The devastating impact of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: How Russia paid the price for peace

The First World War had overwhelmed the Russian Empire by the second half of 1916, after two years of defeats, failed offensives, and casualties that were rising.

By some estimates, over 1.7 million Russian soldiers had died, and more than 5 million were wounded or missing.

Tsar Nicholas II, who had taken direct command of the military, lacked the experience to lead large campaigns, and his absence from the capital allowed unrest to grow. 

By this stage, military discipline had largely collapsed. Entire divisions had deserted, railways had failed to deliver food, and urban centres had suffered severe shortages.

Soldiers often lacked boots, weapons, or ammunition. As anger grew, peasant uprisings began to spread across the countryside, and factory workers staged mass strikes in cities such as Petrograd, Moscow, and Kharkiv. 

In March 1917, the February Revolution forced the Tsar to abdicate and a Provisional Government had taken power, though it had little authority and had initially failed to win the support of the workers, soldiers, or peasants.

Soviets in major cities operated in parallel and frequently issued orders that conflicted.

The government insisted that the war continue, given that the army could no longer fight effectively.

That failure cost them support. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin and backed by the Petrograd Soviet and radical army units, had seized power in October 1917.

They had inherited a country already in chaos, as food had largely vanished from the markets, industry had mostly stopped, and soldiers had abandoned the front.

Lenin declared that peace must come immediately to protect the survival of the revolution. 

In December 1917, peace talks began at Brest-Litovsk between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers.

The Russian delegation, which included Adolph Joffe and later Leon Trotsky, hoped to stall negotiations to buy time.

The German representatives, led by General Max Hoffmann and Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann, demanded large territorial concessions and heavy economic penalties. 

At first, Trotsky had refused to accept the conditions. He declared an end to hostilities and did not sign a treaty.

This tactic, which he called "neither war nor peace," ultimately failed, as German forces had launched a new offensive in February 1918 and had advanced far into Russian territory without organised resistance.

Town after town fell, which occurred as the Red Guards largely fled. 

As a result, the Bolsheviks had to give in and, on 3 March 1918, they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Russia lost Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and the former Russian-controlled parts of Poland.

Those areas, which had once held around 60 million people, produced most of Russia’s grain, coal and steel.

The territory lost exceeded approximately one million square kilometres, amounting to nearly one-third of the empire's population and over half its industrial capacity.

Germany took effective control of the territories, which it claimed the right to exploit for food and resources. 

The treaty also included an indemnity clause, and German negotiators had initially demanded six billion marks in reparations, though this figure did not appear in the treaty as signed.

Instead, German troops stayed in the occupied zones, where new governments loyal to Berlin took power.

Ukraine had received a German-backed regime under Hetman Skoropadskyi, and similar puppet arrangements had begun to form in the Baltics.

For the Bolsheviks, peace had effectively come at the price of losing territory. 

Lenin believed firmly that the revolution could not survive a continued war. He argued that the Russian state had no army left, which meant that the civil war at home demanded immediate attention.

According to his view, the treaty had given the Bolsheviks some time to rebuild and to attempt to spread their revolution into Europe. 

Howeve,r many within the party disagreed. Some, like Bukharin and Radek, accused Lenin of betraying socialism because he had accepted German imperial demands.

Bukharin, who led the Left Communists, argued that the treaty abandoned the revolution's principles.

They believed the treaty had weakened the Bolsheviks' standing abroad and had handed many oppressed peoples to a foreign invader.

Others claimed that a continued fight, even as guerrilla resistance, would have held more honour. 

Still, Lenin eventually persuaded a small majority, since he threatened to resign if the treaty was rejected, and insisted that a world revolution would erase national borders.

He argued that giving up land now meant preserving the revolution itself. Trotsky, who had resisted the move to sign the treaty, eventually agreed when it became clear that the Red Army could not realistically stop the German advance. 

The treaty had also created notable internal contradictions. The Bolsheviks had declared support for national self-determination in their 'Decree on Nationalities,' yet the treaty forced many into German-controlled regimes.

As a result, millions of Ukrainians, Balts, and Belarusians fell under occupying armies, which led the Bolsheviks to lose a significant portion of their support in those regions. 

The loss of Ukraine had brought immediate and severe economic damage, since that region had supplied most of the grain for Russia’s cities.

Coal and iron shipments also stopped and, as a result, industry across the Soviet core shut down.

Some factory workers starved, and many urban residents fled to the countryside in search of food, while in Petrograd and Moscow, the number of residents dropped sharply between 1917 and 1918, with some estimates suggesting a decline of around one-third in Petrograd alone. 

To feed the cities, the government had sent requisition teams into the villages.

So, armed detachments had in many cases forced peasants to hand over grain, often at gunpoint.

This policy was known as War Communism and it would largely continue until 1921.

In response, many farmers resisted, and violence broke out across the countryside.

This pattern would continue for years as rural anger grew. 

The treaty had also given anti-Bolshevik forces new arguments. For example, White armies widely used it to present the communists as traitors because they claimed Lenin had sold out the Russian people and abandoned the empire’s future.

To varying degrees, foreign powers had backed the Whites. Britain, France, Japan, and the United States had sent troops to Russian ports and had begun to support counter-revolutionary armies with supplies and weapons. 

In Ukraine, the German occupation created more instability. Although some Ukrainians had welcomed independence, the German-backed government quickly lost support.

Troops had looted supplies, disrupted transport, and clashed with locals in many areas.

By mid-1918, over 450,000 German troops were stationed in Ukraine, which by late 1918 had largely fallen into chaos and in which rival factions fought for control. 

In the Baltics, Germany set up puppet monarchies led by German nobles. These regimes, which included the proposed United Baltic Duchy and the unrecognised Kingdom of Lithuania, had little popular support and survived only because of military occupation.

Once the war ended, they collapsed in weeks, which triggered battles between rival national groups. 

In Finland, independence had been declared in December 1917. After that, civil war broke out between socialist Reds and conservative Whites.

German troops intervened and helped the White side win in May 1918, while the new government removed its opponents and aligned itself with anti-communist powers in Europe. 

In the south, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia each declared independence.

However, they lacked stable borders, strong governments, or foreign recognition, which left them vulnerable to conflict.

Each republic faced ethnic conflict and external threats. Ottoman, British, and Bolshevik forces all entered the region over the following years.

In Georgia, a German military mission offered limited protection before Germany's defeat ended its presence. 

Finally, Poland, which had vanished from the map for over a century, now reappeared and Poland's leaders, who tried to seize land in the east, targeted areas including Lviv and Vilnius.

Clashes began almost immediately. Polish forces fought Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Soviets in a series of overlapping border wars.

These conflicts would continue until 1921. 

With the Eastern Front closed, Germany had moved more than fifty divisions west, which became the centre of the Spring Offensive of 1918.

General Erich Ludendorff had launched a large offensive between March and July, and German forces had advanced far into France, further than at any point since 1914.

At first, Allied commanders feared a total breakthrough but then the attack stalled as German supply lines stretched too thin, and the soldiers, who had marched hundreds of kilometres, began to weaken.

Meanwhile, American troops had begun to arrive in growing numbers. Over roughly one million U.S. soldiers reached France by the end of summer.

Then, the Second Battle of the Marne in July proved a turning point, as the Allies followed with a counterattack at Amiens in August, which drove the Germans back. 

Ultimately, because of the treaty, Germany had secured territory and troops, but the cost of occupation and the strain of fighting that had continued for months weakened its army.

By November, revolution had spread across German cities, and the Kaiser fled.

The war ended before the territorial gains in the east could be secured. 

After the Armistice, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was cancelled; however, its effects could not be fully undone.

Entire regions had already collapsed into civil war, independence movements, or foreign occupation.

The old Russian Empire no longer existed, and the Bolsheviks faced years of struggle to regain any part of what they had lost.

Many nationalist forces inherited German weapons and battled Soviet forces in the conflicts that followed, which included, most notably, the Polish-Soviet War from 1919 to 1921.