The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

• published: 17 Jun 2015
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The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Russia (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. The treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus), after two months of negotiations. The treaty was forced on the Bolshevik government by the threat of further advances by German and Austrian forces. According to the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia's commitments to the Triple Entente alliance. In the treaty, Bolshevik Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany, and its province of Kars Oblast in the south Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire. It also recognized the independence of Ukraine. Russia also agreed to pay six billion German gold mark in reparations. Historian Spencer Tucker says, "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 Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was too harsh on them, the Allies (and historians favorable to the Allies) responded that it was more benign than Brest-Litovsk. Under the treaty, the Baltic states were meant to become German vassal states under German princelings. The treaty was effectively terminated in November 1918, when Germany surrendered to the Allies. However, it did provide some relief to the Bolsheviks, already fighting the Russian Civil War, by renouncing Russia's claims on Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania. By 1917, Germany and Imperial Russia were stuck in a stalemate on the Eastern Front of World War I. At the time, the Russian economy 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 Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The Russian Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar (initially presided by prince Georgy Lvov (Георгий Львов), later by Alexander Kerensky) (Александр Керенский), however, decided to continue the war on the Entente side. Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov (Павел Милюков) sent the Entente Powers a telegram, known as Milyukov note, affirming them that the Provisional Government would continue the war with the same war aims the Imperial Russia did. 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 position of the Provisional Government led the Germans to offer support to the Russian opposition, the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in particular, who were proponents of Russia's withdrawal from the war. In April 1917 Germany allowed Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to return to Russia from his exile in Switzerland, and offered him financial help. Upon his arrival in Petrograd, Lenin proclaimed his April Theses, that included a call for giving all the power to workers' and soldiers' soviets (councils), and an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. Throughout 1917, Bolsheviks spread defeatist and revolutionary propaganda, called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and an end to the war. Following the disastrous defeat of the Kerensky Offensive, discipline in the Russian army deteriorated completely. Soldiers would disobey orders, often under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, allowing soldiers' committees to take control of their units after deposing the officers. Russian and German soldiers occasionally left their positions and fraternized. The defeat and ongoing hardships of war led in July 1917 to anti-government riots in Petrograd, headed by Bolsheviks. Several months later, on November 7 (October 25 old style) Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government in what is known as the October Revolution.