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The
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (aka the Brest Peace in
Russia) was a
peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918 between the new
Bolshevik government of Russia and the
Central Powers (
German Empire,
Austria-Hungary,
Bulgaria, and the
Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in WW1. The treaty was signed at German-controlled Brest-Litovsk (Brześć Litewski; since 1945,
Brest, nowadays in
Belarus), after two months of negotiations. The treaty was agreed upon by the Russians to stop further invasion. According to the treaty,
Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia's commitments to the Allies and eleven nations became independent in Eastern Europe and western Asia. It is considered the first diplomatic treaty ever filmed.
By
1917,
Germany and Imperial Russia were stuck in a
stalemate on the
Eastern Front of World War I and the
Russian economy had nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort. The
large numbers of war casualties and
persistent food shortages in the major urban centers brought about civil unrest, known as the
February Revolution, that
forced Emperor (Tsar/Czar) Nicholas II to abdicate. The
Russian Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar in early 1917 continued the war. Foreign Minister
Pavel Milyukov sent the Entente Powers a telegram, known as
Milyukov note, affirming to them that the Provisional Government would continue the war with the same war aims that the former Russian Empire had.
The pro-war Provisional Government was opposed by the self-proclaimed
Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, dominated by leftist parties. Its
Order No. 1 called for an
overriding mandate to soldier committees rather than army officers. The Soviet started to form its own
paramilitary power, the
Red Guards, in March 1917.
The continuing war led the
German Government to agree to a suggestion that they should favor the
opposition Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who were
proponents of Russia's withdrawal from the war. Therefore, in
April 1917,
Germany transported Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and thirty-one
supporters in a
sealed train from exile in Switzerland to Finland Station, Petrograd. Upon his
arrival in Petrograd,
Lenin proclaimed his April Theses, which included a call for turning all political power over to
workers' and soldiers' soviets (councils) and an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. At around the same time, the
United States entered the war, potentially shifting the balance of the war against the Central Powers.
Throughout 1917, Bolsheviks called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and an end to the war. Following the
disastrous failure of the Kerensky Offensive, discipline in the Russian army deteriorated completely. Soldiers would disobey orders, often under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, and set up
soldiers' committees to take control of their units after deposing the officers. Russian and German soldiers occasionally
fraternized.
The defeat and ongoing hardships of war led to
anti-government riots in Petrograd, the
"July Days" of 1917. Several months later, on
7 November (
25 October old style),
Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government in what is known as the
October Revolution.
A
top priority of the newly established Soviet government was to end the war. On
8 November 1917 (
26 October 1917 O.S)
Vladimir Lenin signed the
Decree on Peace, which was approved by the Second Congress of the
Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. The Decree called "upon all the belligerent nations and their governments to start
immediate negotiations for peace" and proposed an
immediate withdrawal of Russia from WW1.
Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the new Bolshevik government. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and the representatives of the other Central Powers, Leon Trotsky appointed his good friend
Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks at the peace conference...
In the treaty,
Russia ceded hegemony over the Baltic states to Germany; they were meant to become German vassal states under German princelings. Russia also
ceded its province of Kars Oblast in the
South Caucasus to the
Ottoman Empire and
recognized the independence of Ukraine. According to historian
Spencer Tucker, "The
German General Staff had formulated
extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator."
Congress Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, as Germans refused to recognize the existence of any
Polish representatives, which in turn led to Polish protests. When
Germans later complained that the
later Treaty of Versailles in the West of 1919 was
too harsh on them, the
Allied Powers responded that it was more benign than the terms imposed by Brest-Litovsk treaty.
..
The treaty meant that
Russia now was helping Germany win the war by
freeing up a million German soldiers for the Western Front and by "relinquishing much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, fuel supplies, and communications with Western Europe". According to historian Spencer Tucker, the
Allied Powers felt that "The treaty was the ultimate betrayal of the Allied cause and
sowed the seeds for the Cold War. With Brest-Litovsk the
spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the
Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention [in Russia]."..
The
treaty was annulled by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when
Germany surrendered to the western
Allies. However, in the meantime it
did provide some relief to the Bolsheviks,
already fighting the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) following the
Russian Revolutions of 1917, by the
renunciation of Russia's claims on modern-day Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine and Lithuania.
