Belarus first declared independence in early 1918 as the Belarusian Democratic Republic. Its head of state was the president of a provisional supreme governing body, the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic. In 1919, the Soviet Red Army forced the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic into exile where the Rada still exists, now led by President Ivonka Survilla. Under Soviet rule, the de facto leader of the Byelorussian SSR was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, the only legal party in Soviet Belarus.