Editing Politics of Belarus (section)

===Independence from the Russian Empire===
The first attempt to establish a sovereign Belarusian state in modern history came in early 1918 with the declaration of independence of the [[Belarusian Democratic Republic]]. The short-lived state was destroyed by the Soviet invasion in 1919. The [[Rada]] of the Belarusian Democratic Republic exists as a [[government in exile]] since then.

The [[Bolsheviks]] created a puppet Soviet government of Belarus in [[Smolensk]]. In 1924, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus joined the [[USSR]] together with Soviet-controlled [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]] and [[Transcaucasia]].