The
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed between Soviet Russia and the Central
Powers, marked Russian defeat and the end of her participation in World
War I.
The
Bolshevik government had come to power in Russia after the October
Revolution, but was in a desperate situation a few months later. The
revolutionary government, as a first step in foreign affairs, released a
decree about peace during the second All-Russian Congress of the
Soviets on October 26, 1917. The decree, authored by Vladimir Lenin,
proposed all belligerent countries to start negotiations to create a
“fair democratic world.”
The
Entente (Great Britain, France, United States, and Italy) rejected the
decree and Soviet Russia went forward to sign a separate peace with the
Central Powers. The negotiations started in Brest-Litosvk on December 9,
with the participation of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria,
and the Ottoman Empire. The Soviet delegation, headed by Adolph Joffe,
brought as conditions the evacuation of troops from occupied
territories, freedom to nations enslaved during the war, relinquishing
to all war compensations and penalties, et cetera.
The
German delegation countered with its own plan, which included the
annexation of the Baltic region to Germany and the division of Poland.
Germany, besides, wanted to keep the Russian occupied regions in order
to exploit their resources.
The
Allies did not agree to negotiate peace, and Soviet Russia started
separate negotiations with Germany on December 27. One month later, the
Central Powers came to an agreement with the Central Rada (the
all-Ukrainian revolutionary parliament) to obtain food from Ukraine in
exchange for military aid. On the same night, Germany submitted an
ultimatum to Russia to comply with German conditions, which entailed to
take the German border to Narva, Pskov, and Dvinya. The next day, Lev
Trotsky, who had taken over the Soviet delegation, answered that Russia
would not sign the agreement, ceased the hostilities, and evacuated its
troops. The Central Powers went on the offensive on February 18 in the
entire Eastern front. The Russian armies could not resist and consented
to an agreement on February 19. However, the Germans continued their
offense and only stopped on February 22, dictating even harsher
conditions.
The
Central Committee of the Communist Party agreed to the signature of a
peace treaty. The Treaty of Brest-Litosvk was signed on March 3, 1918.
The harsh conditions of the treaty were humiliating. Russia lost the
Baltic lands and part of Belorussia; Ukraine and Finland were declared
autonomous republics, with the subsequent evacuation of the Red Army.
More importantly, it also ceded to the Ottoman Empire the regions of
Kars and Ardahan, which were Armenian territories, and Batum (Georgian
territory) in the Caucasus. It is important to remember that, after the
October Revolution and the retreat of the Russian troops, Turkey had
gone on the offense and reoccupied the territories of Western Armenia
lost to Russia in 1916, later invading the Caucasus. Interestingly,
Russia no longer had effective presence in the region, and maintained a
purely nominal attachment after the revolution.
The
end of the hostilities allowed Germany to concentrate its forces on the
southern front and start an offense from March 21 to June 17, 1918, but
this was unsuccessful, as the Allied forces countered with a tactic of
continuous attacks that finally ended in German defeat.
It
is important to note that the Bolsheviks were not the legal and
recognized authority of Russia in 1918, and therefore had no legal right
to sign a treaty on behalf of the country. However, this signature
allowed the Bolshevik government to keep the power and dismiss their
opponents, particularly the Socialist Revolutionaries. In the end, this
would also become a motive for the beginning of the bloody civil war in
Russia that would last four years.
A
supplementary agreement signed in Berlin on August 27 established the
payment of six billion German marks by Russia to Germany as war
compensation. However, the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was declared null and
void by Russia on September 20 and after the end of the war, by Turkey
on October 30, and by Germany on November 13.
