If the Bolsheviks had indeed formed an autonomous Belarusian republic in 1919, it would have remained part of the Russian Federation by 1991. This is roughly how my article on the 1st All-Belarusian Congress in December 1917 concluded. We will touch on the question of when the first autonomies appeared in the Russian state below.
Now, I want to tell how socialist “Belarus” was created. Chronologically, it would seem appropriate to first consider the history of the Belarusian People’s Republic. However, this topic is, for me as the author, currently overwhelming. It is so complex, contradictory, and still far from being fully researched. Not all primary sources have survived to this day, and even much more serious researchers with academic degrees do not have everything completely clear. Nevertheless, the proclamation of the BNR did not go unnoticed in the “turbulent mass” of events in post-revolutionary Russia.
As noted by Belarusian historian A. Sidorovich, three main factors compelled the Bolshevik party to move towards the proclamation of a socialist Belarusian republic at the very end of 1918. Firstly, the presence of a number of buffer states and quasi-states in the west of the former Russian Empire served as a defense against imperialist forces; they formed around 1918, and only the “Minsk region” constituted a “white spot,” a “gap” in this series of new formations. Secondly, although the Belarusian People’s Republic did not materialize as a full-fledged state, several countries recognized it, its ministers were active, anti-Bolshevik sentiments among the population were fueled by it, and there were plans to detach Belarusian territory from Russia, which the leading Bolshevik party could not ignore. Thirdly, Belarusian communist sections existed throughout the Russian state, providing no alternative actions for the ruling force in the country. I am not quoting A. Sidorovich but conveying the essence of his analysis of the situation that had developed by the end of 1918 in the west of the vast state…