Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Byelorusskaya Sovyetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika or russian: links=no, Белорусская ССР, Belorusskaya SSR), also commonly referred to in English as Byelorussia, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922, and from 1922 to 1991 as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia and was also referred to as Soviet Byelorussia or Soviet Belarus by a number of historians. Other names for Byelorussia included White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

To the west it bordered Poland. Within the Soviet Union, it bordered the Lithuanian SSR and the Latvian SSR to the north, the Russian SFSR to the east, and the Ukrainian SSR to the south.

The Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB) was declared by the Bolsheviks on 1 January 1919 following the declaration of independence by the Belarusian Democratic Republic in March 1918. In 1922, the BSSR was one of the four founding members of the Soviet Union, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Byelorussia was one of several Soviet republics occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Towards the final years of the Soviet Union's existence, the Supreme Soviet of Byelorussian SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty in 1990. On 25 August 1991, the Byelorussian SSR declared independence, and on 19 September it was renamed the Republic of Belarus. The Soviet Union was dissolved four months and one day later on 26 December 1991.

Terminology

The term ''Byelorussia'' (russian: link=no, Белору́ссия), derives from the term ''Belaya Rus' '', i.e., ''White Rus'''. There are several claims to the origin of the name ''White Rus'.'' An ethno-religious theory suggests that the name used to describe the part of old Ruthenian lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that had been populated mostly by early Christianized Slavs, as opposed to Black Ruthenia, which was predominantly inhabited by pagan Balts.

The latter part similar but spelled and stressed differently from Росси́я (''Russia''), first rose in the days of the Russian Empire, and the Russian Tsar was usually styled "the Tsar of All the Russias", as ''Russia'' or the ''Russian Empire'' was formed by three parts of Russia—the Great, Little, and White. This asserted that the territories are all Russian and all the peoples are also Russian; in the case of the Belarusians, they were variants of the Russian people.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the term "White Russia" caused some confusion as it was also the name of the military force that opposed the red Bolsheviks. During the period of the Byelorussian SSR, the term ''Byelorussia'' was embraced as part of a national consciousness. In western Belarus under Polish control, ''Byelorussia'' became commonly used in the regions of Białystok and Hrodna during the interwar period. Upon the establishment of the Byelorussian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1920, the term ''Byelorussia'' (its names in other languages such as English being based on the Russian form) was only used officially. In 1936, with the proclamation of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, the republic was renamed to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic transposing the second ("socialist") and third ("soviet") words.

On 19 September 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR renamed the Soviet republic to the Republic of Belarus, with the short form "Belarus". Conservative forces in the newly independent Belarus did not support the name change and opposed its inclusion in the 1991 draft of the Constitution of Belarus.

History

Beginning

Prior to the First World War, Belarusian lands were a part of the Russian Empire, which it gained from the Partitions of Poland more than a century earlier. During the War, the Russian Western Front's Great retreat in August/September 1915 ended with the lands of Hrodna and most of Viĺnia guberniyas occupied by Germany. The resulting front, passing at 100 kilometres to the west of Minsk remained static towards the end of the conflict, despite Russian attempts to break it at Lake Narač in late spring 1916 and General Alexei Evert's inconclusive thrust around the city of Baranavičy in summer of that year, during the Brusilov offensive further south, in Western Ukraine.

The abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in light of the February Revolution in Russia in February 1917, activated a rather dormant political life in Belarus. As central authority waned, different political and ethnic groups strived for greater self-determination and even secession from the increasingly ineffective Russian Provisional Government. The momentum picked up after the incompetent actions of the 10th Army during the ill-fated Kerensky offensive during the summer. Representatives of Belarusian regions and of different (mostly left-wing) newly established political powers, including the Belarusian Socialist Assembly, the Christian democratic movement and the General Jewish Labour Bund, formed a Belarusian Central Council.

Towards the autumn political stability continued to shake, and countering the rising nationalist tendencies were the Bolshevik Soviets, when the October Revolution hit Russia, that same day, on 25 October (7 November) 1917, the Minsk Soviet of workers and soldiers deputies took over the administration of the city. The Bolshevik All-Russian council of Soviets declared the creation of the Western Oblast which unified the Viĺnia, Viciebsk, Mahilioŭ and Minsk guberniyas that were not occupied by the German army, to administer the Belarusian lands in the frontal zone. On 26 November (6 December), the executive committee of workers, peasants and soldiers deputies for the Western Oblast was merged with the Western front's executive committee, creating a single '' Obliskomzap''. During the autumn 1917/winter of 1918, the Western Oblast was headed by Aleksandr Myasnikyan as head of the Western Oblast's Military Revolutionary Committee, who passed this duty on to Karl Lander. Myasnikyan took over as chair of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's (RSDRP(b)) committee for Western Oblast and as chair of the Obliskomzap.

Countering this the Belarusian Central Council reorganised itself as a Belarusian National Council (Rada), started working on establishing governmental institutions, and discarded the Obliskomzap as a military formation, rather than governmental. As a result, on 7th (20th) of December, when the first All-Belarusian congress convened, the Bolsheviks forcibly disbanded it.

German involvement

The Russo-German front in Belarus remained static since 1915 and formal negotiations began only on 19 November (2 December N.S.), when the Soviet delegation traveled to the German-occupied Belarusian city of Brest-Litoŭsk. A cease-fire was quickly agreed and proper peace negotiations began in December.

However, the German party soon went back on its word and took full advantage of the situation, and the Bolsheviks' demand of a treaty "without annexations or indemnities" was unacceptable to the Central Powers, and on 18 February hostilities resumed. The German Operation Faustschlag was of immediate success and within 11 days, they were able to make a serious advance eastward, taking over Ukraine, the Baltic states and occupying Eastern Belarus. This forced the Obliskomzap to evacuate to Smolensk. The Smolensk guberniya was passed to the Western Oblast.

Faced with the German demands, the Bolsheviks accepted their terms at the final Treaty of Brest-Litoŭsk, which was signed on 3 March 1918. For the German Empire, Operation Faustschlag achieved one of their strategic plans for World War I, to create a German-centered hegemony of buffer states, called Mitteleuropa. Support of local nationalist groups alienated by Bolsheviks was key, thus, when four days after Minsk was occupied by the German Army, the disbanded Belarusian National Council declared itself as the sole authority in Belarus, the Germans stood by, and recognised the declared Belarusian Democratic Republic on 25 March.

Creation

After Germany was defeated in the First World War, it announced its evacuation from the occupied territories of Belarus and Ukraine. As the Germans were preparing to depart, the Bolsheviks were keen to enter the territory to re-claim Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltics to realise Soviet premier Vladimir Lenin's advocacy to seize the territories of the former Russian Empire and advance the world revolution.

On 11 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council ordered the creation of the Western Defence region in the Western Oblast out of Curtain forces which were stationed there. Simultaneously the Council reorganised the Western Oblast as a ''Western Commune''. On 13 November, Moscow annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litoŭsk. Two days later it transformed the Defence region into a Western army. It began an initially bloodless advance westward on the 17th. The Belarusian National Republic barely resisted, evacuating Minsk on 3 December. The Soviets maintained a distance of about between the two armies, and took Minsk on the 10th.

Encouraged by their success, in Smolensk on 30–31 December 1918, the Sixth Western Oblast Party conference met and announced its split from the Russian Communist Party, proclaiming itself as the first congress of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (CPB(b)). The next day, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia was proclaimed in Smolensk, terminating the Western Commune, and on 7 January it was moved to Minsk. Aleksandr Myasnikyan emerged as head of the All-Byelorussian Central Executive Committee and Zmicier Žylunivič as head of the provisional government.

The new Soviet republic initially consisted of seven districts: Baranavičy, Viciebsk