Formation of the Healthcare Management System
 during the Establishment of Belarusian Soviet Statehood (1917–1921)

Abstract

The article characterizes the formation of the healthcare management system during the establishment of the Bolsheviks power in Belarus in the 1917–1921s. The prerequisites, conditions and stages of development of the Soviet
 administrative medical authorities, their structure and competence have been identified on the basis of analysis carried out with the help of archival documents, periodicals of the studied period and personal sources. It is proved that the approval of the Soviet principles of qualification, accessibility and free medical care was complicated by the German-occupated
 Belarus in 1918 and the adverse epidemiological situation caused by refugees’ migration during the First World War. After the retreat of the German troops the governments of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus and the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania and Belarus formed the People’s Commissariat of
 Healthcare as a supreme medical management body. However, the permanent changes in the government and its relocation during the advance of Polish troops determined the low efficiency of measures for the public health protection and anti-epidemic activities. In the conditions of disintegration of these state
 entities, their authorities and executive bodies, the local administrative structures
 such as provincial and county healthcare departments had acquired a
 leading role in providing medical care to the population.
 The final formation of the healthcare management system refers to the
 end of the hostilities of the Polish-Soviet War, when, along with the restoration
 of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus, its People’s Commissariat of
 Healthcare was recreated.