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Belorussian Review
7
May
1959
CONTENTS
PAVIEL URBAN The Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic: A Brief Historical Outline
JAN ZAPRUDNIK The Communist Party of Belorussia: An Outline of its History
H. NIAMIHA Education, Culture and Science in the BSSR: A Brief Survey of the Soviet Period
ANTHONY ADAMOVICH Forty Years of Belorussian Literature in the BSSR: A Review of Events
STANISLAU STANKIEVIC "Revisionist .Tendencies" in Soviet Belorussian Literature on the Eve of the Fortieth Anniversary of the BSSR
G. A. VVEDENSKY Forty Years of Industry in the Belorussian SSR
SYMON KABYS The Development of Belorussian Agriculture Under Soviet Rule I
H. NIAMIHA The Academy of Sciences of the BSSR
Chronicle
Preliminary Results of the Population Census
The Fourth Congress of the Association of Writers of the BSSR
The Third Congress of Composers of the BSSR
THE BELORUSSIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC A Brief Historical Outline
PAVIEL URBAN
On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Lepublic, numerous articles, monographs and collections of documents have been published, the majority dealing with the political aspect of the republic's history.
Iiile providing, to be sure, valuable factual material, they all, nevertheless, purport to show that the BSSR was the product of the popular will and the fruit of the coherent nationality policy of the Communist Party, an assertion which can be substantiated only by concealing or distorting facts. The impression is created that the Belorussian people accepted the idea of Communism without hesitation as their own and were the first in history to start building their state along the lines of Communist nationality policy. The object of this article is to show how groundless these assertions are and to expose the falsification of Belorussian Soviet historiography.
In the early stages of the Revolution, the Bolsheviks' attitude toward the Belorussian question was just as hostile as that of the Provisional Government of Kerensky. One of the first indications of this hostility was their attempt to incite the Minsk Province Peasant Union, which was set up by Frunze in April 1917,1 against the Belorussian national liberation movement. This Union arose as a counterbalance to the Belorussian National Committee, organized on March 25, 1917, at the First Congress of All-Belorussian Parties and Organizations. Another indication was the name chosen for the Bolshevik Party organization for Belorussia, designated as the Northwestern Regional Committee of the RSDRP(b) (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party of Bolsheviks)2 at the First Northwestern Regional Conference of Western-Front Bolsheviks, convened in Minsk on September 15, 1917.3 At the same time, Belorussia was referred to as the Northwestern Region of Russia,
In the first phase of the Revolution, the Bolsheviks assumed power in Belorussia quickly and without any great difficulty. Their task was facilitated by a number of factors: the political differences dividing the other parties; the masses of soldiers, demoralized by Bolshevik propaganda, who were streaming into the country at that time; and, chiefly, the absence of Belorussian national military units.4 Notwithstanding, the first attempt by the Bolsheviks to seize power in Minsk did not succeed. Having learned of the Bolshevik coup d'etat in Petrograd, the Bolshevik Presidium of the Minsk Soviet issued a decree on October 26 (November 8) announcing the Soviet assumption of power in the city and its outskirts.5 Simultaneously, a Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee for the Western Region and the Front (Voenrevkomzap) was set up, headed by Aleksandr Myasnikov.6 The Socialist revolutionary faction and the Bundists of the Minsk Soviet as well as the Western Front Command opposed the Bolsheviks and formed, on the next day, the anti-Bolshevik (and, at the same time, anti-Belorussian) Committee to Save the Motherland and the Revolution. In the face of this opposition, the Bolsheviks had to relinquish momentarily their claim to power and sign an agreement with this Committee on October 28 (November 10), forming thereby "a single socialist front" together with the opposition.7 However, this was only a Bolshevik tactical maneuver, allowing them time to draw up military forces in Minsk in order to seize power on November 2-3 (November 15-16) with the support of the 60th Siberian Rifle Regiment and an armored train. They seized power this time comparatively peacefully. After first breaking with the "single socialist front," they dissolved the Committee to Save the Motherland and the Revolution and arrested its organizers and the Western Front army staff.8
In connection with these events, the Great Belorussian Rada, which had been formed from the Central Rada of Belorussian Parties, and Organizations with the help of the Belorussian Central Army Rada, issued a proclamation on October 27 (November 9) summoning the Belorussian people to unite in a single family to fight against the foreign forces in Belorussia and, in particular, against the Bolsheviks.9 The Rada forthwith began preparations for the convocation of an All-Belorussian Congress, and the Belorussian Central Army Rada started organizing army units.10 The Bolshevik reaction was swift. Between November 5 and 13 (18 and 26), it convened three congresses under the auspices of the Northwestern Regional Committee of the RSDRP(b): a Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, a Congress of Army Deputies from the Western Front and a Congress of Peasant Deputies from the Minsk and Vilna Provinces. The executive committees elected at these congresses fused into a single Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers', "Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies of the Western Region (Oblispolkomzap). At its first plenary session, it set up the so-called Council of People's Commissars of the
Astern Region and Front in opposition to the Great Belorussian Rada, which, they alleged, was bent on "seizing power and proclaiming a Belorussian National Republic."11
The Oblispolkomzap and the Council of People's Commissars, whose authority was to cover the Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Smolensk and, partly, Vilna provinces (Grodno Province being then occupied by the Germans),12 were set up by the Bolsheviks following the publication on November 2 (15) of the Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia. This Declaration clearly stated that the "Council of People's Commissars [of Soviet Russia] has decided to base its policy vis-a-vis the nationalities of Russia on the following principles: (1) the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; (2) the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination, including secession and the formation of an independent state."13 Consequently, the establishment of the Western Region and of its Council of people's Commissars may be viewed, not only as a deliberate violation of the rights of the Belorussian people, but also as a breach of the Declaration of Rights. This act of violation was followed by another, the dissolution of the First All-Belorussian Congress, convened in the second half of December 1917 to discuss the future status of Belorussia.14
Bolshevik policy remained unchanged throughout the Bolshevik, and later German, occupation of the country, i. e., up to the end of 1918.15 It must be noted, however, that while the Bolsheviks continued to refer officially to Belorussia as the Western Region of Russia, they also employed the terms "Belorussian" and "Belorussia." They even set up pro-Bolshevik and pro-Russian organizations under Belorussian names, as, for example, the Petrograd Belorussian Regional Committee (attached to the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Deputies), the Belorussian National Commissariat (attached to the central People's Commissariat for Nationality Affairs),16 the Belorussian Section of the RKP(b) (Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks) and the Belorussian Regional Committee of the RKP(b).17
On February 19, 1918, twenty-four hours after the expiry of the armistice of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans began their advance to the east. On the same day, in . a panic the Bolsheviks left Minsk and other towns in central Belorussia. The Rada, which had been elected at the First AU-Belorussian Congress, emerged from the underground to take up the reins of power, and formed a provisional government known as the People's Secretariat of Belorussia. The Germans occupied Minsk on February 25, and by the end of the month they held Polotsk, Mogilev and Gomel. Confronted by this threat, the Bolsheviks resumed peace talks with the Germans, the result of which was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, which divided Belorussia between the neighboring states.18 Under these conditions, without waiting for the convocation of another Belorussian Constituent Assembly, the Executive Committee of the Congress Rada issued the Second Constituent Proclamation on March 9, which put into force the resolutions of the First All-Belorussian Congress and proclaimed the formation of the Belorussian National Republic (BNR) throughout the territory of ethnic Belorussia. The newly-organized Rada of the BNR repudiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and proclaimed the independence of Belorussia in the well-known Third Proclamation of March 25.
Holding to the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans were not at all favorably disposed to the idea of an independent Belorussia. They accordingly refused to permit the organization of a Belorussian army and would not give the BNR the recognition which had been sought by the Rada in Berlin. They were not, however, hostile to the Belorussian liberation movement as such. The fact of the matter was that civil authority in Belorussia was in the hands of the Rada, while the Germans put no obstacles in the way of the BNR's diplomatic activity. The Rada exploited its limited freedom of action to the utmost: at home, it rallied the people to unity of action; abroad, it acquainted the outside world with the Belorussian problem, with the result that a number of states recognized the BNR.
The growth of the Belorussian national movement and the activity of the Rada were of no little concern to the Bolsheviks and forced them to reexamine their attitude on the Belorussian question. They embarked at first on an extremely anti-Belorussian policy, directing their efforts toward the suppression of the national liberation movement. Resolutions were passed by their auxiliary organizations and the congresses which they had convened under Belorussian names, which slandered the Belorussian national movement and proclaimed the "historic and blood ties" linking the Belorussian and Russian peoples. The Congress of Belorussian Refugees, held in Moscow in February 1918, passed a resolution which declared that the Belorussian people "understood the existence of their own state only as a part of the Russian Federal Democratic Republic."19 But the Second Congress of Soviets of the Western Region, which met in Smolensk from April 10 to 13, and the All-Russian Congress of Belorussian Refugees in Moscow (July 10—21) were even more outspokenly anti-Belorussian. The former, in a declaration to "Belorussian workers and peasants," stigmatized the proclamation of the Belorussian National Republic as "a fiendish plan," while the members of the Rada were branded as "imposters and hirelings" of German imperialism who "were criminally betraying Russian socialist interests."20 The latter expressed disagreement with the way things were developing in Belorussia and chimed in with Moscow: "Down with the independence implanted by the Germans with the help of the Belorussian landowners! Let there be a single, free Belorussia of peasants and workers in close, fraternal union with the Russian Soviet Republic!"21 Even at the time when the plan for declaring the "independence" of a Soviet Belorussia was being drawn up in Moscow, "Belorussian" organizations were forced to make no distinction between Belorussia and Russia. In the "Declaration of the Central Bureau of the Belorussian Sections of the RKP(b) to the Belorussian People," published on December 29,1918, the Belorussian people were summoned to begin the restoration of "a free Belorussia of workers and peasants": "Comrades, brother Belorussians! Poor sons of a bereaved mother—Great Russia. . . Do not believe the Belorussian Rada, which is negotiating your reenslavement with the Lithuanian Diet. .. Forge ahead, . . . but only with Soviet Russia!"22
The Bolsheviks were at the same time active on the diplomatic front in an effort to tie up the future of Belorussia with Russia. Taking advantage of the summer advance by the Entente forces, they persuaded the Germans to negotiate a treaty on August 27, supplementing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. By virtue of this treaty, the Germans agreed to evacuate Belorussia, the Black Sea basin and part of the Donets Basin, to give Soviet Russia access to the Baltic through Reval, Riga and Ventspils (Wind.au), and, most important of all, not to support the consolidation of new independent states in territories under German occupation.23 This last clause concerned primarily the BNR, since the Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Finland had already been recognized by Germany as independent states. This clearly illustrates how little the Bolsheviks understood the Belorussian question. This treaty also gives the lie to their allegation that the BNR was the handiwork of Germans and their agents.
Thus, the growth of the Belorussian national liberation movement and the Rada's diplomatic activity compelled the Bolsheviks to revise their attitude toward the Belorussian question. This was admitted by Knorin, one of the leading Bolshevik politicians in Belorussia at that time:
The period of the German occupation was propitious to the acceptance of the idea of independence, and the Party had to take this into consideration. Under these circumstances, the Party organizations in Moscow and Smolensk began almost simultaneously to come out in support of the opinion that it was necessary to form a Belorussian republic without delay.24
In connection with this, Joseph Stalin, People's Commissar for Nationality Affairs, at the bidding of the Central Committee of the RKP(b), in December 1918 met with representatives of the Conferences of Soviet Workers of Belorussia and of the Belorussian Sections of the RKP(b), and with delegations from the Belorussian National Commissariat and from the Executive Committee of Soviets of the Western Region. The Belorussian question was likewise included on the agenda at the conference of representatives from the Moscow, Petrograd, Minsk, Saratov and Tombov Sections of the RKP(b), which was held in Moscow on December 21.25 On December 23, the Central Committee of the RKP(b) adopted a resolution calling for the formation of a Belorussian Soviet republic.26 On December 25, the leader of the Northwestern Regional Committee of the RKP(b), Myasnikov, was informed of this decision. He was advised to postpone, for the time being, convening the Sixth Conference of the Northwestern Region and to come to Moscow for instructions. On the same day, the All-Russian Congress of the Belorussian Sections of the RKP(b) was held in Moscow and discussed the Central Committee's resolution to form a Belorussian Soviet republic. Following Myasnikov's arrival in Moscow, a conference of senior Party workers from the Northwestern Region was held there on December 27 which accepted the "conditions for the establishment of the Belorussian SSR" set forth by the Central Committee.27 In accordance with these "conditions," the Republic was to include the Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Smolensk provinces; the Party Committee of the Northwestern Region was to be reestablished as the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of the Belorussian Republic; and the rights of the Central Bureau and the government were to be those formerly enjoyed by the Regional Party Committee and the sectors of the Oblispolkomzap.28
It was only after the acceptance of these "conditions" that the Sixth Northwestern Regional Conference was convened in Smolensk on December 30, 1918.29 It declared itself to be the First Congress of the Communist Party of the Belorussian Republic, fixed the Republic's boundaries and elected a provisional government.30 A manifesto of January 1, 1919, proclaimed the establishment of the "independent" Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) and simultaneously outlawed the Rada of the BNR.31 On January 5, the new government moved to Minsk.
Geographically speaking, the BSSR was to embrace almost all of ethnic Belorussia. The Minsk, Smolensk, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Grodno provinces, with parts of other provinces inhabited by Belorussians, were to form the nucleus of the Republic. From the administrative standpoint, the BSSR was divided into districts (raiony); Minsk, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Gomel, Grodno and Baranovichi, which in turn were divided into 54 subdistricts.32
From the territorial standpoint, therefore, the Bolsheviks adhered very closely to the boundaries of the old BNR, although, to be sure, they left the eastern reaches of Smolensk and Chernigov provinces in Russian hands, while earlier they had allotted the Vilna and Dvina provinces to the new Soviet Republics of Lithuania and Latvia (December 16 and 17, 1918). The fact that they were guided by ethnographical considerations was due to the still fresh image of the BNR and by no means to the Bolshevik "nationality policy." This factor also weighed heavily in their decision to place a Belorussian Communist, 2mitro Zylunovic, at the head of the new Belorussian government. However, they categorically rejected the request of the Belorussian Communists to form an independent Belorussian Communist Party.33
The BSSR was not immediately officially recognized by the RSFSR and the Central Committee of the RKP(b), as were, for example, the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Republics.34 The reason for this was the Bolshevik attitude on the Belorussian question in general, and the territorial problem in particular. As a matter of fact, when the BSSR was established, a new idea was already gaining currency in Moscow—to wit, the fusion of Belorussia with the Soviet Republic of Lithuania, which would have facilitated divesting the former of her eastern lands. Political circumstances likewise were favorable to this idea, since the Rada of the BNR had left Minsk before the Bolshevik advance, first moving to Grodno and later to Lithuania, where it began working in the closest cooperation with the Lithuanian Diet. Furthermore, the Vilna Belorussian Rada (set up there during the German occupation), finding itself faced with the threat of Bolshevik and Polish occupation, had concluded a treaty with the Lithuanian Diet on November 20, 1918, agreeing to the formation of an autonomous Belorussian territorial unit, composed of the Grodno, Bialystok and Augustow provinces and part of Vilna Province, within the independent state of Lithuania.35 It was hoped, thereby, to save at least part of a more or less free Belorussia from Soviet and Polish occupation, since Lithuania was recognized as a state and was helped by Germany and the Entente, whereas the BNR was receiving no support whatsoever from them.
With this in mind, the Bolsheviks compelled the peasant deputies of Minsk Province, at the congress held in Minsk on December 12,1918, to support the stand that it was necessary to unite Lithuania and Belorussia into one Soviet republic.36 At the end of December, the Minsk Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies passed a similar resolution and at the same time issued an appeal to the Vilna Soviet and to the workers of Lithuania for a "close union of workers of Lithuania and Belorussia for a successful struggle against the Belorussian-Lithuanian bourgeoisie."37
The Lithuanian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on December 16,38 and toward the end of January 1919, the Central Committee of the RKP(b) passed a resolution on the union of Belorussia and Lithuania in a single Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Republic.39 In order to make this resolution law, the First All-Belorussian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies and also a meeting of the Central Committees of the Belorussian and Lithuanian Communist Parties were held in Minsk on February 2-4. On the first day of their deliberations they adopted the resolution,40 in addition to which the Congress of Soviets transferred the eastern Belorussian lands of Vitebsk, Smolensk and Mogilev provinces to the RSFSR and, in general, came out in favor of close federal ties with the RSFSR.41 The Constitution of the BSSR was also ratified, and a government, from which nearly all Belorussians, including Zylunovic, were excluded, was formed for the new, territorially smaller BSSR. Aleksandr Myasnikov, a Russian, was appointed head of the government of the second BSSR.42
It was only on February 4, after the aforementioned eastern Belorussian lands had been incorporated in the RSFSR, that Yakov Sverdlov communicated the resolution of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee which had been passed on February 1. This resolution recognized the "independence" of the BSSR and "welcomed" the already "planned union of the workers of Belorussia and Lithuania."43
On the basis of these resolutions, on February 27 the Executive Committees of both republics officially proclaimed in Vilna the formation of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia (Litbel). A new combined government, headed by the Lithuanian Mickievic-Kapsukas, was formed, and Myasnikov was appointed chairman of the republic's Central Executive Committee.44 In the new government, there was only one Belorussian, A. Carviakou, who was Deputy Commissar for Education; the other ministerial posts were given to Russians, Poles, Lithuanians or Jews.45 At a combined congress held on March 3-6, the two parties of Lithuania and Belorussia were merged into one, and a common Central Committee was elected. Vilna was made the capital of the new republic, which comprised the following territory: in the west, it was bounded by the army front; in the east, by Smolensk and Gomel (formerly Mogilev) provinces; and in the north, by Vitebsk Province and the Latvian frontier along the old boundary of Kurland Province. Thus, it included the Minsk, Vilna and, partly, Kovno provinces.46
The combined state received the support of neither the Belorussians nor the Lithuanians. The Bolsheviks of the center and their advance guard on the Western Front were also indifferent to it, all the more so because their hopes of capturing the Baltic provinces ended with the defeat of the Red Army on this sector of the front and the capture of Vilna by the Polish Army on April 19. This, to all intents and purposes, signified the end of Soviet Litbel. The government had to relinquish the little authority it had to the commander of the Western Front. A draft directive of the Central Committee of the RKP(b) of May 1919 on military unity47 and the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 1, 1919, uniting all the Soviet republics in the struggle against intervention, stripped the republics of their political and economic rights and subordinated them to a so-called "military and political" union under the direction of the Council for Defense and the commissariats of the RSFSR. This union provided for the amalgamation of the military organization and the army commands, the councils of the national economy, the railroad administration and the commissariats of finance and labor in the various republics in order to concentrate the direction of all political and economic life in the hands of a single body.48 In obedience to these directives, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of Litbel signed a treaty with the government of the RSFSR on May 30, 1919, remitting to the latter control of Litbel's military and economic affairs.49 Somewhat later, on July 17, the Central Executive Committee of Litbel, together with the Minsk Soviet and the Central Council of Trade Unions, dissolved the Council for the Defense of Lithuania and Belorussia and transferred its functions to the Army Command on the Western Front. On July 19, the Council of People's Commissars of Litbel dissolved itself and handed over its functions to the Minsk Province' Temporary Revolutionary Committee.50 On August 8, Minsk was occupied by the Polish Army. The government of Litbel—which in fact no longer existed—evacuated to Smolensk and there officially ended its existence. Its functions in the territory unoccupied by the Poles were transferred to appropriate bodies in the Vitebsk and Gomel provinces.51
By the end of 1919, the only Soviet "national" state organs in Belorussia were the agricultural representatives of the Commissariat for Agriculture of the RSFSR and of the Council of People's Commissars of Litbel and the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia.52
In May 1920, the Polish advance was halted, and early in June the Bolsheviks began a counterattack on the Western Front. On June 11, they occupied Minsk. On the same day, the Minsk Province Military-Revolutionary Committee took over power in the city and its outskirts and issued an order to establish a Soviet regime there. No reference was made to either Litbel or the BSSR.53 Litbel was, of course, out of the question because the Bolsheviks had by then recognized the independence of the Lithuanian Republic; and apparently the question of restoring the Belorussian Soviet Republic had not yet been decided in Moscow.
It was not to the Bolsheviks' advantage to restore the territorial integrity of the original BSSR. Signing a peace treaty with Lithuania on July 12, 1920, Soviet Russia, either because of internal difficulties or because it was interested in currying favor with the Lithuanians, awarded Lithuania large tracts of Belorussian territory, including Vilna, Grodno, Augustow, Lida, Oshmyany, Postavy and Braslav.54 On the other hand, heartened by the success of their advance on Warsaw, the Bolsheviks were already dreaming of forming a Soviet Poland and therefore took into consideration possible Polish claims to Belorussian territory. When British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, at the request of the Polish government, sent the Bolsheviks a note urging them not to cross the line of demarcation and inviting them to a peace parley in London, the Bolsheviks rejected his note and gave the Poles to understand that it would be more advantageous for them to engage in peace talks directly with the Soviets.55
On July 22, the British government sent the Bolsheviks a second note proposing that they commence peace negotiations directly with Poland. The Bolsheviks accepted this proposal, but before acting upon it they proclaimed, on July 31, the formation of a third BSSR and set up a provisional Soviet government in Bialystok, known as the Revolutionary Committee of Poland and headed by Felix Dzherzhinsky. In so doing, they felt that they would be strengthening their bargaining power in the forthcoming peace talks with the Poles.
According to the terms of this proclamation, the western frontiers of the BSSR were to coincide with the "western Belorussian ethnic boundaries,"56 including the Suvalki, Augustow and Bialystok provinces, which the Curzon line had left within the Polish frontier. On August 5, the Soviet representatives in London—Kamenev and Krasin—made known the Soviet conditions for an armistice with Poland,57 and on August 14 a Polish delegation left for Minsk, where the Headquarters of Marshal Tukhachevsky had been established. In the first stage of negotiations, when the Red Army was on the outskirts of Warsaw, the Bolsheviks laid down very severe conditions for an armistice: they proposed the partial Sovietization of Poland and her political and economic subordination to the RSFSR; in return, Poland was to receive certain Belorussian lands east of the Curzon Line.58 However, the further the Polish Army advanced, the less severe the Bolshevik demands became. On September 21, the talks were transferred to Riga, where a provisional treaty was signed on October 12. This treaty was disadvantageous to the Bolsheviks and even more so to the BSSR. According to its terms, Belorussian lands west of the line Drissa-Disna-Dolgmovo-Radashkovichi-Rakov-Kolosovo-Pilipovichi-Lan-Pripet-Stviga were ceded to Poland.59 Thus, the Curzon Line was shifted far to the west.
The document reestablishing the BSSR, about which Soviet Belorussian historiography is now so reticent, is full of contradictions. It defines Belorussia as "a country of Belorussian, Russian, Polish and Jewish workers and peasants,"60 thereby securing for the Russians and Poles the right to interfere in Belorussian internal affairs and even sanctioning the partition of Belorussia between Russia and Poland. One paragraph of the proclamation reads as follows:
The Soviet Socialist Republic of Belorussia . . . places its military forces at the disposal of the General Command of the Military Forces of all the Soviet republics for the duration of the revolutionary war, and declares that all diplomatic activity of the BSSR shall be coordinated with that of the RSFSR and shall be pursued in the general interest of all Soviet republics . . .61
In practice, this "diplomatic coordination" was a mere sham: Belorussian delegates were not even permitted to participate in the negotiations in Riga which were deciding the destiny of Belorussia. It was exclusively a Polish-Russian affair. Furthermore, all authority in the BSSR was transferred for an indefinite time— "until the next Congress of Soviets is convened"—to the Military Revolutionary Committee.62
This approach to the Belorussian national question found, needless to say, no support among the people. It led to general discontent and hatred of the Bolsheviks and to guerrilla warfare against the Red occupation. A full-scale armed uprising was even launched against the Red Army in 1920 by the inhabitants of the Slutsk district, who, angered by the territorial losses sanctioned by the Treaty of Riga, convened a congress which forthwith mobilized a people's army over 10,000 strong. It joined forces with the army of General Balachovic and began operations against the Bolsheviks for the defense of the independent Belorussian National Republic. The armed struggle lasted from November 27 to December 28, when the army was overcome by superior Bolshevik forces; it crossed the Riga frontier to be disarmed and interned by the Polish Army.
In this atmosphere of popular discontent, the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies was convened in Minsk on December 13—17, 1920. Its agenda was as follows: to elect governing bodies for the BSSR; to formalize relations between the BSSR and the RSFSR; and to discuss the territorial clauses of the Treaty of Riga. The Congress accordingly elected a Central Executive Committee and approved the organization of a Council of People's Commissars with fifteen commissariats, including those for foreign and home affairs, war, justice, education, finance and agriculture, and a Council of the National Economy.63 A number of amendments to the first constitution of the BSSR dealing with state administration were likewise ratified.64 With respect to relations between the BSSR and the RSFSR, the Congress advocated close federal ties with the RSFSR, as approved by the First Congress of Soviets of Belorussia, close military and political cooperation (complete merging of the armies and unity in diplomatic action), and joint administration of the national economy, finance and labor.65 It also "agreed" to the cession of its eastern lands to the RSFSR. It ratified the Riga provisional treaty and confirmed the mandate given to the RSFSR government for carrying on further negotiations with Poland on behalf of the BSSR, for fixing the Republic's frontiers and for signing a peace treaty and other political and economic treaties.66
The cession of territory and surrender of political authority to the RSFSR ran counter to the will of the people and of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. Confirmation of this fact was the resolution of the Third Congress of Soviets of the Minsk Uezd, which was passed on December 12, 1920, in connection with the convocation of the Second Congress of Soviets of the BSSR. The resolution stated:
The Congress considers that Belorussia must be an indivisible Soviet Socialist Republic within its ethnic boundaries, and that a delegation from the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic must be sent to the peace conference where negotiations concerning the fate of Belorussia are being conducted between Soviet Russia and the Ukraine, on the one hand, and Poland, on the other.67
The Bolsheviks, however, ignored this resolution, and on January 16, 1921, a military and economic alliance was signed in Moscow between the BSSR and the RSFSR in accordance with which the following commissariats of the two republics were merged: military and naval affairs, the national economy, foreign trade, finance, labor, transport, and postal services.
The merged commissariats were made subordinate to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, with only representatives delegated to the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR. The commissariats were controlled by the congresses of Soviets and the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, which had permanent representatives from the BSSR attached to them.68 A "Diplomatic Union" was signed later, on February 22, 1922, but this did not prevent the government of the RSFSR from conducting diplomacy on behalf of the BSSR and signing a peace treaty with Poland in Riga on March 18, 1921, without Belorussian participation. This treaty awarded to Poland even more Belorussian territory than had been provided for in the provisional treaty of October 1920.
The new BSSR thus became a small island in the center of ethnic Belorussia, composed of six uezds of the Minsk Province. It now had an area of 52,316 square kilometers and a population of about l,500,000,69 whereas ethnic Belorussia—even according to Soviet sources—had over 317,000 square kilometers and a population, at that time, of about 12,000,000.70 In view of the fact that 108,000 square kilometers of Belorussian territory with a population of about 4,000,00071 were ceded to Poland by the terms of the Treaty of Riga and that the Dvinsk (Daugavpils), Lyutsin and Rezhitsa (Rezekne) uezds with a population of 300,000 were given to Latvia,72 then the Russians must have annexed about 150,000 square kilometers of Belorussian territory with a population of over 6,000,000.
The principle of a close federation in its initial form—now called "auto-nomization"—became the basis for formalizing the relations between the RSFSR and the non-Russian republics after peace had been established. This idea of the Bolsheviks in Moscow was elaborated by Stalin and, after the discussions of September 23—24, 1922, was approved by a Special Commission of the Central Committee of the RKP(b). The resolution stated that it had been decided that the RSFSR "conclude treaties with the Soviet republics of the Ukraine, Belorussia, Azerbaidzhan, Georgia and Armenia on their inclusion in the RSFSR."73
However, a few days before this resolution was passed, Stalin's theses on "autonomization" were rejected by the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party on September 15 and by the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party on September 16.74 The latter came out in favor of the preservation of state sovereignty and the establishment of permanent relations with the RSFSR on the principle of mutual agreement. The principle of "autonomization" was also rejected by the Politburo of the Ukrainian Communist Party on October 3,75 and at the third session of the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee on October 16.76
These circumstances forced the Central Committee of the RKP(b) and its Special Commission to reexamine Stalin's theses and draft a new plan envisaging the immediate formation of a union of republics "enjoying equal rights" and united "voluntarily." This plan was approved on December 13 and 18 respectively by the Eighth All-Ukrainian and the Sixth All-Belorussian Congresses of Soviets with the proviso that this union, "while consolidating the republics' close economic and political ties on the principle of mutual equality," at the same time ensure "independent national and cultural development and the requisite guarantees for initiative in economic affairs."77
On December 30, 1922, the First АН-Union Congress of Soviets was held in Moscow and proclaimed the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.78 This new centralized state, which differed somewhat from the one originally envisaged by the RSFSR, reduced to a minimum the independent conduct of internal republic affairs.
Immediately after the formation of the USSR, Belorussian public and governmental opinion turned toward the territorial problem. When the new BSSR was established, Belorussian territorial demands were set forth, as mentioned above, in the resolution of the Third Congress of Soviets of the Minsk Uezd. Following the Tenth Congress of the RKP(b), these demands were formulted in the resolution of the Tenth Conference of the Belorussian Communist Party, and in the theses "The National Question and the Communist Party," adopted by the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party on November 5, 1921. It was not, however, until the Twelfth Conference of the Belorussian Communist Party, held on March 20-25, 1923, that this question had a thorough hearing. The Conference passed a resolution to the effect that "as regards Belorussia, it is necessary to decide the question of the final demarcation of its territory by joining to Belorussia the neighboring districts which belong to it."79 The government of the BSSR at once approached the Central Committee of the RKP(b) and the government of the RSFSR on this question. Congresses of Soviets in the Vitebsk, Smolensk and Gomel provinces in turn demanded incorporation in the BSSR- After this, on December 7,1923, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR passed a resolution to investigate the problem; and early in March 1924, an agreement was signed between the RSFSR and the BSSR providing for the return to the latter of the Vitebsk, Gorodok, Drissa, Lepel, Orsha, Polotsk, Senno and Surazh uezds in Vitebsk Province; the Gorki Uezd and three volosts of the Mstislavl Uezd in Smolensk Province; the Mogilev, Bykhov, Klimovichi, Rogachev and Cherikov uezds and seven volosts of the Rechitsa Uezd in Gomel Province. The BSSR thus increased from 52,316 to 109,764 square kilometers, and the population grew from 1,500,000 to 4,200,000.80
In response to further Belorussian demands for the return of other regions, the Central Committee of the RKP(b) staged in 1926 a "People's Plebiscite" in the remainder of Gomel Province, after which the remainder of the Rechitsa and Gomel uezds in Gomel Province were annexed to the BSSR by a decree of the Д11-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 6, 1926.81 The BSSR was thus further enlarged to 125,522 square kilometers with a population of 5,000,000 people.82
Inasmuch as present Soviet historiography attempts to portray these territorial accretions as the result of "the Party's nationality policy and the disinterestedness of the Russian people in territorial aggrandizement," it is worth examining this "voluntary" act of the RSFSR in the ceding of Belorussian lands to the BSSR. Mention has already been made of the demands of the Belorussian government. A still more decisive factor, however, was Belorussian public opinion in Poland, and, to a greater extent, Party machinations against Poland. At that time, the Belorussian national liberation movement had been gaining strength in "Western (Polish) Belorussia. Its objective was freedom and independence for all ethnic Belorussia. The RKP(b)—perhaps on the advice of Belorussian National Communists— thereupon conceived a scheme for utilizing this movement for the purpose of annexing Western Belorussia to the USSR. The so-called "Mongolian Plan" came into being, the main idea, of which was to incite an insurrection among the Belorussians in Poland, whereupon the BSSR would drop out of the USSR to engage in a war with Poland in defense of the insurgent Western Belorussians. This was to be followed by the proclamation of a Belorussian People's Democratic Republic, under the protection of the USSR, as had occurred in the case of the Mongolian People's Republic.83 Before setting this plan into motion, it was, nevertheless, necessary to give some semblance of statehood to the BSSR and to demonstrate, especially to the Belorussians in Western Belorussia, the popular nature of Soviet nationality policy. These were the conditions under which the BSSR was enlarged the first time.
This "Mongolian Plan," on which the Belorussian National Democrats and National Communists had set great hopes, did not materialize. Early in 1927, the powerful Belorussian Peasants' and Workers' Political Organization was liquidated in Western Belorussia, not without the collusion of the Bolsheviks; and in the early thirties the Bolsheviks began a thoroughgoing purge of the National Democrats and National Communists, accusing them of aspiring to cut the BSSR away from the USSR with Polish help.
During the first decade of the Soviet regime, owing to the weakness of the Soviet Union's position both at home and abroad and to the moderate nature of the Party's nationality policy, there was considerable cultural activity within the restricted borders of the BSSR, particularly in historical studies. This period saw the foundation of the Belorussian State University, the Institute of Belorussian Culture (reestablished toward the end of 1928 as the Belorussian Academy of Sciences), the State Historical Museum and other research institutions. Here, much work was done on a wide scale in the fields of general history, cultural history, the history of material culture and the ethnography of the Belorussian people.84 There was also great progress in philology, literature, drama and the study of folklore.
"Proletarian culture" was automatically excluded from these activities as being incompatible with the ambitions of a nation which seemed to have attained its national emancipation. Indeed, in the BSSR, Communism itself was little more than a screen to cover the activities of those engaged in the Belorussian cultural and political revival, restricted as they were by the need for caution under an imposed regime entailing political dependence upon Moscow. This may be seen, for example, in the genuinely pro-Belorussian work of the majority of the most prominent Belorussian Communists of the time and in the "theses" on the nationality question adopted by the Communist Party of Belorussia on December 5, 1921. The "theses" point out, first of all, that the BSSR is neither a chance phenomenon nor the fruit of a "steadily-followed" nationality policy of the Party, but a product of historical necessity, a stage in the gradual development of Belorussian statehood, which goes back to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Secondly, they attach greater importance to the part played by the. Belorussian people in history—especially cultural history—than to that played by the Russians, emphasizing the influence exerted by the highly-developed medieval Belorussian culture upon the growth of Russian culture. In the third place, they associate the "political and social" emancipation of the Belorussian people with its national liberation, since for the Belorussian questions of class and nationality amount to the same thing. The Belorussian people thus constitutes a classless community whose cultural achievements are the heritage of the entire people, and progress in the national culture should go hand in hand with progress in the establishment of the Soviet political and social order. These conclusions, which are both naturally and historically correct, determined the course of historical studies and of the national culture in general in the BSSR, which toward the end of the twenties led to academic and cultural achievements of no mean order.85
At the beginning of the thirties, however, fundamental changes occurred in the Party's nationality policy and accordingly in the life of the national republics. The Party now advanced the view that "bourgeois nationalism" was "the chief danger in the construction of socialism," and this led to a campaign of repression against the intelligentsia, against the cultural achievements and in general against the slightest manifestations of national life in the non-Russian Soviet republics. In the BSSR, this campaign was particularly intense, and brought immeasurable losses to the Belorussian people. In 1930-31, several dozen academicians, professors and other scholars and a comparable number of prominent writers, critics, economists and statesmen were arrested and executed or sent into exile. Among the victims of this campaign were President of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences Professor U. Ihnatouski, Vice-President of the Academy S. Niekrasevic, Learned Secretary of the Academy V. Lastouski, Rector of the Belorussian State University Academician U. Picheta, People's Commissar of Education A. Balicki, People's Commissar of Agriculture D. Pryscepau, and Academicians A. Cvikievic, A. Smolic and J. Losik. Further repressions in 1933—34 and especially the Yezhov terror of 1936—38 carried off the rest of the Belorussian intelligentsia.
At about the same time, a movement was launched against the Belorussian language (the reform of 1933, which Russified the language to a considerable extent), and against many of the achievements of Belorussian science and culture. Most of the studies and materials on Belorussian history and ethnography written or collected in the twenties were destroyed. The same fate befell museum exhibits `and portraits and statues of prominent Belorussians. In the course of this anti-Belorussian campaign, a fresh view of Belorussian history was advanced by the Soviets, amounting to a denial of Belorussia's separate political existence in all periods of the past: the Belorussian people received its first recognition as a political entity from the Soviet regime.
The movement against national, non-Russian culture naturally led to a violation of the rights of the BSSR, as one of the constituent republics of the USSR, in the field of education. Here, as in the sphere of the national economy, the BSSR found itself, like all the other non-Russian Soviet republics, in a position of complete dependence upon the "center," which, ignoring the proper significance of the provisions of the Constitution, treated these republics as fit objects of exploitation.
Practically speaking, the political and cultural history of Belorussia as a separate entity ends with these developments. Against the background, however, of this tragedy of a people, there are further events to which attention must now be drawn. These include the territorial enlargement of the BSSR resulting from the partition of Poland in 1939, the formation of a Belorussian Foreign Ministry and the BSSR's emergence in the international arena.
Following the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on August 23, 1939, which provided for the partition of Poland and the demarcation of spheres of influence in Central Europe, the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish frontier on September 17 and "took its brother Belorussians and Ukrainians under its protection." The Nazi-Soviet Treaty of September 28 consecrated the partition of former Polish territory. The Belorussian lands east of the line BrestrLitovsk—Bug— Malkinia—Ostrolejsa—Narew—Pisa—Szczuczyno—Grajewo—Augustow went to the USSR. A supplementary treaty of the same date placed the Baltic countries in the Soviet sphere of influence. With German consent, the Soviet Union concluded a treaty with Lithuania on October 10, according to which the latter became politically dependent on the USSR.86 In return, the Bolsheviks gave Lithuania Belorussian lands in Vilna Province, including the city of Vilna, or a total of 6,655 square kilometers with a population of 475,000 people.87
"Elections" to a "People's Assembly" took place in Western Belorussia on October 22, and the "People's Assembly" was convened on October 28. It "advocated" the establishment of a Soviet regime, and called for the incorporation of Western Belorussia in the BSSR. An extraordinary session of the USSR Supreme Soviet on November 2 ratified the annexation, which was confirmed by the Belorussian Supreme Soviet on November 12. The Supreme Soviet of the BSSR likewise adopted a resolution hailing "the union of the Belorussian people in a single Belorussian state."88
The annexed area, excluding that part of Vilna Province which was ceded to Lithuania, comprised 101,345 square kilometers with a population of about 4,500,000 people.89 The BSSR now comprised an area of 226,867 square kilometers with a population of over 10,000,000.
After the outbreak of the Russo-German war in June 1941, the Polish government-in-exile demanded that the USSR recognize .the 1939 boundaries for the future Poland. The Soviet government rejected these demands, but in talks with Anthony Eden on December 16 Stalin and Molotov expressed the opinion that the Curzon Line could be taken as a basis for delimiting the Soviet-Polish frontier.90
The Polish Communist government in Lublin agreed to the Curzon Line, and, in order to consolidate the Lublin government's position, Moscow agreed to give Poland a part of Belorussian territory to the east of the Curzon Line. This territorial arrangement was sealed by the Polish-Soviet treaty of September 19, 1945, by virtue of which Poland was given Belorussian territory 10-25 kilometers east of the Curzon Line.91 The area of the BSSR now totaled 208,000 square kilometers. As a result both of the Soviet purges in the period 1940-41 and of wartime losses, the population of the BSSR totaled only 8,000,000 in 1956.92
The creation of Belorussian and Ukrainian Ministries for Foreign Affairs toward the close of the war was determined by the needs of Soviet foreign policy. The fourth session of the Belorussian Supreme Soviet published a decree on March 24, 1944—based on a resolution of the tenth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR—setting up a Commissariat Јor Foreign Affairs, later renamed the Belorussian Ministry for Foreign Affairs.93 A similar Commissariat was set up at the same time in the Ukrainian SSR. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the USA and Great Britain agreed not only to admit the BSSR and the Ukrainian SSR to membership in the future United Nations organization, but even to make them charter members.94 This was confirmed by the United Nations Conference in San Francisco in April 1945.95 Needless to say, as experience has proved, neither the Belorussian nor the Ukrainian delegation enjoys any freedom of action, being merely a docile supporter of the USSR delegation. The granting to the Republic of the attributes of an independent state should have been accompanied by the establishment of direct cultural, trade and diplomatic relations with other countries through the exchange of missions and consulates. This is, in fact, provided for by Article 16a of the Constitution of the BSSR;96 but in spite of the fact that offers to do so were forthcoming from various nations, in particular the USA and Great Britain, the BSSR has done nothing about it for the simple reason that the USSR will not allow it.
From the middle of 1956 on, government and Party control in the BSSR—as in the other Soviet republics—was largely transferred to the Belorussians themselves. The Republic's rights in judicial procedure and in economic affairs were also extended. These changes do not mean, however, that there has been any fundamental modification in Soviet nationality policy. They grew primarily out of the struggle for control of the Party after Stalin's death and were also dictated by changes in Soviet foreign policy designed to influence national liberation movements in Asia, and in Africa. Some of them, after all, are^ not very great: the trial of political offences remains in the hands of the Ministryof Internal Affairs, and the republic's economy is still subordinate to all-Union planning. The retention of these controls by the central government ensures that deviations from the Party line in the national republics will continue to be effectively dealt with.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BELORUSSIA An Outline of its History
JAN ZAPRUDNIK
The genealogy of the Communist Party of Belorussia goes back to units of the tsarist army stationed in Belorussia during World War I. Those who founded the Party—such people as Myasnikov, Knorin, Frunze, Lyubimov or Pozern— were Tsarist officers and Russians. Thus, right from its earliest days, the Party in Belorussia has had close Russian associations.
In order to disguise these alien origins, Party historians, especially in the relatively recent past, have not scrupled to mix fact with what is suspiciously like fiction. Thus, the "theses" published to mark the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Belorussian Communist Party speak of the 38,500 workers in industrial enterprises above a certain size1 and the 30,000 railroad workers that Belorussia is supposed to have had in 1913.2 In 1934, however, First Secretary of the Belorussian Party Central Committee N. Gikalo stated: "In 1913, there were no more than 15,000 workers in all the enterprises of Belorussia."3 Similarly, with regard to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the number of Russian troops stationed in Belorussia at that time is minimized. Thus, the "theses" (Paragraph 7) speak of the "presence in Belorussia of over one-and-a-half million soldiers on the Astern Front," and a history of Minsk published in 1957 refers to the Western 7ront "with its two million soldiers";4 while V. Fomin, who took part in the svents of that time in Belorussia, writing in or before 1927, underlines the importance of the first congress of soldiers' deputies on the Western Front, and says:
The part played by this congress was of exceptional importance for the front. It helped the Minsk Soviet to strengthen its organizational links with the front and laid the foundations for planned work on those four million peasants dressed in military greatcoats who in October 1917 helped our Party to establish Soviet rule.5
On the place and time at which the Bolsheviks first became organized in Belorussia, V. Knorin, who also took part in the events of the time and later described them, observes: "A center for Bolshevik organization was provided by the Social, Democratic faction of the Minsk Soviet, in which the Bolsheviks even in April [1917] had considerable weight; in the May elections, they received an absolute majority."6 In May, a temporary "bureau of Bolsheviks" was set up under Aleksandr Myasnikov, and a movement was begun to fill out the Party ranks with Army men. So far, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks of Minsk were still in alliance, but on June 17, 1917 (New Style), they split, and on the basis of Party members in the Army, the first Bolshevik committee of the RSDRP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) in Minsk was formed. It was this that formed the embryo of the future Communist Party of Belorussia.7
The first stages in the development of Bolshevik organizations in the country were marked by the establishment of the Party newspaper Zvezda, the first issue of which came out in three thousand copies on July 27, 1917. Its circulation was at first confined to the Army, on which the Bolsheviks were counting as a means of establishing control in Belorussia.
On September 15, 1917, the first Party conference in Belorussia was called for the purpose of ascertaining the extent of support for the Party that was forthcoming. According to Knorin, 9,190 Party members were represented. The conference, which called itself the First Northwest Regional Conference of Bolsheviks, elected a Northwest Regional Committee of the RSDRP(b).
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks were reinforcing their position with the aid of slogans about freedom, land and peace, which they spread among the masses of demoralized and exhausted troops. Their newspaper, suppressed in September, was revived under the name of Molot as the organ of the Northwest Regional Committee. By now, it had a circulation of 8,000 copies, and later of 10,000. It was joined by the paper Front, organ of the Bolshevik Front Committee, and even by the Izvestiya Minskogo soveta, the organ of the Minsk Soviet, which at first was controlled by the Mensheviks.8 Another indication of the growth of the Party was the Second Northwest Regional Conference, summoned on October 5, 1917, at which were represented 28,508 Party members and 27,856 Party sympathizers, who, according to Knorin, were "primarily soldiers from the front."9
The contact between the political organizations at the front and those in the rear produced a situation in which a national conflict could not long be avoided. At first, the relations between these two groups were strained: soon, they developed into open hostility. That Bolshevik organizations in Belorussia were confined, in their sphere of contact, to the Army and were isolated from the local population is frankly admitted by the Bolshevik historians of an earlier period who had witnessed the events concerned. Thus, Lander, for long chairman of the Minsk Soviet, which was the main Bolshevik center, wrote: "Step by step, we seized one position after another, thanks chiefly to the influence of the masses of the soldiery."10 A similar point of view is given by the Bolshevik S. Ahurski: "Almost the entire work of the Minsk Bolshevik Committee was carried out at the front among the masses of the soldiery."11 At the Sixth Congress of the RSDRP, held in Petrograd at the end of July 1917, Myasnikov, a member of the delegation from Minsk, declared: "In view of its proximity to the front, our organization is in essence a military one. There are no strong links with the workers."12
However, wherever the Bolsheviks came into contact with Belorussian organizations, relations immediately became strained. According to Bolshevik historian V. Shcherbakov, the chairman of the Second Congress of Belorussian Organizations and Parties stated at the First Peasants' Congress in Minsk:
We have always taken the view that the peasant-democrats are essentially striving only for truth and justice and that they completely reject the idea of one nation's oppressing another. I am therefore of the opinion that the congresses of peasants which have taken place here in Minsk under the leadership of strangers [scil., the Bolshevik Comrade Mikhailov-Frunze (Shcherbakov's note)], do not express the will of genuine democracy.13
At first, the Bolsheviks made no attempt to disguise their reluctance to pay any heed to the demands of the Belorussian national revolution. Later, Knorin admitted: "The Party did not take into account the fact that the living conditions of the peasants contained the seeds of national feelings."14 This pronounced tendency to ignore Belorussian national interests manifested itself at the Bolsheviks' first organizational conference in the middle of September 1917. N. Niedasiek, a student of the history of Bolshevism in Byelorussia, described this tendency as follows:
The appellation "Northwest Regional" given by the conference to the Bolshevik movement of the Western Front is extremely characteristic and symptomatic. Here we witness a revival of the anti-Belorussian terminology of the times of "accursed Tsarism," which was aimed at wiping out the national character of Belorussia by transforming it into a purely geographical unit—an "oblast" or "krai." . . . Western-Front Bolshevism merely confirmed its alien character and even its hostility toward the national roots of the region which it was striving to master.15
Finally, on December 30, 1917, what Bolshevism in Belorussia really amounted to and what its aims really were, was clearly shown by the dispersal, with the aid of armed forces, of the All-Belorussian Congress which had been democratically convened in Minsk.
Meanwhile, in Russia proper—i. e., beyond the borders of Belorussia—political and military groups were being formed of Belorussians who had been voluntarily or compulsorily evacuated or conscripted into the Army (in which they served for the most part outside their own country). In September 1917, on the basis of the Belorussian Socialist Hramada and under the leadership of Ales Carviakou, the Belorussian Social Democratic Labor Party of Bolsheviks (BSDRP[b]) was created in Petrograd, its members being Belorussian workers employed in various industrial enterprises in that city. On the initiative of this party and with the collaboration of representatives of the Hramada and also of Belorussian organizations in the railroad administration and the Army, the Belorussian National Commissariat was formed toward the end of February 1918. In March, the Commissariat moved to Moscow, where it became the focal point of the Belorussian left wing. In the same month, the BSDRP(b) changed its name to Belorussian Section of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks (RKP[b]), and turned its efforts toward infiltrating into the Belorussian National Commissariat, which embraced the representatives of various factions. As a result, on November 14, this latter organization sprouted a group known as the Moscow Belorussian Section of the RKP(b). Similar sections came into existence in other cities of Russia, inculding Kazan, Saratov, Kozlov and Tambov.
When the Germans evacuated Belorussia in December 1918, the Moscow Section immediately attempted to establish a connection with Minsk and also with Smolensk, which at that time was the center of Bolshevik forces in the Army. On behalf of the Section, J. Lahun went to Smolensk in an attempt to secure the renaming of the Western Commune, proclaimed in November 1918, as the Belorussian Commune, but without positive result. Later, 2mitro Zylunovic, subsequently first chairman of the Belorussian Soviet government and an active leader of the Moscow Belorussian Section of the RKP(b), wrote that there was a feeling of "indefiniteness and insincerity between Smolensk and the Moscow Section." As a result of diffidence toward those who had acquired power in Belorussia and a desire to consolidate sympathizers who were scattered about the cities of Russia, the first conference of Belorussian sections of the RKP(b), including the Moscow, Petrograd, Saratov, Tambov and Minsk sections, took place in Moscow on December 21, 1918. This conference declared the existence of the Belorussian National Commissariat to be essential, and elected a Central Bureau of six persons. Those attending the conference were aware that a Party conference of the Northwest Regional Committee was being called in Smolensk, and, regarding this as an event of purely local importance, instructed their Central Bureau to "call an all-Belorussian congress of Communist sections after the Party conference in Smolensk." They failed to foresee that the Bolsheviks in Smolensk, with the support of the Party in Moscow, would proclaim themselves as constituting the First Congress of the Communist Party of Belorussia and assume the task—already accelerated by the Belorussian national revolution—of forming a Belorussian Soviet state in opposition to the Belorussian National Republic.
Zylunovic, one of the central figures in events of the time, describes this dramatic moment as follows:
Some of the comrades had not yet left Moscow (the conference of Belorussian sections of the RKP[b] in Moscow ended on December 23, 1913) before one of the main questions at the conference [at Smolensk]—-the formation of a Belorussian government of workers and peasants—had been settled. Consequently, some members of the Central Bureau of the sections, in view of the fact, that they had been included in the government [formed in Smolensk without their knowledge], were obliged to travel to Belorussia. As a result, the work of the elected Bureau of the sections as well as that of the sections themselves acquired a somewhat different orientation.16
The Sixth Northwest Regional Conference of Bolsheviks, which took place at Smolensk on December 30-31, 1918, went down in Party history, not only as the First Congress of the Communist Party of Belorussia (KPB), bat also as an event marking the beginning of a profound conflict within the ranks of the Party which continually grew in intensity until Moscow put an end to it in the thirties by means of terror and physical liquidation. The feeling of "indefiniteness and insincerity" experienced by the Army Bolsheviks in Belorussia during the Smolensk conference proved to be completely justified. The Belorussians newly arrived, from Moscow, who had their own interpretation of Communism, seemed to the Bolsheviks of Smolensk to be nothing other than "nationalists." Thus, the conference "administered a rebuff to speeches by the disguised enemies of the people (Zylunovic, Carviakou and others), who tried to push through a resolution on the creation of an independent Communist Party of Belorussia."17 There were no Belorussian delegates in the presidium of the congress, and none of them was appointed to responsible posts in the Party; on the other hand, in the first Belorussian Soviet government, formed on that occasion, Zylunovic was made chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and Carviakou, who was a member of the Central Bureau of the Belorussian Sections of the RKP(b), became People's Commissar of Public Education.18
Attempts to set up national Communist parties were soon condemned for a second time. The Eighth Party Congress, held in Moscow in March 1919, declared once more in a resolution that "the existence of a single centralized Communist Party, with a single Central Committee controlling the entire work of the Party, [was] essential."19
The reluctance of Moscow to give the Belorussian national problem what the Belorussians themselves would have regarded as favorable treatment was clearly demonstrated in its attitude toward Belorussia's political status and toward its Communist Party. In February 1919, a new Soviet republic was proclaimed—that of Lithuania and Belorussia, and the Belorussian Communist Party was accordingly renamed the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia. It is noteworthy that there was not one Belorussian among the fifteen members of the Central Committee of this new party. Similarly, the resolution which was adopted on the Party press in the new republic made no provision for a Belorussian newspaper: papers were to be printed in Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and Yiddish.20 On July 31, 1920, after the Polish-Soviet war was over, the Belorussian SSR, now reduced to six uezds,* was reconstituted, and on September 3, the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia declared this party dissolved.21
During the Polish occupation of 1919-20, a new party was created—the Belorussian Communist Organization. Its membership was drawn from the local population (in contrast to that of the military Northwest Regional Committee), ; and was headed by a group of Belorussians, including its founder, Professor Usievalad Ihnatouski. As the political partner of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia, it also signed the declaration on the reconstitution of the BSSR, and subsequently" it merged with the KPB. Throughout the twenties, it was this group that took the initiative in matters concerning the Belorussian national revival.
On December 5, 1921, the official Party organ Izvestiya TsB KP(b)B printed thirteen "theses" on "the Belorussian National Question and the Communist Party." Although they were not officially adopted, they nevertheless became the ideological foundation of the Belorussian Communist Organization and of the entire movement of Belorussian National Communism which it represented. They were of great practical importance in the subsequent history of the Party in Belorussia. Their gist is as follows:
1. As an historical entity, Belorussia first emerged in the ninth century. In the form of the Principality of Polotsk, it "took an active part in medieval trade" and "developed an imposing culture of the general Eastern Slavic type."
2. In the thirteenth century, Polotsk and Lithuania merged into a Lithuanian-Belorussian state, in which "we see the beginning of the development of Belorussian culture." In the seventeenth century, Muscovy "took over this culture in order to implant it in the East."
3. Beginning with the sixteenth century, Belorussia formed part of the Polish kingdom. The propertied upper classes became "denationalized," and culture declined. When the country was annexed to the Russian Empire at the end of the eighteenth century, the Belorussian nation was "represented by the peasantry, hired agricultural workers and sometimes the city proletariat."
4. Under the • tsars, the Belorussians "experienced severe political, social, national and cultural oppression": their country became "as it were, a colony of the Empire."
28
5. The Revolution of 1917 "emancipated the toiling masses of Russia" politically and socially. The masses "began to become emancipated in the cultural and national sense also, since during the social revolution their consciousness of their own weight grew considerably."
6. "For the Belorussians, political and social emancipation meant also national liberation, for their class and national composition almost completely corresponded to one another. The Belorussian had long since ceased to be a landowner and a merchant; he was not a factory-owner, nor even a kulak. Seventy-five percent of the Belorussian masses were peasants with but little land who had, moreover, been ruined by imperialist wars, evacuation and military occupation; 14 percent were hired agricultural workers with no land at all, and there were a few workers employed in industrial enterprises in the towns and villages. Apart from these, there was only the Belorussian individual farmer, whose political and social sympathies drew him toward the class of the rich landed bourgeoisie."
7. The KPB must spread education and enlightenment among these masses. The "Belorussian semiproletariat and proletariat," however, "must be taught and drawn into Communism in their native language, the language that they understand."
8. "The development of large state enterprises, which is already under way, will make room in the cities for a considerably greater number of the proletariat. The Belorussian rural population will pour in a steady stream into the proletarian cities. It goes without saying that, in the interests of Communist work in the cities, a close approach will have to be made to the new Belorussian proletarian in his native language."
9. "We must develop and consolidate a legal, administrative, economic and political system in which the use of the Belorussian language and a knowledge of Belorussian culture and life should answer the needs of the majority of the toiling masses of Belorussia."
10. The KPB contains some unhealthy elements—"Communists who were brought up in the milieu of the Great Russian state nation [i. e., the people which constituted the majority of the population of the Tsarist Empire and later the Soviet Union]," who proceed toward Communism "in the direction of great-power imperialism, the colonizing mentality and Great Russian chauvinism. . . . This deviation is particularly noticeable among those elements which, having left the Belorussian masses, have been affected by the assimilative influence of Russian schools, barrack life and petty-bourgeois patriotism to such an extent that they become accustomed to regard everything non-Russian as inimical and alien. . . . By entering, the ranks of the Communist Party, they introduce into it a spirit of intolerance with regard to all manifestations of original Belorussian culture."
11. There is, however, another "deviation"—"sick Communists brought up in circumstances of national and social oppression who have left the Belorussian masses." They fear a renewal of the enslavement they have cast off, but the `national peculiarities of the proletarian and semiproletarian masses they underrate as so-called `overall national' characteristics of the entire Belorussian nation. ... This deviation leads them toward bourgeois-democratic nationalism."
12. ". . . Only after the first deviation has been liquidated—the deviation toward the great-power mentality, colonialism and Great Russian chauvinism— can the deviation toward bourgeois-democratic nationalism be liquidated."
13. For its further expansion, Communism must solve the nationality problem in the spirit of the enactments of the Tenth Congress of the RKP. "The KPB considers it necessary to direct the attention of it members to the execution without fail of the central authorities' directives and to a serious attitude toward the nationality problem."22
During the twenties, i. e., until he committed suicide in 1931, the main ideological force behind the KPB was Professor Usievalad Ihnatouski, the author of these thirteen theses. For a short while, he was People's Commissar for Agriculture of the BSSR, and then successively Commissar for Public Education and President of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. Ihnatouski, the author of several works on the history of Belorussia, was a teacher at higher educational establishments in Minsk. He was held in great respect, and a considerable section of the Belorussian intelligentsia grouped itself around him. Inasmuch as the attempts to consolidate the Belorussian National Republic (BNR), which was an independent democratic state, proclaimed on March 25, 1918, were suppressed by the superior strength of its neighbors, the Belorussian intelligentsia found itself in the dilemma of having to decide whether to accept or reject the regime that had been imposed on it. The Belorussian Communist Organization provided an answer to these waverings—to join with the Communist Party and to exploit it from within in order to achieve their national objectives. Thus, a section of the KPB, particularly the young members, joined primarily for tactical reasons.
The People's Commissariat for Public Education, headed by Ihnatouski,. became the focal point of their activity, and from there an effort was made to gain control of the Party and to direct its policy along national lines, for the control of the KPB had from the outset been in alien hands hostile to Belorussian interests. The KPB and the Belorussian Communist Organization reached an unwritten agreement by which the Second Secretary of the KPB Central Committee was to be a Belorussian recommended by the Belorussian Communists, while the First Secretary was to be appointed by Moscow. This state of affairs, which continued until the end of the twenties, gave the National Communists many opportunities for implementing their cultural and economic policies. The post of Second Secretary of the Central Committee proved to be a very important one: he was virtually in charge of all organizational work; he controlled the distribution and movement of Party cadres; he approved the agenda for meetings of the Central Committee's Bureau, prepared the drafts of resolutions and nominated those who were to read papers and reports. The First Secretary supervised the general running of affairs and ensured that basic directives were carried out.23
Having become the virtual controllers of the entire work of the organization, the National Communists set about the basic task as formulated in the ninth joint of the 1921 theses—to "develop and consolidate a. . .political system in which the use of the Belorussian language and a knowledge of Belorussian culture and life should answer the needs of the majority of the toiling masses of Belorussia." The environment in which Bolshevik Party organizations on Belorussian territory had to consolidate their position during the early years of the Soviet regime was uncongenial and often hostile. The Party had become the chief representative of those forces that were opposed to all hopes of national revolution. Under a new and unstable regime which had not as yet perfected its terrorization apparatus, Belorussia rose in protest and rebelled. Far half of 1920 and all 1921, the country was in a state of war. In October 1921, Pravda wrote: "Only comparatively recently has it been possible to liquidate the main bandit forces, thus enabling Belorussia to go over more or less calmly to constructive work."24 Again, in 1923: "Only for the past year has our Party in Belorussia been working in a more or less calm atmosphere."25 The hostile attitude of the Belorussian population to the new regime was inevitably reflected in a slowing down of Party recruitment. Whereas, according to Soviet sources, there were 17,771 Party members at the time of the First Congress of the KPB in 1918,26 there were only 3,500 members and candidate members during the Eighth Congress, held on March 6, 1923.27 Until the end of 1924, the KPB was passing through a period of relative inactivity. For example, in Pravda for 1921, there is no mention of the Fourth and Fifth Party Congresses, which took place that year. This serves perhaps as the best indication of the Bolsheviks' position in the BSSR. Nor was the life of the Party remarkable for its intensity in other Belorussian territories which had not as yet joined the BSSR. Despite all its efforts, Pravda could not even maintain constant contact with Party committees in certain provinces. In March 1922, it began a note on the Vitebsk Party organization with the following words: "In spite of the invitation of the Editor of the central organ of the Party to describe the life and work of their organization, the comrades in Vitebsk have so far not sent a single line to Pravda."28 In order to write anything at all about the life of the Party in Vitebsk Province, the paper was obliged to seek material for itself, quoting a few statistical data and observing that "on the whole, the province organization must be considered to be weak" and that "here and there in the organization petty squabbles and intrigues have arisen." It even proved impossible to give, in accordance with the practice of the day, the social composition of the Vitebsk Party organization.
In the Gomel Province, which at that time was still outside the BSSR, as well as in other parts of Belorussia, the KPB made barely any headway. A purge resulted in the exclusion of 2,642 members, leaving 3,461 members and 1,174 candidate members. Even so, Pravda admitted that in this province "Party work [was] completely lacking in some organizations."29
On the whole, however, the KPB managed to improve its general position, owing chiefly to the fact that the National Communists used the Party to achieve the aims defined in the thirteen theses. One of their principal aims was to unite as much Belorussian territory as possible in a single administrative unit, an aim which the Bolshevik slogans about freedom of self-determination, equality of status, justice and the rights of the Soviet peoples did nothing to prevent. The Seventh Congress of the KPB in March 1923 passed a resolution "concerning the final demarcation of the territory of Belorussia by the inclusion of related and neighboring regions."30 The congress also put forward a demand for greater decentralization of the Belorussian economy—a demand to which the National Communists attached due importance.
In February 1924, parts of the Vitebsk and Gomel provinces were joined to the BSSR. These first successes showed that hopes of making use of the Party from within to further Belorussian national aims were justified. The concentration of attention on the part of the Belorussian Party organization on questions of importance to the nation as a whole had a positive effect upon the prestige of the leaders of the KPB. There was also an improvement in Party membership: on February 1, 1924, there were 8,265 members and candidate members and 13,000 Komsomol members.
The publication of the thirteen theses in 1921. exerted an influence on resolutions of the KPB which increased as time went by. In January 1925, a plenary session of the Central Committee of the KPB passed a resolution on "current tasks in nationality policy,"31 in which it put forward a broad program of Belorussianization elaborated in full accordance with the ninth point of the theses. The resolution noted that Belorussianization must be carried out in the interests of the Belorussian peasant. At the same time, it was decided to set about liquidating the country's economic backwardness, the view being taken that the cultural decline of Belorussia was a result of neglect and persecution under the Tsarist regime. Particular importance, however, was paid to the question of cultural policy. A commission for nationality policy of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR, which had hitherto been only provisional, was recognized by the plenum as a permanent body. State enterprises, trade unions and cooperatives were instructed to work out plans for Belorussianization. It was also resolved to Belorussianize the army of the BSSR in the course of 1925—26 and also to introduce the official use of the Belorussian language into Belorussian military units stationed outside the BSSR. The resolution also noted two mutually opposed forces that were making themselves felt both within the Party and outside. Party members were warned of two "dangerous errors": the first and more important, according to the resolution, was the mistake of those Communists who "play down the importance of national peculiarities in Party and Soviet [i. e., governmental] work," and the second was the mistake committed by those "comrades who exaggerate the importance of national peculiarities."
The subsequent policy of the KPB followed the lines of this resolution. The nationality question had become the Party's key problem. In this, Moscow saw means of achieving its own aim, by effecting Bolshevization within the Party while creating the facade, so to speak, of a "Belorussian national house" for the benefit of those outside, in the hope (which was partly justified) of luring into it political opponents from the Rada of the BNR, which was continuing its activities abroad. While the Ninth Congress of the KPB was taking place in November 1925, Pravda, in connection with the arrival in Minsk of Cvikievic, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the BNR, wrote: "The main cause of liquidation of the government of the BNR is the nationality policy of the Communist Party, which is fully in accord with the idea of the regeneration of the peoples oppressed by Tsarism."32
On January 3, 1927, a month before the opening of the Tenth Congress of the KPB, the nationalists in the BSSR achieved yet another victory in their efforts to secure the unification of Belorussian territory. This was the union with the BSSR of the Gomel and Rechitsa uezds, as a result of which the Party organizations of these two districts attended the Tenth Congress. By this time, the Party numbered more than 26,000 members and candidate members in the republic.33
In the preceding two years, a great step forward had been made in developing the culture and the economy of Belorussia; the tactics of the National Communists in seeking to achieve their aims by gaining control of the Party had so far been justified. At the Tenth Congress, however, First Secretary Krynicki issued a warning against the "development of Belorussian chauvinism and national-democratic tendencies," and declared that it was essential to devote greater attention to "the danger of Belorussian nationalism," while still calling for an active policy of Belorussianization.34
The Central Committee in Moscow, whose approval of Belorussianization had misled many members of the Belorussian intelligentsia, was not, however, entirely successful in achieving its own aim—that of Bolshevization. At the Fifteenth All-Union Party Congress, held in Moscow in January 1927, KPB delegate Hantman stated:
The influence of Communists upon workers' assemblies is as yet insufficiently secure. On occasion, the Communists are not the most active section, and in a large number of other mass organizations, their influence is felt to an insufficient degree.35
Frequently, persons who» were Party members for tactical reasons did not respond to demands imposed on them from above.
At the Twelfth Congress of the KPB, held in February 1929, it was stated that in Belorussia there was a "weak proletarian stratum," as a result of which in many of the Party's organizations the "corruption [razlozhenie] of individual members and Party cells" was to be observed.36 (On October 1, 1928, the KPB had 32,329 members, of whom 60.9 percent were workers.) The nature of this "corruption" may be judged from First Secretary of the Central Committee Gamarnik's warning at the Twelfth Congress:
The class enemy is striving to exert his influence upon a section of the student population with regard to religion and national disputes.... The teacher must be brought to the proper level [of competence] . . . and an effort should be made to ensure that he be above all an internationalist, an atheist and a supporter of Soviet power.37
In 1929, a determined attack began on the peasantry. Hitherto, the Belorussian People's Commissariat for Agriculture, headed by Pryscepau, had favored small settlements. The Moscow Party authorities felt that, in order to destroy the traditional forms of agriculture and to break the resistance offered by the Belorussian peasant in defense of his basic rights, it would be impossible to rely on the KPB as it then existed: the Party would first have to be purged of unreliable elements. The Twelfth Congress of the KPB was therefore a psychological preparation for a widescale purge of the Party apparatus, and this purge gradually became more all-embracing. During the Congress, the press began to report on the "reform of the Soviet apparatus." The Congress was still in progress when Pravda reported the discovery of 266 persons who had carried on anti-Soviet work in governmental organs of the BSSR.38 The next day, continuing to prepare the ground, it suddenly began speaking of "reactionary states of mind among a certain section of Belorussian professors."
At the Thirteenth Congress, held in the middle of 1930, a full-scale attack was launched on the Belorussian national-regeneration movement, which became generally known as "national-democratism." Moscow saw "criminals," "not merely in the nationality problem, but also in the land question, where they were conducting their kulak policy (Pryscepauscyna), in the question of Western Belorussia (echoing of national-fascists abroad), [and] in questions of socialist construction (solidarity with Bukharin's group and with other right-wing groups)."39 The GPU set about putting the KPB in order when in 1930 it was given a free hand to arrest Party members. In February and again in June— August of that year, a wave of arrests took place in Minsk. On this occasion, the provinces were left in peace, for opposition to Moscow's policy had first to be stifled in the leading ranks of the Party. Those arrested included prominent persons in science, the arts and economics who were active in the Commissariats of Public Education and Agriculture, in the Academy of Sciences, in the state publishing house and in higher educational establishments. As well as the leaders of the National Communist wing of the KPB, several people were arrested who were not formally Party members but had been associated with the national movement.
The GPU began preparations for the trial on a lavish scale of the "League for the Liberation of Belorussia," a non-existent body invented by the GPU for the occasion. Janka Kupala was arrested and accused of heading this organization. After he had protested against this appointment by attempting suicide, it fell to Professor Ihnatouski, the creator of the Belorussian Communist Organization and leader of Belorussian National Communism, to play this role. This plan was also thwarted when Ihnatouski committed suicide in February 1931. The idea of staging the trial was abandoned, and those already arrested' were exiled to the North by "administrative action."
Soon after, First Secretary of the KPB Central Committee K. Gei was recalled to Moscow and replaced by Gikalo. This event marks the end of the important role played by a Belorussian as Second Secretary of the Central Committee. Gikalo arrived from Moscow with his private secretary and some close associates; he was given wide personal powers, consulted no one and sought no help from the local Party organization. Gradually, he filled all vacant Party and government posts with his own nominees. His own appointment was in itself characteristic: he was sent as a demonstrative act on the eve of the Fourteenth Congress of the KPB, in spite of the principle of Party democracy, according to which the First Secretary should have been chosen at the Congress itself. According to Pravda, Gikalo "subjected to severe criticism" the work of a number of people's commissariats in the republic, including the Commissariat for Agriculture, as well as certain economic organizations, including the State Planning Commission, the Supreme Council of the National Economy, and the Belorussian Cooperative Union, for failing to organize a "really efficient and differentiated control of the regions."40
The moment was now becoming ripe for another series of purges in the KPB, which occupied the Party authorities with the help of the GPU during the course of 1932—33. The results of these activities were reported in Pravda by N. Antipov, chairman of the "Belorussian Republic's Commission for Purging the Party," on the opening day of the Fifteenth Congress of the KPB. "In Belorussia," he wrote, "the purges have left 39,817 (instead of 58,000) Party members and candidate members."41 In the same issue, Gikalo. issued a warning that the matter did not end there: "Local Belorussian nationalism," he said, "is at the present time the main danger in the nationality question."
In this instance, the "nationality question" was not merely a problem of language and school instruction: in order to break the resistance of the intelligentsia and the peasantry, the Bolsheviks were obliged to launch their attacks from literally all sides. Having extracted grain from the peasants during the years 1932—33 in the form of "state purchases" and having annihilated the foremost members of the Belorussian peasantry, the Bolsheviks, through the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KPB, declared:
The BSSR has not yet fulfilled its obligations in the delivery of flax fiber. The resolutions of the Central Committee on overcoming the dearth of cattle are still being very inefficiently carried out. Belorussia is also one of the most backward areas in the repair of tractors.42
That Moscow attached importance to the liquidation of potential opposition both within and outside the KPB for geopolitical reasons is obvious from Gikalo's words at the Seventeenth All-Union Party Congress, held in Moscow in January 1934: "Belorussia," he said, "is of exceptional importance by reason of its geographical position. Here, too, a proper realization of the Party's Leninist nationality policy is of particular importance." Evidently, this "proper realization" had not yet been entirely accomplished. Fresh waves of persecution were to follow: as Gikalo put it, "We have destroyed the enemy on a number of sectors, but we cannot rest content with this."43
It is characteristic that in the purges of Belorussian "national-democrats" a Party ticket by no means ensured the immunity of its holder. The deciding factor was one's attitude on the nationality question. Those who were arrested were potential or active opponents of the "Great Russian chauvinism," the "great-power imperialism" and the "colonizing mentality" that were mentioned in the theses of the Belorussian Communist Organization. In general, the purge of the thirties sought to uproot all those who, though ideologically sympathetic to Communism, were unable to regard acts of economic and cultural discrimination with indifference.
At the end of 1934, a fresh secret purge of the Party was effected under the guise of "checking Party documents." Party members who were known to have indulged in the past in any "deviations" such as nationalism, Trotskyism or membership of other parties now lost their Party cards. The purge was carried out by a special commission which passed sentence in camera. In some enterprises and institutions, the proportion of Party members expelled reached 50 percent. The aim of the purge was to remove from authority those high-placed Party functionaries of Belorussian origin who still remained, despite the fact that, although they occupied the positions of national-democrats arrested earlier, they had themselves exhibited no nationalist proclivities. Thus, those who were dismissed and sent to remote districts of Russia and Siberia included Platun, of the People's Commissariat for Public Education, People's Commissar for Agriculture Racycki, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy Hrysevic and People's Commissar for Health Cencyper. They.had all worked in Belorussia for many years and had formed a group led by that venerable Belorussian figure, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars M. Haladzied. Second Secretary of the KPB Central Committee V. Saranhovic was exiled to Kazakhstan, although, _it is true, to a Party post there. Thus, Gikalo appeared to have made himself complete master of the situation, although he still saw a formidable obstacle in the influential person of Haladzied, whose removal required more lengthy preparation. For a while, the latter even scored a victory: Gikalo was sent to Kharkov, and Saranhovic was brought back from Kazakhstan to become First Secretary. However, it was not long before a final attack was launched against National Communism in Belorussia. In June 1937, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR Ales Carviakou anticipated his arrest by committing suicide. A similar protest was made by Haladzied. Saranhovic was arrested and condemned to death during the trial of the Bukharinites. His place was taken by Volkov, an ignorant Russian Bolshevik sent from Moscow, who took over control of the purges, surrounding himself with his close associates. All those commissars and their deputies and all those chairmen of enterprises and institutions who were of Belorussian origin were arrested and liquidated. The majority of them were Party members and, in many cases, came from the lowest strata of society.44
The Yezhov Terror carried off almost all members of the KPB who were of pre-Revolutionary standing. The victims included those who had taken part in the partisan movement in Belorussia during the war with Poland, those who had carried on underground work in Western Belorussia or who had at any time traveled abroad, and in general all who might be suspected in any way of opposition to the Soviet regime.
These purges were followed in June 1938 by the summoning of the Seventeenth Congress of the KPB, which met to survey the results of the purges and to establish a new stage in the Bolsheviks' nationality policy—that of undisguised Russification in cultural matters and complete subordination to Moscow in economic affairs. Not a single Belorussian was elected at the Congress to the Central Committee: all the leading posts in the KPB were taken by Russians. The KBP had become an obedient instrument for the purpose of finally quelling opposition to the regime, consolidating the kolkhoz system and putting the Belorussian economy )n a footing of subservience to the interests of Bolshevism.
Thus concluded the first phase in the conflict between Bolshevism and Belorussian National Communism—a conflict which had sprung up at the first contact of these two movements. It was an inevitable conflict, arising as it did from the aggressive nature of Bolshevism on the one hand and, on the other, from the defensive instincts of the Belorussian people, which during the Revolution had had its first taste of independent political revival. Bolshevism and National Communism are by their nature mutually antagonistic, and their point of conflict is the nationality question. Bolshevism, which is often naively identified with international Communism, is no less national than its opponent, National Communism: the difference lies in the fact that it champions the cause of another nationality— one that claims the first place among all other nationalities. Hence, indeed, its "international" character.
*
The year 1937 marks the beginning of the second chapter in the history of the KPB. During this period, the activity of the KPB moved from the political to the economic and industrial, sector. It is significant that the theses published in 1958 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the KPB, which are designed as a brief survey of this party's history, no longer mention at this stage the congresses of the KPB, but only those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, certain important events in the suppression of national opposition in the KPB belong to the period after 1937.
In October 1923, the Communist Party of Western Belorussia (KPZB) was formed within the framework of the Communist Party of Poland, after which it grew rapidly under the influence of the anti-Belorussian policy of the Polish government. In 1938, Stalin dissolved the Communist Party of Poland and, together with it, the KPZB.45 Consequently, in connection with the annexation of Western Belorussia by the BSSR in September 1939, the theses mentioned above speak, not of a merger of the KPZB with the KPB, but of the "acceptance of members of the KPZB Into the KPB" (Paragraph 22). Those members concerned were indeed isolated individuals, for all their former fellow-members had been arrested immediately after the entry of the Bolsheviks into Western Belorussia.
In 1956, however, at a conference held in Minsk on the history of the KPZB, Kamunist Bielarusi reported:
All the comrades who spoke recalled with great bitterness the extreme chagrin with which thousands of members of the Communist Parties of Poland, Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine received the unjust accusations leveled against the Communist Party of Poland in 1938. The KPZB and its members found themselves in an oppressive atmosphere of suspicion and distrust.46
The theses on the fortieth anniversary of the KPB say nothing of this "oppressive atmosphere," intentionally created on the eve of the seizure of Western Belorussia, or of the fate of so many members of the KPZB. In the light of this new attitude of the Party on this question, the cautious terms, quoted above, which were adopted in the theses for describing the entry of former members of the KPZB into the KPB are easier to understand, for the event itself could hardly have been entirely ignored, if only because of the need to maintain the continuity of the account.
As a result of the liquidation of a large proportion of those who had belonged to the KPZB, thousands of Party members—mostly Russians—were immediately transferred to the newly-occupied territory of Western Belorussia from the USSR, where the purge was already complete. Not one former member of the KPZB was given a responsible Party post in Western Belorussia. Reporting on the Eighteenth Congress of the KPB, held in May 1940, a leading article in Pravda stated:
The Party organizations of Belorussia have appointed to leading positions 30,000 Party and non-Party Bolsheviks. Almost half of them have been put to work in the Western oblasts of the BSSR, and have already acquired a not inconsiderable experience of work in a region recently liberated from capitalist slavery.47
During World War II, i. e., during the years 1941-43, the whole of Belorussia was occupied by the Germans. It is significant that there is now no trace of the work done by the KPB during the first eighteen months of this period, i. e., until the end of 1942. Scattered in the forest or in remote farmsteads, Party members lay low, diffidently watching the course of events and fearing to expose themselves to the risk of persecution, not only by-the Germans, but above all by the local population. Not until 1943 did partisans and parachutists sent by Moscow begin,-by means of threats of violence and by propaganda exploiting the atrocities and the political mistakes committed by the Germans, to gather together Party cells, giving them the old-established names of raion, city or oblast committees.
After the war, "with the brotherly help," as Paragraph 24 of the theses puts it, "above all of the great Russian people,... socialist re-formations were successfully concluded during the first postwar five-year plan in the Western oblasts of Belorussia." Thus ended the short-lived political role of the KPB during the war period. The KPB became completely transformed into an instrument for supervising the rural and industrial economies. The exclusive concentration of its activities upon these economic aspects of the republic's life was clearly demonstrated at the last three congresses of the KPB, in 1954,1956 and 1959. Having made itself complete master of the situation, the Central Committee in Moscow has even found it possible to make a concession to "Belorussianization," by appointing the first Belorussian, T. Mazurau (if we ignore Saranhovic's short period of office), to the post of First Secretary of the KPB Central Committee.
In the final stage of its tragic career, the Communist Party of Belorussia has thus been completely reduced to the status of a provincial organization within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the result that even a one-day visit by some Party chief from Moscow is now regarded as an event of historical importance.
EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SCIENCE IN THE BSSR A Brief Survey of the Soviet Period
H. NIAMIHA
Education
When the Bolsheviks finally established control in Belorussia in 1919, 82 percent of the population was illiterate, there were no institutions of higher education and the system of primary education had been wrecked by war and revolution. According to official data, even before World War I the number of schools in the region was very small. On January 1, 1914, 43.9 percent of the children between the ages of 8 and 12 were attending primary schools, where instruction was carried on exclusively in Russian, while the total of secondary schools of various types was 56.1 Soviet sources frequently compare this state of affairs with the situation as it is today: in an article entitled "In the Brotherly Family of the Peoples of the USSR," for example, K. Mazurau stated that in the BSSR there are now 11,480 schools, 24 places of higher education and about 80 research institutions.2
Although the aim of such comparisons is to show what has been achieved by the Bolshevik regime, it may be said that some development of the educational system in Belorussia was inevitable during the last forty years irrespective of the nature of the political regime. The revolutionary situation in the tsarist empire had called forth in Belorussia a thirst for knowledge and led to an increase in schools and other educational establishments. These aspirations were guided by the national-liberation movement, which sought to take advantage of the respite offered by the New Economic Policy in order to secure a reawakening of the national culture, on a large scale. Attention was primarily concentrated upon the need for reestablishing public education on a firm material basis and building up a unified system of obligatory primary instruction in four-year schools. At the same time, efforts were directed toward coordinating and supplementing the numbers of existing Belorussian scientific and cultural workers. Higher educational and research institutions were set up, such as the Belorussian State University, the Academy of Agriculture and the Institute of Belorussian Culture (later known as the Belorussian Academy of Sciences). This movement reached the peak of its activity during the period 1925—28. A particularly prominent part in it was played by the People's Commissariat of Education of the BSSR, which had been completely Belorussianized by 1924, and by such people, concentrated mostly in Minsk, as J. Losik, U. Ihnatouski, S. Niekrasevic, V. Lastouski, A. Smolic, the brothers M. and H. Harecki, and A. Cvikievic, who were later dubbed "counterrevolutionary national-democrats" by the Bolsheviks and became the victims of vigorous persecution.
In order to repair the damage done by the war and the Revolution and to industrialize the country's economy, the Bolsheviks required an ever-increasing number of trained workers. It was therefore inevitable that they should support the movement for the development of education, but in order to maintain their position, they were obliged to retain some control of the movement and to resist deviations from the Party line. Having restored to some extent the country's economic stability and having, with the aid of the "bourgeois-nationalist intelligentsia," trained a number of their own workers, they began to abandon NEP and to take the offensive against all national manifestations. This offensive made itself felt chiefly in the field of ideas and education, and from that moment on, the Belorussian national reawakening began to decline. The fundamentals of education were neglected for the sake of producing "active and conscious Communists and warriors of socialist construction."3 The systems of primary education in use in the various national republics, including the BSSR, were abolished, and in 1934 the organization of schools throughout the Soviet Union was unified so as to bring education under the control of the all-Union Party Central Committee. As a result, the national character of the education offered in various regions of the Soviet Union is being systematically effaced by the method of approximating everything to Russian models and consistently ousting the use of the local language, while in official use the local language is subjected to pronounced Russification. An example of this is the reform of Belorussian grammar and orthography carried out in 1933.
During the forty years of the Soviet regime, the education system in Belorussia has had a checkered career, in which intervals of national reawakening have alternated with periods of persecution and decline. Throughout, this career has been interrupted by changes in instructional methods and reshuffles or dismissals of teaching staff in accordance with the Party line at the time.4
From time to time, especially on the occasion of anniversaries, the Bolsheviks try to impress the public with statistical data concerning their achievements. It is, however, natural that during the last forty years, despite the difficulties created by the regime, education should have made considerable progress. The country has been covered by a close network of primary and secondary schools, new secondary professional schools and colleges have been set up, almost total illiteracy has been abolished, many experienced and devoted teachers have been trained, and the thirst for knowledge continues unabated. This is reflected in official Soviet data. For example, during 1957, the population of the BSSR, on its own initiative and resources, built over 1,000 schools, while only 106 were built with state investments of capital. By the beginning of the 1957—58 academic year, 624 schools for 53,000 pupils, 189 workshops and 30 hostels had been built by the same method of unofficial initiative.5
In the early thirties, the Bolsheviks claimed that education had been made compulsory, not only at the primary but also at the secondary level, and solemnly declared the BSSR to be a fully literate republic. In fact, however, at the beginning of the 1957—58 academic year, a considerable number of children between the ages of 7 and 15 in Belorussia were not attending school. In the Mosty Raion, the number was 163, in the Vasilishki Raion 177 and in the Bykhov Raion 163. In a number of places, children are frequently prevented from attending school by being set to work at home or at kolkhozes.6 It may be assumed that the position is no better in other raions. The number of illiterates who grew up during the period of intensive construction is not given by any Soviet sources.
It may thus be said that universal education has not been introduced, school accommodation is still inadequate (in the cities, schools are still working in three shifts), and the national character of the education provided is little more than nominal (in Minsk, only 10 of 58 secondary schools are in fact Belorussian),7 as a result of which teaching standards are lowered.8 Students' command of their native tongue also suffers, yet every year the Ministry of Education of the BSSR reduces the number of lessons devoted to Belorussian.9
Another problem that is still unsolved is that of polytechnical education. This question was raised when the Bolsheviks came to power, and the experiments since that time that have been made in its name have done much harm. Here, as in the Soviet educational system as a whole, constant changes have taken place in the choice of textbooks, equipment and curricula. The detrimental effects of this impermanency of educational policy have been enhanced by shortages of books, equipment and even writing materials.
The right of the citizen to a free education at all levels, proclaimed at the beginning of the Bolshevik regime and subsequently written into the Constitution, has long since become a fiction. Apart from the attempts to introduce payment of fees, even for high school, education at the university level was never completely accessible to all those interested. Entrance was limited by a number of social-political restrictions, as a result of which priority was given to "proletarian elements," i. e., members of the Komsomol and trade unions, irrespective of their fitness for a college training. On several occasions, however, the need for well-trained personnel made it necessary to alter this policy. Competitive examinations were introduced, with the result that preference was given to those with the best scholastic record at high school. The higher education which was thus made accessible, in spite of its Communist bias, frequently bred disillusionment in Bolshevik ideals and contributed to the growth of both hidden and open enemies of the regime.
It therefore became necessary to divert from places of higher education those young people who were hostilely disposed toward the regime and to direct them to physical work in agriculture and industry, where there was an acute shortage of labor. This was the aim pursued by the regulations governing entry into places of higher education, published on June 4, 1958. These restricted the number of places available for high school graduates to 20 percent, and reserved the remainder for those who had worked for a minimum of two years in industry, demobilized Red Army men and war veterans.
The time has passed when high school graduates linked their destiny exclusively with entry to college .... Now,... work in the factory, at the construction site, on the kolkhoz and sovkhoz or in the office is necessary for every member of a socialist society.10
It has not been easy to restrain the urge of young people to continue their education. Intensive propaganda is being waged to persuade them after graduation from high school to take up manual work and "fill the glorious ranks of the working class and toilers of the socialist fields."11 One example given was that of the pupils of form 10B in the Minsk School No. 23, who "unanimously declared that they would all go into industry."12 The opportunity for continued education thus has to be earned by practical work in the Party cause.
Culture and Public Information
The numbers of cultural and publicity institutions in the BSSR are, at first | glance at least, imposing enough. In rural areas alone, there are 225 houses of culture, 2,955 clubs, 1,878 reading rooms, 1,608 libraries, 440 film projectors, 1,241