the area as the representative of the Moscow centre. Kapilyev (2020) notes that unlike their predecessors, this government was not labelled 'Provisional'. The 27 February 1919 meeting reluctantly accepted separation of the Mogilev, Smolensk and Vitebsk governorates from Belorussia. Vilna became the capital the new Lithuanian-Belorussian republic. However, most SSR LiB government institutions would be based in Minsk or Smolensk. 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. A unification congress of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia (Old Occupation) and the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Belorussia was held in Vilna 4–6 March 1919, merging the two parties under the name of the former. On the agrarian front, the party unification congress decided against the break-up of confiscated estates. Rather than partitioning the estates for redistribution to smallholder and landless peasants the party unification congress opted for the conversion of the estates into collective state farms, a decision that soured relationships between the peasantry and the party. Evacuation to Minsk As the Polish army advanced towards Vilna, the Council of People's Commissars set up the Defense Council of the SSR LiB. The situation in Vilna was chaotic, with the SSR LiB government holding as many as 16 meetings between 8 April and 15 April 1919. Local Polish populations supported the Polish army offensive on Vilna, which lasted from 17 to 21 April 1919. The SSR LiB government was evacuated to Dvinsk on 21 April 1919. The loss of the Litbel capital undermined morale of the communist movement in the region. The Litbel republic made three unsuccessful attempts to retake Vilna from the Polish army. On 28 April 1919 the government was moved to Minsk. Minsk was named the new capital of the republic. However the evacuation had not been done in an orderly manner, much of the materials and staff of the government institutions had been left behind in Vilna. Once in Minsk the People's Commissariats would not embark on setting up new institutions, rather they assimilated the existing structures of the Minsk Provincial Revolutionary Committee into their own commissariats. Evacuation to Bobruisk In May 1919, with the Polish forces advancing on Minsk, the Council of People's Commissars and some People's Commissariats withdrew to Bobruisk. On 30 May 1919 the SSR LiB Central Executive Committee signed