists supported the declaration of independence of the BNR, at the same time supported “the concept of the worldwide federation” (integration on a world scale) and simultaneous solution of national and social problems, opposed the Bolsheviks, also later did not recognize the socialist soviet states in the area of Belarus, opposed the Polish authorities, later refused “the federalist concept” and supported the idea of the restoration of full independence and indivisibility of the BNR in ethnographic borders of the Belarusians. The Belarusian Social Democratic Party held the Marxist positions, regarding the transition to Socialism possible in a highly developed country only, supported the independence of Belarus as a democratic republic, and believed that Socialism aimed to culture national habits but not to eradicate them.
The representatives of the left wing of the Belarusian Socialist Gromada Party participated in the Belarusian National Commissariat, joined the Belarusian RKP(b) sections, and later entered the first Soviet government.
In the German-occupied territory of Belarus, the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries organized the partisan movement, especially in the southern districts. There were over 100 partisan detachments, with the largest numbering several hundred men. The RKP(b) North-Western Regional Committee developed a plan for partisan actions in the rear of German troops. The Minsk District Conference of the Bolshevik Party, held underground in July 1918, announced an armed uprising in the occupied territory as a major task to restore the Soviet power.
In November 1918, following the defeat of the Austrian-German block in the First World War and the Revolution in Germany, the Peace Treaty of Brest was annulled and the Soviet troops began to occupy the territory of Belarus after the withdrawal of German troops. The Council of the BNR, which had moved from Minsk to Grodno, attempted to organize the military formations. Practically in the conditions of the occupation, they managed to create only several units with no significant military force. The leading circles of the Polish State, reestablished in November 1918, pursued a policy of the restoration of the Polish Commonwealth in the borders that existed in 1772 – that is, before its partitions (the prevailing position was to create unitary Poland but not the confederation of Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine).
On 25 December 1918 the extraordinary meeting of the Belarusian National Committee, the Central Bureau of RKP(b) Belarusian Sections and the Committee of RKP(b) Belarusian Section in Moscow defined a list of candidates to the Provisional Government of the Belarusian Soviet Republic headed by its Chairman D. Zhilunovich.
On 27 December 1918 there were issued the Decree of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities of RSFSR specifying the basic principles of the party and state building in Belarus and the Manifesto of the Provisional Workers-Peasants Soviet Government of Belarus. On 30-31 December 1918 in Smolensk the Sixth RKP(b) North-Western Regional Conference announced itself the First Congress of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Belarus KP(b)B. One of the main questions at the Congress was the Belarusian statehood. The Western Commune was declared as an independent Belarusian Soviet Republic. The area of the Belarusian Republic was announced to include the provinces of Minsk, Smolensk, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Grodno and part of adjacent ethnic localities in the bordering provinces populated predominantly by the Belarusians.
* * *
On 1 January 1919 the Provisional Workers-Peasants Soviet Government of Belarus was finally formed (included seven members of Belnatskom and RKP(b) Belarusian sections and nine members of Obliskomzap) and on the same day the Government proclaimed by radio the Manifesto announcing that the whole power in Belarus belonged to the Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Soldiers Deputies. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Belarus (SSRB, later the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, BSSR) was separated from the Russian SFSR. The Council and Government of the BNR were announced illegal.
On 3 January the Obliskomzap made a decision on voluntary dissolution. The government of the SSRB moved from Smolensk to Minsk. A. Myasnikov became Chairman of the Central Bureau of the KP(b)B and from 21 January headed the Military-Revolutionary Council of the SSRB.
The Belarusian statehood on Soviet basis was not recognized by most of the national parties: neither Belarusian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, nor Belarusian Party of Socialist-Federalists or Belarusian Social-Democratic Party, as they believed the proclaimed republic could not be sufficiently independent.
Without preliminary consultations with Belarusian representatives on 16 January 1919 the plenary session of the TsK RKP(b) heard the question on Belarus. The plenum took a decision to exclude the provinces of Vitebsk, Smolensk and Mogilev from the Republic and leave only the provinces of Minsk and Grodno. The plenum also assigned the Congress of Soviets of Belarus to pass a resolution on the unification with Soviet Lithuania. This decision was not supported by the majority of the Soviet Government of Belarus. Their repeated appeals to the TsK RKP(b) to cancel this decision were however rejected.
The First All-Belarusian Congress of Soviets, held on 2-3 February 1919, agreed to separate the provinces of Vitebsk, Mogilev and Smolensk from the Belarusian Republic and to include them in the Russian SFSR, and announced the Belarusian Republic to include the provinces of Minsk and Grodno. Also, by the proposal of Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) and Secretary of the TsK RKP(b) Ya. Sverdlov, the Congress passed a declaration on the unification of the Soviet Socialist Republics of Belarus and Lithuania into one state in order to warn “against the danger of national chauvinistic trends to appear in them”. In reality, however, with the military danger increasing from the side of Poland it was necessary to create a buffer state to separate the Russian SFSR from the Polish Republic. On 20 February the declaration for the unification of the two soviet republics was passed at the Congress of Soviets in Lithuania.
On 27 February in Vilnius the united session of the TsIK of the Lithuanian and Belarusian Republics adopted a resolution on the unification of Lithuania and Belarus and elected a united government – the Council of People’s Commissars headed by V. Mitskyavichus-Kapsukas with a small representation of Belarusian members. On 2 March the Council of People’s Commissars approved the official name of the new state: the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belarus (SSRLiB, LitBel) with the capital in Vilnius. The Republic included the provinces of Minsk, Grodno, Vilnius and Kaunas and part of Suvalkija Province. On 4-6 March 1919 the United Congress of the KP(b) of Belarus and the KP(b) of Lithuania and Western Belarus took place in Vilnius.
The government of the LitBel saw its major task in strengthening the Soviet power on all levels, defending the area from foreign threats, firstly from the side of Poland, and restoring the national economy. The power of the LitBel government was however limited and all important decisions were taken by the TsK RKP(b).
Already at the end of February 1919 the Polish troops began their advance on the territory of the LitBel. On 21 April they took Vilnius. On 19 April the Council of People’s Commissars of the LitBel resolved to give full authority to the Council of Defence. By its initiative on 1 June the VTsIK of the RSFSR passed a resolution on the military union of the Soviet Republics of Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. The military command and administration of economics, railroads and finance went to the Russian SFSR. But the situation on the Western Front did not improve. By mid-summer the Polish troops occupied the major part of the LitBel, and on 8 August they entered Minsk.
Actually the LitBel as a state formation ceased to exist, though legal documents on its liquidation were not issued. In the area unoccupied by Polish troops, the highest authority was the Minsk Province Military-Revolutionary Committee, though at the end of August it also stopped its activity. The unoccupied area of the LitBel joined the Russian SFSR.
The Head of the Polish State J. Pilsudski in April 1919 made an appeal “To the residents of the former Great Duchy of Lithuania”, in which he promised the solution of their national problems. His so-called federalist conception purported the formation of independent Belarusian state, as well as Lithuanian and Ukrainian states, subordinate to Poland. This actually concealed their intention to join Belarusian lands to the Polish state.
The discontent with this policy was expressed by the Belarusian Socialist-Revolutionaries at the Belarusian Congress of Vilnius and Grodno Regions held in Vilnius in June 1919, which supported the formation of the Belarusian-Lithuanian state within the borders of the former Great Duchy of Lithuania.
The advance of the Polish troops was stopped only in October-November 1919 on the line of the river Western Dvina – Polotsk – Lepel – Borisov – down the river Berezina to Bobruisk – down the river Ptich to Mozyr. A temporary truce was signed.
The government of the Russian SFSR in the autumn of 1919 proposed to give to Poland the territory to the river Berezina. But received no positive answer. The Polish troops prepared for the new advance.
On 13 December 1919 the Council of the Belarusian National Republic split into the Highest Council of the BNR and the National Council of the BNR – respectively, the supporters of collaboration with the Polish authorities (Ya. Lyosik, A. Lutskevich) and those who supported the full independence of Belarus (P. Krechevsky, V. Lastovsky).
* * *
In the beginning of March 1920 the Polish troops began military operations in Polesye Region and seized Mozyr, Kalinkovichi and Rechitsa. In May they planned to capture Zhlobin and Mogilev. In May the Red Army conducted an unsuccessful offensive and in July resumed an attack. On 11 July the Soviet troops liberated Minsk.
On 12 July in Moscow the Russian SFSR and Lithuania concluded a peace treaty, which recognized the right of Lithuania for the town of Vilnius, Vilnius Region, and Belarusian ethnic territories with the towns of Grodno, Shchuchin, Oshmyany, Smorgon and Lida.
On 31 July 1920 the Minsk Province Military-Revolutionary Committee and representatives of the Party and Soviet bodies adopted the Declaration of the Independence of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Belarus (the second proclamation of the SSRB, later BSSR). The SSRB was restored only within the borders of six districts of Minsk Province.
In August the Red Army launched an attack towards Warsaw, which ended in defeat. The Polish troops assumed an offensive and again seized a large area.
On 17 August 1920 the peace negotiations began in Minsk and later moved to Riga. The head of the BNR government V. Lastovsky sent a note to the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of RSFSR G. Chicherin demanding that representatives of the BNR government participate in the negotiations. On 10 September the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Belarusian Republic authorized the Russian government to hold negotiations with Poland.
The representatives of Soviet Belarus came to Riga; the head of the delegation A. Chervyakov questioned their admission to negotiate before the head of the Russian delegation A. Ioffe but received refusal. The delegation of the BNR was also not allowed to participate. Therefore, neither SSRB nor BNR representatives participated in the talks, because both Poland and the Entente as well as the Russian SFSR were not interested in this.
In October 1920 in accordance with the Polish-Lithuanian agreement, the Vilnius Region was recognized as part of Lithuania. The “revolt” of the First Lithuanian-Belarusian Division of the Polish Army led by General L. Zheligovsky and inspired by the Chief of the Polish Republic J. Pilsudski, interested in the inclusion of Vilnius to Poland, resulted in the creation in this area of the Polish puppet state of Middle Lithuania with the capital in Vilnius. In February 1922 Middle Lithuania entered the Polish Republic.
On 12 October 1920 a preliminary peace agreement was signed, which confirmed the independence of Ukraine and Belarus. Combat operations however continued and on 15 October the Polish troops captured Minsk and on 17 October abandoned the city.
The Conference of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Social-Democrats and Socialist-Federalists took place in October. Its delegates demanded to review the preliminary peace agreement, to fix the borderline with Poland and Russia on ethnographic principle, to withdraw Polish and Russian troops from the Belarusian ethnographic territory and to petition the Socialists of Poland, Russia and the whole world to support their requirements.
In November 1920 General S. Bulak-Balakhovich, supported by J. Pilsudski and the Russian Political Committee in Poland, undertook a large military operation to seize territories along the river Pripyat and captured the towns of Petrikov and Kalinkovichi. Bulak-Balakhovich announced himself “Chief of the Belarusian State”, declared its independence and overthrow of the governments of the SSRB and the BNR. The Red Army responded with an offensive and Bulak-Balakhovich’s units retreated behind the demarcation line between the Soviet and Polish troops.
In November – December 1920 the Socialist-Revolutionaries supported by intelligentsia and peasants organized an anti-Soviet rebellion in Slutsk District under the slogan of the restoration of an independent Belarusian National Republic. The Belarusian Council of Slutsk was established as a provisional government of the BNR. The Slutsk Brigade of four thousand men was defeated by ten-thousand Red Army troops.
* * *
On 18 March 1921 a peace treaty was signed in Riga between the Russian SFSR (the preamble stated that the Russian government signed “for itself and on behalf of the Belarusian SSR”) and the Ukrainian SSR on the one hand and Poland on the other, according to which Western Belarus became part of Poland.
In December 1922 the Belarusian Republic joined a new state – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The formation of the Republic’s territory was not then finished. In March 1924, during the so-called first enlargement, the Republic returned its districts in Vitebsk, Gomel and Smolensk provinces with the Belarusian majority. In December 1927 the second enlargement took place – when Rechitsa and Gomel districts were returned.
In April 1927, by the resolution of the Eighth All-Belarusian Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Soldiers Deputies, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Belarus (SSRB) was renamed the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR).
On 17 September 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War and following the conclusion of an agreement between the USSR and Germany (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939) the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish border and occupied the area of Western Belarus, Vilnius City and Region.
On 10 October 1939 the Lithuanian Republic and the USSR signed an agreement which stipulated the transfer of Vilnius City and Region to Lithuania and established favorable, for the Soviet leadership, conditions for the military cooperation between these states.
In October 1939 in Bialystok the People’s Assembly of Western Belarus adopted the Declaration announcing the Soviet power and reunification of Western Belarus with the Belarusian SSR, which came into effect by laws passed in November at the third extraordinary session of the Supreme Council of the BSSR.