Accession of Western Belarus to the BSSR
On the basis of the agreement on the division of spheres of influence between Germany and the USSR, in September 1939, Soviet troops occupied the territory of Western Belarus.
October 22 1939 elections to the People’s Assembly of Western Belarus, which has worked 28 – October 30 in Bialystok. It made a number of important decisions, including a declaration on the entry of Western Belorussia into the BSSR and a decision on the nationalization of industry and the confiscation of landowners’ lands. On November 14, 1939, at the extraordinary Third Session of the Supreme Council of the BSSR, the Law on the Admission of Western Belorussia to the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic was adopted. As a result of the merger, the area of ​​the BSSR was 225.7 thousand km², and the population was 10.2 million people. Western Belarus was divided into 5 regions – Baranovichi, Belostok, Brest, Vileika and Pinsk.
A part of the territory occupied by Soviet troops together with the city of Vilna was transferred to Lithuania on October 10, 1939. In 1940, the city ​​of Sventsyan with its surroundings and some other territories was also transferred to Lithuania. In 1939, part of Polesie was transferred to Ukraine.
Attack From Germany
At the beginning of World War II, the territory of Belarus was occupied by German troops. The territory of Belarus was declared the general district as part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Some part of the territory of Western Belarus (the so-called Belostok District (Bezirk Bialystok), including Belostok and Grodno) was supposed to be included in the German East Prussia. In December 1943 the government of the Belarusian Central Rada was created, which had mainly advisory and punitive functions.
The partisan movement, which was widely deployed in Belarus, became an important factor that forced the Nazis to keep a significant contingent here and contributed to the early liberation of Belarus. In 1944, the total number of partisan detachments in the territory of Belarus was 373,942.
The eastern and south-eastern districts of Belarus were liberated by the Red Army in the fall of 1943, and the whole republic entirely in the summer of 1944 during Operation Bagration.
On the territory of Belarus, the German occupiers created 287 concentration camps, in which about 1.7 million civilians and Soviet prisoners of war were killed.
According to the Khatyn Memorial Complex, the Germans and collaborators carried out over 182 large punitive operations in Belarus; the population of areas suspected of supporting the partisans was destroyed, taken to death camps or forced labor in Germany. Out of 9,857 settlements destroyed and burned by German occupiers and collaborators in Belarus, over 5,460 were destroyed along with all or part of the population. According to other data, the number of destroyed settlements during punitive operations is 628.
Some historians believe that there were punitive operations against civilians by Soviet partisans.
The number of victims of the Second World War in Belarus is subject to disputes and is estimated by various researchers from 750 thousand to 3 million people. As a result of the Holocaust, according to various estimates, from 400 to 840 thousand Jews from almost a million of their pre-war numbers were destroyed. According to estimates by E. G. Ioffe, on the territory of Belarus, taking into account the areas that were part of the BSSR on the eve of the war (that is, including the Belostok region), during the years of the Great Patriotic War, 946 thousand Jews died, 898 thousand of them directly as a result of the “final decision Jewish question” and 48 thousand – on the fronts. In Brest, for example, from 25,000 Jews in 1941 , by 1945 only 186 people survived.
After the end of the war, anti-Soviet partisan groups operated on the territory of Belarus for several more years. Western intelligence services tried to establish contact with some of them. Detachments of the NKVD organized punitive operations against the anti-Soviet underground.
Post-war time
In 1945, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic was the founder and became part of the United Nations. On June 26, 1945, K. V. Kiselyov headed the delegation of the Belarusian SSR signed the UN Charter, which was ratified by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR on August 30, 1945. In November — December 1945, the Belarusian delegation took part in the work of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations General Assembly in London, at which the head of the delegation of the Byelorussian SSR K. V. Kiselyov was elected vice-chairman of the fourth committee.
In August 1945, a new border was established between the BSSR and Poland. Belostok region and 3 districts of the Brest region departed Poland.
During the occupation, school buildings and equipment were destroyed. Repair and construction of schools involved builders, teachers, parents of students, military personnel. This allowed in the 1945/46 school year to put into operation 80% of the pre-war number of schools. In the 1950/51 school year, the number of students was smaller than in the prewar years. This is the result of heavy losses in the war years. In order to attract children who did not attend school due to the war, they took children up to the age of 15 into primary classes, and eleven-year-olds in the first and second classes.
In the first academic year, only about half of the teachers worked in the restored schools as compared with the pre-war period. The former teachers demobilized from the army were sent to schools for work. As a result, already in 1946, the number of teachers was 80% of the pre-war level.
In the early postwar years of the BSSR development continued along the Stalinist model of a socialist society. Collectivization was completed in the western regions. In 1949, in honor of the 70th anniversary of Joseph Stalin, the Communist Party Central Committee sent a petition to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Georgy Malenkov, in particular, with proposals to rename the city of Babruysk, Stalinsk, as well as assign the name of Stalin to the Minsk Tractor Plant
In the 1950s – 1970s. the country’s further development proceeded rapidly. The economy of Belarus was a key part of the national economy of the USSR, Belarus was called the “assembly shop” of the Soviet economy. Mechanical engineering and the chemical industry (Soligorsk potash plants, oil refineries in Novopolotsk and Mozyr) developed most actively.
As a result of the accelerated industrial development of the country, the processes of urbanization developed significantly.
On the territory of the BSSR was located the Belarusian Military District, one of the largest and most capable factions of the Soviet Army. More than 32 thousand Belarusians fought as part of the Soviet contingent in Afghanistan. Nearly a thousand Belarusians died, as many more returned home disabled.