Often described as a puppet state of Soviet Russia,[1][2][3] during its brief existence the SSR LiB government had limited authority over the territories it claimed.

[8][9] On 22 January 1919 Adolph Joffe arrived in Minsk, as the representative of the Moscow centre with a mission to bring order among the infighting Bolshevik leadership in Belorussia.

[9][10] The Central Executive Committee of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR) was represented at the congress by its chairman Yakov Sverdlov.

[8] As Sverdlov's proposal won majority support (especially from grassroot delegates), the congress tasked the Central Executive Committee of the SSRB to work for unification with the Lithuanian soviet republic.

[8][11] In a similar vein, the First Congress of Soviets of Lithuania, which met in Vilna (Vilnius, Wilno) from 18 to 20 February 1919 and was attended by 220 delegates, examined the report of the Lithuanian Provisional Worker-Peasant Government on the question of union with Belorussia.

[9] The local communist leaders managed to resist the imposition that Joffe would become the head of the republic, albeit he remained in the area as the representative of the Moscow centre.

[8] At the time of its founding, the territories under the control of the new republic in the Minsk, Vilna and Kovno governorates had a combined population of about 4 million people.

[8] On June 1, 1919, the Military-Political Union of Soviet Republics was announced at a festive meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in Moscow.

[23] On June 21, 1919, the SSR LiB Central Executive Committee issued a statement praising the Military-Political Union, calling a first step towards the unification of all Soviet republics.

[11] The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia opposed Stalin's proposition, arguing that the move would spell the end for the republic.

[9] Following a decision by the SSR LiB Military-Revolutionary Committee, on April 2, 1919, a prisoner swap with the took place in Kaišiadorys, whereby the German Army released 24 prisoners (members of the Kovno Soviet of Workers Deputies and activists) in exchange for 13 detained members of the German delegation in Vilna (led by G. von Trützschler).

SSR LiB agreed for negotiations, with Mickevičius-Kapsukas reportedly stated that the condition for the exchange would be 'one Lithuanian bourgeois hostage for two communists'.

In the end the negotiations resulted in the release of 25 communist prisoners, including A. Drabavičiūtė, P. Svotelis-Proletaras, P. Marcinkutė, M. Juškevičius, M. Miliauskas, K. Matulaitytė, V. Bistrickas, E. Staškūtė, M. Kunickis, K. Keturaitis, J. Grigelis, M. Mickevičiūtė and V.

[11] Based on the erstwhile departments of the Minsk Governorate Revolutionary Committee the Liquidation Commission of the evacuated institutions of Lithuania and Belarus was set up.

[11] On 27 August 1919 Polish forces seized Novoalexandrovsk, whereby the SSR LiB lost control over the last town in the territories claimed by the republic.

[11][7] A meeting of three parties - the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia (represented by Vilhelm Knorin, Iosif Adamovich and Alexander Chervyakov), Vsevolod Ignatovsky's Belorussian Communist Organization and the General Jewish Labour Bund led by Arn Vaynshteyn - was held on 30 July 1920, which decided to reestablish a Belorussian Soviet republic.

"[9] Joffe, as the representative of the Moscow centre, hand-picked many of the key government members whilst some nominations were identified by the RCP(b) Central Committee directly.

[35] The SSR LiB Defense Council worked under the guidance of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia, which had Mickevičius-Kapsukas as its chairman and Knorin as its secretary.

[11] After the evacuation of the SSR LiB government to Minsk the supervision of city and uyezd administrations were managed directly by the Defense Council.

[38] Per the draft constitution of the republic the coat of arms would included "a golden hammer and sickle in the rays of the rising sun against a red background, surrounded by a wreath of ears with the inscription in five languages : Lithuanian, Polish, Yiddish, Russian and Belorussian".

[8] War, German occupation and population displacements had disrupted industrial and agricultural production, in the weeks preceding the foundation of the republic famine prevailed in the area.

[8] The Communist Party deployed military and paramilitary forces to seize farm produce to counter the food shortage in the cities, further aggravating hostilities between the government and the agrarian sectors.

[39][42] As the Red Army had seized Vilna, the Moscow centre directed much of the Jewish Commissariat (Evkom) staff to move to the new Litbel capital to win over the Yiddishist intelligentsia there.

"[1] Jan Zaprudnik emphasized that the creation of the Litbel republic was a move done by Soviet Russia in the view of territorial competition with Poland over Lithuania and Belorussia.

[12] Soviet historiography described the creation of the Litbel republic as a defensive measure against counter-revolutionaries whilst also stressing historical-cultural links between Lithuania and Belorussia.

[8] The hypothesis that Lenin stood behind the idea of setting up the Litbel republic was reinforced in the 1980s, as Rostislav Plantinov [be] and Nikolay Stashkevich [ru] presented research on correspondence of late 1918.

[12] Borzęcki (2008), writing about the foundation of the Litbel republic, states that "[i]n contrast to the alacrity with which all previous Moscow's orders had been carried out, this one was acted upon with uncharacteristic tardiness.

[12] Hélène Carrère d'Encausse argued that logic behind the launch of Litbel was the creation of a state with a predominately pro-Russian population whereby the Lithuanian drive for independence would be contained, Lithuania would be removed from the British sphere of influence and pro-Polish tendencies would be undermined.

[45] Smith affirms that as the Vilnius region was ethnically diverse and contested between competing nationalisms, by creating a joint Litbel republic the Soviet leadership could avoid assigning Vilna to neither Lithuania nor Belorussia.

[8] Some historians refer to Stalin's telegram to Lenin asking for the disbanding of the SSR LiB government and Defense Council as the end of the republic.