Byelorussian Socialist Soviet Republic (1920–1936) Беларуская Сацыялістычная Савецкая Рэспубліка(Belarusian) Белорусская Социалистическая Советская Республика(Russian)Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1991) Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка(Belarusian) Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика(Russian)
TheByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic[d] (BSSR,Byelorussian SSR orByelorussia;[e]Belarusian:Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка;[f]Russian:Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика),[g] also known asSoviet Belarus or simplyBelarus, was arepublic of theSoviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and afterwards as one offifteen constituent republics of the USSR from 1922 to 1991, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by theCommunist Party of Byelorussia.[3] It was also known as theWhite Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.[4]Minsk was the capital andlargest city of the republic.
The BSSR becameone of the four founding members of the Soviet Union in December 1922, together with the republics ofRussia,Transcaucasia, andUkraine. Byelorussia was one of several Soviet republics occupied byNazi Germany duringWorld War II. It was one of the most developed and prosperousSoviet republics, due to its advanced manufacturing industry and agriculture. The BSSR overall was a net exporter, being a notable producer of consumer electronics, processed agricultural goods, potash, fertilizer, machinery, grain and military equipment. It was also one of the more advanced republics in terms of education and technological expertise. Towards the final years of the Soviet Union's existence, theSupreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR adopted theDeclaration of State Sovereignty in 1990. Inthe referendum held on 17th March 1991, nearly 84% of the population voted in favor of preserving the USSR. Despite this, on 25 August 1991, the Byelorussian SSR declared independence, and on 19 September it was renamed theRepublic of Belarus. The Soviet Union would eventually be formallydissolved on 26 December 1991.
Geographically, the Byelorussian SSR after 1945 was bordered byRussian SFSR to the east and northeast,Ukraine to the south,Poland to the west, andLithuania andLatvia to the northwest. The republic spanned an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of10 million as of 1989.Belarusians formed the majority of the population, followed by significant minorities ofRussians,Poles,Ukrainians andJews. The official languages of the BSSR wereBelarusian andRussian.
The termByelorussia (Russian:Белору́ссия), derives from the termBelaya Rus', i.e.,White Rus'. There are several claims to the origin of the nameWhite Rus'.[5] An ethno-religious theory suggests that the name used to describe the part of oldRuthenian lands within theGrand Duchy of Lithuania that had been populated mostly by early ChristianizedSlavs, as opposed toBlack Ruthenia, which was predominantly inhabited by pagan Balts.[6]
The latter part similar but spelled and stressed differently from Росси́я (Russia), first rose in the days of theRussian Empire, and the Russian Tsar was usually styled "the Tsar of All the Russias", asRussia or theRussian Empire was formed by three parts of Russia—theGreat,Little, andWhite.[7] This asserted that the territories are all Russian and all the peoples are also Russian; in the case of the Belarusians, that they were variants of the Russian people.[8]
Following theBolshevik Revolution in 1917, the term "White Russia" caused some confusion as it became the name of the so-calledWhite military force that opposed the Red Bolsheviks.[9] During the period of the Byelorussian SSR, the termByelorussia was embraced as part of a national consciousness. Inwestern Belarus, under Polish control until World War II,Byelorussia became commonly used in the regions ofBiałystok andGrodno.[10] Upon the establishment of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920, the termByelorussia (its names in other languages such as English being based on the Russian form) was only used officially. In 1936, with the proclamation of the1936 Soviet Constitution, the republic was renamed to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In English, it was also known as theWhite Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.[4]
On 19 September 1991 theSupreme 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 theConstitution of Belarus.[11]
Prior to theFirst World War, the territories of modern-day Belarus were part of theRussian Empire, which it gained from thePartitions of Poland more than a century earlier. During the war, theGreat Retreat in theWestern Front in August–September 1915 ended with the lands ofGrodno Governorate and most ofVilna Governorate being 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 theLake Naroch offensive in late spring 1916, and GeneralAlexei Evert's inconclusive thrust around the city ofBaranovichi in the summer of that year, during theBrusilov offensive further south, in western Ukraine.
The abdication ofNicholas II in light of theFebruary 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 ineffectiveRussian Provisional Government. The momentum picked up after the incompetent actions of the 10th Army during the ill-fatedKerensky offensive during the summer. Representatives of Belarusian regions and of different (mostly left-wing) newly established political powers, including theBelarusian Socialist Assembly, theChristian democratic movement and theGeneral Jewish Labour Bund, formed a Belarusian Central Council. However, the national parties in Belarus were unable to secure mass support, and the nationalist movement was confined to a small, divided and ineffectiveintelligentsia.[12]
Towards the autumn, political stability continued to shake, and countering the rising nationalist tendencies, were thesoviets led byBolsheviks when theOctober 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 theWestern Oblast, which unified the Vilna,Vitebsk,Mogilev andMinsk governorates 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 singleObliskomzap. During the autumn of 1917 and winter of 1918, the Western Oblast was headed byAleksandr Myasnikyan as the head of the Western Oblast'sMilitary Revolutionary Committee, who passed this duty on toKārlis Landers. Myasnikyan took over as chair of theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party's (RSDRP(b)) committee for the Western Oblast andMoses Kalmanovich [ru] as the chair of theObliskomzap.
Countering this, the Belarusian Central Council reorganised itself as the Belarusian National Council (Rada), and started working on establishing governmental institutions, and discarded theObliskomzap as a military formation, rather than governmental. As a result, on 7 (20) December, when the first All-Belarusian Congress convened, the Minsk Bolsheviks commanded the pro-Soviet troops to disbanded it. Following this, they proclaimed the rule of soviets dominated by the Bolsheviks.[12] The first Soviet government in Belarus was established at the end of December by communist organs in Minsk with the support of Russian troops of the Western Front.[13] However, its authority only extended to the regions occupied by pro-communist forces and the major cities, where the local soviets followed Bolshevik leadership.[13]
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 city ofBrest-Litovsk. 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 theCentral Powers, and on 18 February, hostilities resumed. The GermanOperation Faustschlag was of immediate success, and within 11 days, they were able to make a serious advance eastward, taking over Ukraine, the Baltic region, and occupying eastern Belarus. This forced theObliskomzap to evacuate toSmolensk. TheSmolensk Governorate was passed to the Western Oblast. At the end of February, the Germans entered Minsk, which the Soviet authorities had already cleared a few days prior.[13]
Faced with the German demands, the Bolsheviks accepted their terms at the finalTreaty of Brest-Litovsk, 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 ofbuffer states, calledMitteleuropa. On the eve of Germany's occupation of Minsk, some members of the disbanded Belarusian National Council emerged from hiding and formed a provisional government, hoping to achieve German recognition.[13] However, the Germans did not recognise it as another assembly in Vilna was created under their auspices.[13] The Minsk and Vilna organisations issued a joint proclamation on 25 March establishing theBelarusian Democratic Republic (BDR) with German approval.[13] The new government also sought material aid from Germany.[13] The more radical nationalists who disapproved of collaboration with the Germans went to the communists and fled to Russia.[13] The communists who did not escape to the east during the German occupation were driven underground.[14]
In the spring of 1918, the Germans disapproved of the socialist inclinations of the nationalists in the Belarusian government and forced a change in leadership of the puppet government; however, the Germans were also displeased with him and removed him.[13] As a result, the Germans permitted the government less jurisdiction compared to the one in Ukraine.[13] An increase in repression by the Germans also led to an agrarian revolt, although not as violent as the one in Ukraine, which benefitted the communists.[15] The communist underground were directed by the party's Northwestern Regional Committee in Smolensk, which aimed for an alliance with the peasantry.[14]
On 11 September 1918, theRevolutionary Military Council ordered the creation of the Western Defence region in the Western Oblast out ofCurtain forces which were stationed there. Simultaneously the Council reorganised the Western Oblast as aWestern Commune. After Germany was defeated in the First World War, it announced its evacuation from the occupied territories.[14] The Germans began to depart in November 1918; however, there was no nationalist organisation in Belarus that was capable of assuming political authority, unlike in Ukraine.[14] On 13 November, Moscow annulled theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk. Two days later, it transformed the Defence region into aWestern army. It began an initialadvance westward on 17 November. The Belarusian National Republic barely resisted, evacuating Minsk on 3 December. The Soviets maintained a distance of about 10–15 kilometres (6.2–9.3 mi) between the two armies,[16] and took Minsk on 10 December. As the Red Army re-occupied Belarus, the soviets in the country were dominated by Russian and Jewish parties sympathetic to the communists.[14]
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 (KP(b)B). The next day, theSoviet 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 andZmicier Zhylunovich as head of the provisional government.
The new Soviet republic initially consisted of seven districts:Baranovichi,Vitebsk,Gomel,Grodno,Mogilev andSmolensk. On 30 January, the republic announced its separation from theRussian SFSR and renaming as theSoviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB). This was conferred by the First Congress of deputies, composed of workers, soldiers and Red Army soldiers, which met on 2–3 February 1919, to adopt a new socialist constitution. The Red Army continued its westward advance, capturing the city of Grodno on New Year's Day 1919,Pinsk on 21 January, and Baranovichi on 6 February 1919, thereby enlarging the SSRB.
TheLithuanian operation and continuing conquest of Byelorussia were threatened by the rise of theSecond Polish Republic after the withdrawal of German forces. However, theconflict with Poland did not break out and the Soviet High Command's 12 January directive was to cease advance on theNeman-Bug rivers. However, the region to the east of those lines was historically mixed among a population of Belarusians, Poles and Lithuanians, with a sizeable Jewish minority. The local communities of each respective group wanted to be part of the respective states that were establishing themselves.
In theKresy ("borderland") areas of Lithuania, Belarus and western Ukraine, self-organized militias, theSamoobrona Litwy i Białorusi numbering approximately 2,000 soldiers under General Wejtko, began to fight against the local communist and advancing Bolshevik forces. Each side was trying to secure the territories for its own government. The newly formed Polish Army began sending its organised units to reinforce the militias. On 14 February, thefirst clash between regular armies took place and a front emerged. The operations in Lithuania brought the front close toEast Prussia, and the German units that had withdrawn there began to assist the Lithuanian forces to defeat the Soviets; they repelled the Red offensive againstKaunas in February 1919.
Eager to win support, the Bolshevik government decided to merge the Lithuanian and Byelorussian republics into theLithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel) on 28 February 1919. Its capital was proclaimed asVilna, with five governorates:Vilna,Grodno,Kovno,Suwalki andMinsk. The Vitebsk and Mogilev governorates were transferred to the Russian SFSR, and were soon joined by theGomel Governorate, which was created on 26 April. The two parties of the republics were also combined.[17] The republic was headed byVincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas and the combined party was headed by nationalistZmicier Zhylunovich.[17] However, the Belarusian nationalists disapproved that the republic was being expanded, and Zhylunovich resigned shortly after, followed by other nationalists.[17]
In March 1919, Polish units opened an offensive: forces under GeneralStanisław Szeptycki captured the city ofSlonim (2 March) and crossed the Neman, whilst Lithuanian advances forced the Soviets out ofPanevėžys. A final Soviet counter-offensive retookPanevėžys andGrodno in early April, but the Western Army was too thinly spread to fight both the Polish and Lithuanian troops, and the German units assisting them. The Polish offensive quickly gained momentum, andVilna offensive in April 1919, forced Litbel to evacuate the capital first toDvinsk (28 April), then to Minsk (28 April), then toBobruysk (19 May). As the Litbel lost territory, its powers were quickly stripped by Moscow. For example, on 1 June,Vtsik's decree put all of Litbel's armed forces under the command of the Red Army. On 17 July, the Defence Soviet was liquidated, and its function was passed to Minsk'sMilrevcom. When on 8 August Polish forcescaptured Minsk, that same day the capital was evacuated toSmolensk. On 28 August, Lithuanian forces tookZarasai (the last Lithuanian town held by Litbel) and the same dayBobruysk fell to the Poles.
By late summer of 1919, the Polish advance was also exhausted. The defeat of the Red Army allowed the outbreak of another historic disagreement over territory between Poland and Lithuania; their competition to control the city of Vilna soon erupted into amilitary conflict, with Poland winning. Facing Denikin and Kolchak, Soviet Russia could not spare men for the western front. A stalemate with localised skirmishes developed between Poland and Lithuania.
The Polish Sejm had also declared that the territories of Belarus were an inalienable part of the Polish Commonwealth.[17] As the Sejm was voting for annexation,Józef Piłsudski offered the Belarusians federal ties instead; however, the Polish occupation authorities disregarded the social radicalism of the masses and nationalist sentiments among parts of the Belarusian intelligentsia, with the Poles ordering for the lands confiscated by the communists to be returned to the landowners, and Polish being introduced as an official language.[17]
The stalemate and the occasional, though fruitless, negotiations gave Russia a much needed pause to concentrate on other regions. During the latter half of 1919, the Red Army successfully defeated Denikin in the south, taking over the Don, North Caucasus and eastern Ukraine, and pushed Kolchak from the Volga, beyond the Ural mountains intoSiberia. In the autumn of 1919,Nikolai Yudenich's advance onPetrograd was checked, whilst in the far north theEvgeny Miller's army was pushed into the Arctic. On the diplomatic front, on 11 September 1919, thePeople's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia,Georgy Chicherin, sent a note to Lithuania with a proposal for apeace treaty. It was ade facto recognition of the Lithuanian state.[18] Similar negotiations withEstonia andLatvia, gave way for a peace treaty with the former on 2 February 1920 and a cease-fire agreement with the latter a day earlier.
Lenin feared that a Polish offensive was incoming, and offered to accept the current frontline as a permanent border between Poland and Russia, which would include nearly all of Belarus going to Poland.[17] However, Piłsudski had greater ambitions, and he also made an agreement withSymon Petliura in Ukraine to exchangeGalicia in return for a promise to force out communists in right-bank Ukraine.[17]
After the decisive Polish victory in Warsaw, the Red Army was forced to retreat from Polish territories, but attempts to holdWestern Belarus were lost after thePolish victory on theNieman River.
In April 1920, Poland initiated itsmajor offensive on Kiev, which although was initially successful, ended in a Polish defeat.[17] The Soviet Red Army was much more organised than it was a year earlier, and though Polish troops managed to make several gains in Ukraine, notably the capture ofKiev, in Byelorussia, both of its offensives towardsZhlobin andOrsha were thrown back in May.
In June, the RSFSR was finally ready to open its major Western advance. To preserve the neutrality of Lithuania (though the peace treaty was still being negotiated), on 6 June the exiled government of Litbel was disbanded. Within a few days, the 3rd Cavalry Corps under command ofHayk Bzhishkyan broke the Polish front, causing a collapse and a retreat. On 11 July Minsk was re-taken, and on 31 July 1920 once again the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belorussia was re-established in Minsk.
As the front moved west, and more Belarusian lands were adjoined to the new republic, the first administrative decrees were issued. The entity was divided into sevenuyezds:Bobruysk,Borisov,Igumen, Minsk,Mozyr andSlutsk. (Vitebsk, Gomel and Mogilev remained part of the RSFSR.) This time the leaders wereAleksandr Chervyakov (head of Minsk's milrevcom) andWilhelm Knorin (as chairmen of the Central Committee of the Belarusian Communist Party). The SSRB sought to join further territories, as the Red Army crossed into Poland, but the decisive Polish victory at theBattle of Warsaw in August ended these ambitions. Once again, the Red Army found itself on the defensive in Belorussia. The Poles were able to successfully break the Russian lines at theBattle of the Niemen River in September 1920. As a result, the Soviets were not only forced to abandon theirWorld Revolution targets, butWestern Belarus too. However early autumn rains halted the Polish advance, which exhausted itself by October. A cease-fire agreed on 12 October, came into effect on 18 October.
As the negotiations between the Polish Republic and the Russian Bolshevik government took place inRiga, the Soviet side saw the armistice as only a temporary setback in its western advance. Seeing the failure of overcoming the Polish nationalist rhetoric with Communist propaganda, the Soviet government chose a different tactic, by appealing to the minorities of the Polish state, creating afifth column element out ofBelarusians andUkrainians. During the negotiations, RSFSR offered all of BSSR to Poland in return for concessions in Ukraine, which were rejected by the Polish side. Eventually a compromising armistice line was agreed, which would see the Belarusian city ofSlutsk handed over to the Bolsheviks.
News of Belarus' upcoming permanent division angered the population, and using the town's Polish occupation, the local population began self-organising into a militia and associating itself with theBelarusian Democratic Republic. On 24 November the Polish units left the town, and for nearly a month the Slutsk partisans resisted Soviet attempts to re-gain control of the area. Eventually the Red Army had to mobilise two divisions to overcome the resistance, when the last units of Slutsk militia crossed the Moroch River and interned by the Polish border guards.
In February 1921, the delegations of the Second Polish Republic and the Russian SFSR finally signed theTreaty of Riga putting an end of hostilities in Europe, and Belarus in particular. Six years of war had left the land neglected and looted, and the endless change of occupying regimes, each worse than the previous, left their mark on the Belarusian people, who were now divided. Almost half (Western Belarus) now belonged to Poland. Eastern Belarus (Gomel, Vitebsk and parts of Smolensk guberniyas) were administered by the RSFSR. The rest was the SSRB, a republic with 52,400 square kilometres and a population of a mere 1.544 million people.
An interesting paradox arose in the status of SSRB within the future Bolshevik state. On one hand its small geographic, population and almost negligent economic indicators did not warrant it much political weight on Soviet affairs. In fact the leader of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (Bolshevik),Alexander Chervyakov would represent Byelorussian communists at seven party congresses in Moscow, but not once be elected into the party'sCentral Committee. Moreover, the weak national sentiment of the Belarusian people would easily have allowed SSRB to be disbanded and annexed to the RSFSR, unlike for example Ukraine.
On the other hand, the region's strategic role decided its fate, as a fullUnion republic within the negotiations upon forming the future state. For oneLeon Trotsky and his supporters within the Soviet leadership still supported itsWorld Revolution concept, and as said above, viewed the Treaty of Riga as only a temporary setback to the process, and a future advance would require a prepared bridgehead. This justified giving the SSRB the status of a full union republic within theTreaty on the Creation of the USSR that was signed on 30 December 1922. SSR Byelorussia became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922 and became known as BSSR.[h]
However the politics in Moscow took a different course of events, and eventually the accession ofJoseph Stalin saw a new policy adopted:Socialism in One Country. In accordance with which, expansionist and irredentist claims were removed from Soviet ideology, which instead would focus on making regions economically viable. Thus in March 1924, by decree of theAll-Russian Central Executive Committee, Russia returned most of territories that made up the Vitebsk and Mogilev Governorates, as well as parts of Smolensk. The passing of land that largely survived the destruction of war not only doubled the SSRB's area to 110,600 square kilometres, but also raised the population to 4.2 million people.
Trotsky's plan for the SSRB to act as a future magnet for the minorities in theSecond Polish Republic is clearly evidenced in the national policies. The republic initially had four official languages:Belarusian, Russian,Yiddish, andPolish, despite the fact that theRussians and thePoles made up only around 2% of the total population (most of the latter lived next to the state border in the Minsk and Borisov districts). The most important minority was theJewish population of Belarus, which had a long history of targeted oppression under the Tsars, and in 1925 made up almost 44% of the urban population and began to be aided byaffirmative action programmes. In 1924 the government created a committee –Belkomzet – to allocate land to Jewish families, in 1926 a total of 32,700 hectares were given for 6,860 Jewish families. Jews would continue to play a major role in Byelorussian politics, society and economy right up to theSecond World War; in fact, between 1928 and 1930, the first secretary of theCommunist Party of Byelorussia,Yakov Gamarnik, was a Jew.
Yet, the titular nation of the SSRB were theBelarusians, which made up 82% of the rural population, but less than half of the urban one (40.1%). The Belarusian national sentiment was a lot weaker than that of neighbouring Ukraine, this was greatly exploited by the Bolshevik-Polish power struggle in thePolish–Soviet War. (In fact to avoid being annexed to Poland, at the census of 1920, many chose to be label themselves asRussians.[19]). To appeal to theBelarusians ofWestern Belarus and also to prevent the nationalist element of the exiledBelarusian Democratic Republic from having any influence on the population (i.e. to avoid another Slutsk uprising), a policy ofKorenizatsiya was widely implemented. Belarusian language, folklore and culture was put at front of everything else. This went on par with the Soviet policy of liquidation of illiteracy (likbez).
Economically the republic remained largely self-centred, and most of the effort was put into restoring and repairing the war-damaged industry (if in 1923 there was only 226 different fabrics and factories, then by 1926 the number climbed to 246. However, the employed manpower jumped from 14 thousand to 21.3 thousand workers). The majority was food industry followed by metal and wood working combines. A lot more was centred in local and private sector, as allowed by theNew Economic Policy of the USSR, in 1925 these number 38.5 thousand who employed almost 50 thousand people. Most being textile workshops and lumber yards and blacksmiths.
On 6 December 1926, the SSRB was once again enlarged, in order to make the republic prosperous and continue thecreating of well-defined national territorial units. This time, parts of RSFSR'sGomel Governorate were added, including the cities ofGomel andRechytsa. This increased the area to 126,300 square kilometres and the1926 Soviet census that was held at the same time reported a population of 4,982,623. Of the latter 83% was rural, and Belarusians made up 80.6% (though only 39.2% of urban, yet 89% of rural).
On 11 April 1927, the republic adopted its newConstitution, bringing its laws in tie with those of the USSR and changing the name from theSoviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia to theByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.[citation needed] The head of government (chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissars) was by now then newly appointedNikolay Goloded, whilstVilhelm Knorin remained the first secretary of the Communist Party.
The Byelorussian SSR prior to theinvasion of PolandThe Byelorussian SSR after the invasion of Poland
The 1930s marked the peak ofSoviet repressions in Belarus. According to incomplete calculations, about 600,000 people fell victim to Soviet repressions in Belarus between 1917 and 1953.[20][21] Other estimates put the number at higher than 1.4 million persons.,[22] of which 250,000 were sentenced by judicial or executed by extrajudicial bodies (dvoikas,troikas, special commissions of theOGPU,NKVD,MGB). Excluding those sentenced in the 1920s–1930s, over 250,000 Belarusians were deported askulaks or kulak family members to regions outside the Belarusian Soviet Republic. The scale of Soviet terror in Belarus was higher than in Russia or Ukraine which resulted in a much stronger extent ofRussification in the republic.[citation needed]
In September 1939, the Soviet Union, following theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact withNazi Germany, occupied eastern Poland after the1939 invasion of Poland. The former Polish territories referred to asWest Belarus were incorporated into the Belarusian SSR, with an exception of the city ofVilnius and its surroundings that were transferred toLithuania. The annexation was internationally recognized after the end of World War II.
In the summer of 1941, Belarus was occupied by Nazi Germany. A large part of the territory of Belarus became theGeneral District Belarus within theReichskommissariat Ostland.
Nazi Germany imposed a brutal regime, deporting some 380,000 people forslave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians more. 800,000Belarusian Jews (about 90 percent of the Jewish population) were killed duringthe Holocaust.[23] At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed by the Germans and some or all their inhabitants killed (out of 9,200 settlements that were burned or otherwise destroyed in Belarus duringWorld War II).[24] More than 600 villages likeKhatyn were totally annihilated.[24] Altogether, over 2,000,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years ofGerman occupation, almost a quarter of the region's population.[25][26]
After World War II, the Byelorussian SSR was given a seat in the United NationsGeneral Assembly together with the Soviet Union and Ukrainian SSR, becoming one of the founding members of the UN. This was part of a deal with the United States to ensure a degree of balance in theGeneral Assembly, which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc.[citation needed] A Byelorussian, G.G. Chernushchenko, served asPresident of the United Nations Security Council from January–February 1975.
In its last years duringperestroika underMikhail Gorbachev, the Supreme Soviet of Byelorussian SSR declared sovereignty on 27 July 1990 over Soviet laws.
On 25 August 1991, after thefailure of the coup in Moscow, the republic proclaimed its political and economic independence from the Soviet Union,[27] however, continued to consider herself part of the USSR.[27][28][29][30][31] On 19 September the republic was renamed theRepublic of Belarus.[32] On 8 December 1991 it was a signatory, along with Russia andUkraine, of theBelovezha Accords, which replaced the Soviet Union with theCommonwealth of Independent States. Belarus received independence on 25 December 1991. A day later the Soviet Union ceased to exist. However, the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Republic of Belarus of 1978, was retained after independence.
Belarus is the legal successor of the Byelorussian SSR and in itsConstitution it states, "Laws, decrees and other acts which were applied in the territory of the Republic of Belarus prior to the entry into force of the present Constitution shall apply in the particular parts thereof that are not contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus."[34]
On the international stage, Byelorussia (along with Ukraine) was one of only tworepublics of the Soviet Union to be separate members of the United Nations. Both republics and theSoviet Union joined the UN when the organization was founded with the other 50 states on 24 October 1945. In effect, this provided the Soviet Union (a permanentSecurity Council member with veto powers) with another 2 votes in theGeneral Assembly.
Whilst part of the Union, thecuisine of Byelorussia consisted mainly of vegetables, meat (particularly pork), and bread. Foods are usually either slowly cooked orstewed. Typically, Byelorussians eat a light breakfast and two hearty meals, with dinner being the largest meal of the day. Wheat andrye breads are consumed in Belarus, but rye is more plentiful because conditions are too harsh for growing wheat. Many of the cuisines within Byelorussia also shared its cuisine withRussia andPoland.
^28 July 1990 from Art. 6 of the Constitution of the Byelorussian SSR, the provision on the monopoly of the Communist Party of Byelorussia on power was excluded
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