Negotiations between representatives of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies) on the cessation of hostilities on the Eastern Front of World War I.

 

On October 26, 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace, in which the Bolsheviks proposed to all the belligerent powers to conclude an armistice. On November 14, Germany agreed to start peace talks. On November 19, the Soviet delegation arrived in Brest-Litovsk, where the Headquarters of the command of the German Eastern Front was based. On December 2, an armistice was signed for 28 days with a possibility of an automatic prolongation.

 

The first stage of negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty took place from 9 to 15 December 1917. The Soviet delegation called for the conclusion of peace “without annexations and indemnities”. At the second stage, from December 27 to January 5, the Soviet delegation was headed by Leon Trotsky, who dragged out the negotiations anticipating an imminent world revolution. On January 5, 1918, the Central Powers presented their conditions: Poland, Lithuania, part of Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Belorussian territories, as well as the Moonsund Islands and the Gulf of Riga, were to remain under the military control of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Soviet delegation requested a break.

 

The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), RSDLP(b), split over the issue of peace. Left-wing communists (Nikolay Bukharin, Felix Dzerzhinsky, etc.) insisted on rejecting the German demands and considered the conclusion of peace with the imperialist powers fundamentally unacceptable. Vladimir Lenin demanded that the terms of the Central Powers be accepted.  People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Leon Trotsky called for an end to the war without concluding a peace treaty. Before the departure of the Soviet delegation to continue the negotiations, Lenin had given instructions to drag them out, but in case an ultimatum was presented, sign them.

On February 9, Germany and Austria-Hungary signed an agreement with the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which weakened the position of the Soviet side in the negotiations. The Central Powers demanded an ultimatum to accept their terms. Trotsky violated Lenin’s instructions, put forward the slogan “Neither peace, nor war: we do not sign peace, we stop the war, and we demobilize the army”. The German side replied that the refusal to sign meant the end of the armistice. The Soviet delegation defiantly left the talks.

 

On February 18, German troops launched a large-scale offensive along the entire front. On February 19, Lenin sent a telegram to the Germans stating that the Soviet government agreed to the terms of the Central Powers. On February 23, a reply was received with even more difficult peace terms. Lenin managed to convince the RSDLP(b) Central Committee to agree to peace at any cost.

 

At the third stage of talks, on March 3, 1918, the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed by representatives of the Russian SFSR on the one side and Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey on the other.