Moscow''s Viceroy in Lithuania and Belarus : Adolf Ioffe and National Self-Determination the Bolshevik Way

Based on previously unknown archival materials, the book traces Adolf Ioffe’s mission, on behalf of the Bolshevik Central Committee, in early 1919 Lithuania and Belarus. Ioffe acted as Moscow’s de facto viceroy in Lithuania and Belarus, also directing their foreign, internal, and military affairs. He wrote diplomatic notes on behalf of the republics, took hostages from among Lithuanian nationalists and Polish "bourgeois", and ordered a military offensive against Kaunas. Yet, Ioffe’s mission is virtually unknown to historians.

The book seeks to resolve three issues which so far have puzzled historians. First, why did Lenin change his mind and decide to establish Soviet Belarus? Second, why did Soviet Russia annex eastern Soviet Belarus? And third, why was a unitary Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet republic (LitBel) established? Historian Jerzy Borzęcki debunks the claim of the present-day apologists for Soviet rule about the LitBel’s liberalism. He shows it enjoyed little popular support, was ruled largely by non-natives, and – unlike the republics it unified – had no redeeming qualities from either Lithuanian or Belarusian national standpoint.

Through a critical examination of the overlooked history of Adolf Ioffe and the LitBel, this book demonstrates that the Soviet state was a dictatorship in a three-fold manner.