The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace agreement signed on March 3, 1918 by Bolshevik Russia , Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire , Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire , in the city of Brest-Litvosk , in present-day Belarus.

Through this treaty , Russia’s participation in the First World War was ended , thus closing the eastern front.

Although Bolshevik Russia lost a large amount of territory, thanks to that treaty it was able to consolidate the government that emerged from the October 1917 revolution and prepare for the civil war against the whites, which was about to break out.

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Background to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty

At the beginning of 1917 Tsarist Russia had serious problems continuing the First World War. The morale of the army was very low, reason why desertions were frequent.

In February there was the abdication of the Tsar and the coming to power of a provisional government headed by the moderate socialist Alexander Kerensky.

The situation for Russia was then compromising since Germany had made important advances on the front, having conquered Poland, part of the Baltic territories and the western part of Belarus.

In July the new government attempted a counterattack, known as the Kerensky offensive, but it ended in resounding failure. After that defeat, the provisional government lost all credibility and in October was deposed by a revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power .

Lenin proposed to the governments that were at war that a just peace be negotiated where there would be no compensation, annexation or absorption of nations. But this wish was rejected by the Central Empires, which demanded the independence of Finland, Russian Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine.

As the Bolsheviks were unwilling to accept what the Germans and Austrians were trying to impose on them, the talks first stalled and were completely halted in mid-February.

The fighting on the eastern front intensified and the Germans advanced towards Petrograd, present-day Saint Petersburg. At this point, Lenin and Trotsky realized that Russia, weakened by its serious internal problems, had no choice but to accept the conditions demanded by its enemies if it wanted to survive.

Provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The main provisions of the Brest-Litovsk treaty were as follows:

• Persia and Afghanistan were recognized as sovereign and independent states by Bolshevik Russia.
• Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Finland became independent nations .
• Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Courland came to be administered by the German Empire.
• Ardahan, Kars and Batumi, held by Russia since 1878, were handed over to the Ottoman Empire.
• Russia pledged to clear the waters of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea of mines and to demilitarize the Ăland Islands. Provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
• Both parties undertook to release and return the prisoners in their possession and not to claim war compensation. This last point was not fulfilled since in August the German Empire demanded from Russia the payment of six million marks.

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Consequences

Among the main consequences of this treaty, the following stand out:

• Although the Bolshevik government had achieved its ultimate goal, to get out of the war, it did so at a very high price. The lost territories covered more than two and a half million square kilometers, more than 50 million inhabitants and a large part of the coal, iron and oil reserves that the country had at that time.
• In anticipation that the Germans would not comply with the agreement, the Bolshevik government decided to move the capital from Petrograd to Moscow, a situation that continues to this day.
• The territorial cessions provoked some criticism within the party but the ratification of the treaty by the Congress of Soviets, on March 15, 1918, reinforced Lenin’s position of power within the government . On the contrary, the factions that did not wish to make peace at any cost were weakened. The Left Social Revolutionaries, for example, opposed the Treaty and were subsequently expelled from the Russian government.
• The treaty benefited Germany, which incorporated a large number of territories and was able to reinforce the western front with troops from the Russian front. But these benefits were short-lived, since after its defeat in November, the treaty was annulled. Consequently, territories that the Russians lost in 1918 became independent states in 1919, such as Finland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Poland.
• The outbreak of the Russian civil war was fueled by the terms of the treaty, which the whites considered a treason. The victory of the Bolsheviks in that war caused some of the new independent states to cease to exist. Ukraine and Belarus were recaptured between 1919 and 1920 by the Red Army and became part of the Soviet Union beginning in 1922.
• Soviet Russia never forgot the lost territories in 1918, so between 1939 and 1940, at the beginning of World War II , it occupied eastern Poland and the Baltic countries. Only Finland maintained its independence, although it had to make important territorial concessions to the Soviets.
• After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries claimed their independence, on the basis of what was agreed in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In 1991, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, together with Belarus and Ukraine, declared themselves independent states. So they remain to this day.