Throughout the 19th century, Poles saw the boundaries of their territories as lying much farther east and sought to reestablish the 1772 borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, by 1919, this concept of Polish borders was already considered unrealistic and was used by Polish politicians merely for tactical purposes during the Versailles Conference. Józef Piłsudski envisioned a revived Commonwealth in the form of a multinational federation consisting of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and perhaps Latvia – a plan which was in direct conflict with the Lithuanian wishes of creating the independent Republic of Lithuania. Piłsudski discerned an opportunity for regaining territories that were once the part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and now belonged to the Russian Empire, which was shaken by the 1917 Revolution, the ongoing Russian Civil War, and the Central Powers' offensive.