Editing Belarus (section)

===Post-war===
[[File:М. І. Гусеў. Плакат, выпушчаны да выбараў у Вярхоўныя Саветы БССР і СССР ад заходніх абласцей Беларусі.jpg|thumb|upright|Belarusian poster where the text reads "Long live the Stalinist constitution of victorious socialism and true democracy!" (issued in 1940)]]
The borders of the Byelorussian SSR and Poland were redrawn, in accord with the 1919-proposed [[Curzon Line]].<ref name="olson95"/>  Byelorus gained territory to the west: the formerly Polish [[Kresy]].

[[Joseph Stalin]] implemented a policy of [[Sovietization]] to isolate the Byelorussian SSR from [[Western world|Western influences]].<ref name="warpop"/> This policy involved sending Russians from various parts of the Soviet Union and placing them in key positions in the Byelorussian SSR government. After Stalin died in 1953, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] continued his predecessor's [[cultural hegemony]] program, stating, "The sooner we all start speaking Russian, the faster we shall build communism."<ref name="warpop"/>

Between Stalin's death in 1953 and 1980, Belarusian politics was dominated by former members of the Soviet partisans, including First Secretaries Kirill Mazurov and Pyotr Masherov.<ref name="Ioffe"/> Mazurov and Masherov oversaw Belarus's [[Belarusian economic miracle|rapid industrialisation]] and transformation from one of the Soviet Union's poorest republics into one of its richest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Andrew |title=Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-300-25921-6 |edition=New |location=New Haven, London |pages=237–239}}</ref> In 1986, the Byelorussian SSR was contaminated with most (70%) of the [[nuclear fallout]] from the explosion at the [[Chernobyl disaster|Chernobyl]] power plant located 16&nbsp;km beyond the border in the neighboring [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]].<ref name="Gorby">{{cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/belarus/12.htm|title=Belarus- Perestroika|access-date=26 March 2007|last=Fedor|first=Helen|year=1995|work=Belarus: A Country Study|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=11 August 2020|title=Belarus: Five things you may not know about the country|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53727243|access-date=16 August 2020|work=BBC News}}</ref>

By the late 1980s, political liberalization led to a national revival, with the [[Belarusian Popular Front]] becoming a major pro-independence force.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/1066125.html|title=Post-Soviet Belarus: A Timeline|website=rferl.org|date=24 February 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17941637|title=Belarus profile – Timeline|work=BBC News|date=20 August 2018}}</ref>