seize farm produce to counter the food shortage in the cities, further aggravating hostilities between the government and the agrarian sectors. By June 1919 famine prevailed in the republic. In spite of the local food shortages the SSR LiB was pressured by the RSFSR to provide food supplies to Soviet Russia and the Red Army, which caused tensions between the leaderships of the two soviet republics. Army The , designated as the armed forces of the SSR LiB, was formed on 13 March 1919 on the basis of the Russian Western Army. It included the 8th Rifle Division, the 2nd Frontier Division, the 17th Rifle Division, the 52nd Rifle Division and, between March–April 1919, the Lithuanian Rifle Division. The Lithuanian-Belorussian Army fought against Polish and German forces. In March 1919 the SSR LiB government issued a decree calling for mandatory conscription of all males aged 18 to 40, as well as mandatory labour for production. The conscription decree was met with resistance from local populations, and could not be fully implemented. The Lithuanian-Belorussian Army suffered massive desertions, as of June 1919 it was reported that there were some 33,000 deserters from the soviet military in the Minsk Governorate. Andrei Snesarev served as the commander of the Lithuanian-Belorussian Army until 31 May 1919. Filipp Mironov served as acting commander until 9 June 1919. A. N. Novikov served as the Chief of Staff of the Army. On 9 June 1919 the Lithuanian-Belorussian Army was converted into the 16th Army of the Workers and Peasants Red Army. Culture 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. Daniel Charney, under supervisor of Commissar , was charged with overseeing Yiddish-language cultural activities; attempting to reorganize a central Soviet Yiddish library (gathering materials from expropriated archives), publishing Yiddish language educational and cultural periodicals and absorbing the Vilna Troupe into an SSR LiB Yiddish state theatre. Historiography Puppet, paper or buffer state? Different historians have provided different explanations as to why the SSR LiB was founded. At the time of the February 1919 All-Belorussian Congress of Soviets the sole official justification rationale provided for the merger of the Lithuanian and Belorussian soviet republics was a vague commentary in the congress declaration about the 'historical identity of economic interests' of Lithuania and Belorussia, without