They were rivaled by the Minsk Soviet (which was temporarily led by Mikhail Frunze), also known as the Regional Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies of Western Front, or Obliskomzap. In April, the various organizations formed the Congress of Belarusian National Organizations and appointed the Belarusian National Committee, headed by Raman Skirmunt, which in turn created the Regional Peasants’ Congress. Belarusian nationalists welcomed the new republic, as most of them supported Belarusian autonomy within Russia and not outright independence. When the February Revolution occurred in early 1917, most of Belarus was still under Russian control. As German forces began to occupy parts of the Russian Empire, they took to supporting separatist movements as a means of weakening their enemies: First and foremost of course Russia, but also indirectly Poland, which Germany planned to isolate by especially backing ethnicities living on former Polish-controlled territory. This situation began to change with the Weltkrieg. However the idea of Belarusian nationhood remained the province of a very small intellectual minority, with little grasp on the overwhelmingly rural and illiterate Belarusian population. After the Revolution of 1905, the Belarusian Socialist Assembly, or Hramada, was founded, which saw Belarusian nationhood as rooted in socialism and the liberation of the peasant class, and it quickly became by far the largest Belarusian political organization. The Zapadnorusists, or West-Russianists, advocated for Belarus as an integral part of the Russian Empire. The Krajowcy movement, a group of mostly Polish liberals from the landowning class, sought to revive the idea of Poland-Lithuania and its multicultural state.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of a distinct Belarusian identity was just starting to take hold.
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