March 3 - Bolshevik Brest-Litovsk Treaty

This Day in History: 3 March 2020

 

3 March 1918

 

102 years ago, today, Bolshevik Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. This marked the Bolsheviks act of abandoning the Allied war effort, and the grant of independence to Polish and Baltic territories, as well as the Ukraine and Finland. Russia's unsuccessful involvement in World War One was a large factor that led to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's successful November 1917 Marxist revolution.  A month after the revolution, Germany agreed to an armistice and peace talks with Russia, so Lenin sent Leon Trotsky, the War Minister, to Brest-Litovsk in Belarus, to hopefully negotiate a treaty.

 

However, the talks broke off after Germany wanted independence for Russian states in Eastern Europe, and in February 1918, fighting continued on the eastern front. German troops began advancing on St. Petersburg, so Lenin allowed the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on this day. The German leaders then hoped that the former Russian territories they desired would fall into their hands, but in November, an armistice ended World War One, and Germany fell victim to demilitarisation, and domination from the Allies. In 1919, Soviet Russia regained the Ukraine once more in the Russian Civil War, and 30 years later, seized parts of Poland again. A year later, the Baltics were also recovered, after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact.

 

Want to find out more about the Bolshevik Brest-Litovsk Treaty? Click here to find out more or here for a video.