Treaty of Brest - Litovsk The Treaty of Brest - Litovsk was a peace treaty on March 3 , 1918 , between the new Bolshevik government of Russia ( the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic ) and the Central Powers ( Germany , Austria - Hungary , Bulgaria , and Turkey ) , which ended Russia ' s participation in World War I . The treaty was signed at Brest - Litovsk ( now Brest , Belarus ) after two months of negotiations . The treaty was forced on the Soviet government by the threat of further advances by German and Austrian forces . By the treaty , Soviet Russia defaulted on Imperial Russia ' s commitments to the Triple Entente alliance . Russia ceded Baltic States to Germany , recognized the independence of Ukraine , and agreed to pay six billion German gold mark in reparations . Historian Spencer Tucker says , " The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator . " Russian - Poland was not mentioned in the treaty , as Germans refused to recognize existence of any Polish representatives , which in turn led to Polish protests . When Germany later complained that the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was too harsh on them , the Allies ( and historians favorable to the Allies ) responded that it was more benign than Brest - Litovsk . The effects of the treaty meant that Baltic states would become nothing more than vassal German princedoms , Poland and Finland satellite states . The treaty was practically obsolete in November 1918 , when Germany in effect surrendered to the Allies . However it did provide some relief to the Bolsheviks , already fighting the Russian Civil War , by renouncing Russia ' s claims on Poland , Finland , Estonia , Latvia , Belarus , Ukraine , and Lithuania . Background . By 1917 , Germany and Austria had defeated Russia on the Eastern Front of World War I , but had occupied only a small part of Russia ' s territory . However , Russia ' s economy nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort . War casualties and food shortages in major cities led to the February Revolution , which overthrew the Imperial government of Tsar Nicholas II . The Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar decided to continue the war , believing that defeat was due to the incompetence of the Imperial government . Also , the new provisional government was offered a substantial amount of money to stay in the war by the United States Government . Many patriotic Russians supported the pro - war policy of the Provisional Government , and few wanted to surrender to the invading Germans . But the army and people were exhausted , and radical socialists wanted to follow the overthrow of the Tsar with a complete socialist revolution . The radicals formed the Petrograd Soviet , and called for soldiers to ignore their officers and form their own soviet councils . Other soviets were formed throughout Russia , challenging the Provisional Government . To destroy the Provisional Government , the Germans supported the Russian radicals , in particular the Bolshevik faction within the Socialist Party , who called for Russia ' s withdrawal from the war . In April 1917 , Germany brought exiled Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin back to Russia , and offered financial help . Under Lenin ' s leadership , the Bolsheviks gained control of the radical opposition over the next seven months . After the failure of the Provisional Government ' s Kerensky Offensive in July , the army disintegrated , and soviets began to wield power in many places . Finally , the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in the October Revolution . The next day ( 26 October 1917 old style ) , Lenin signed the Decree on Peace , which was approved by the Second Congress of the Soviet of Workers ' , Soldiers ' , and Peasants ' Deputies . The Decree called upon " all the belligerent nations and their governments to start immediate negotiations for peace " and proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war . Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs ( more or less Foreign Minister ) . He appointed his good friend , Adolph Joffe , to represent the Bolshevik government in peace negotiations . Armistice negotiations . On December 15 , 1917 , Soviet Russia and the Central Powers concluded an armistice and fighting stopped . On December 22 , peace negotiations began at Brest - Litovsk . Germany was represented officially by Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann , but the most important German figure was General Max Hoffmann , Chief of Staff of the German armies on the Eastern Front ( " Oberkommando - Ostfront " ) . Austria was represented by Foreign Minister Count Ottokar Czernin , and Turkey by Talat Pasha . All these men were conservatives from monarchical countries . The German representatives had effective control of the Central Power side . The Russian representatives were all radicals and supporters of world revolution . They were led by Joffe , a veteran Red agitator , and included Anastasia Bizenko , who had assassinated a high Imperial official . The first impressions after a common dinner were ambivalent . Czernin later wrote : At the start of the negotiations , the two sides were far apart . The Germans demanded the " independence " of Poland and Lithuania , which they already occupied . The Russians demanded " peace without annexations or indemnities " — in other words , a settlement under which the revolutionary government would give up neither territory nor money . After a week of negotiations , the Central Powers delegation withdrew from the conference on December 28 to consider the Bolshevik peace proposals . Over Christmas of 1917 , the Central Powers released a declaration stating that they were in favor of the separate peace with all the Allies without indemnities and without annexations , provided the peace was immediate and all belligerents took part in the negotiations . But this did not supersede the demand for the " independence " of Poland and Lithuania . Lenin was in favor of signing this agreement immediately . He thought that only an immediate peace would allow the young Bolshevik government to consolidate power in Russia . However , he was virtually alone in this opinion among the Bolsheviks on the Central Committee . For the second round of negotiations , Trotsky replaced Joffe as the head of the Soviet delegation . He later reported : On January 8 , 1918 , U . S . President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed his famous Fourteen Points which centered around the concept of national self - determination . The Bolsheviks had long espoused the right of national peoples to self - determination as a part of the anti - imperialist struggle . While Lenin wanted to accept the German peace proposal immediately , a majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee disagreed . The " Left Communists " , led by Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek , believed that Germany , Austria , Turkey , and Bulgaria were all on the verge of revolution . They wanted to continue the war while awaiting revolutions in those countries . It is important to note that these negotiations were taking place about nine months after the United States had declared war on Germany , but before Americans made a significant contribution on the Western Front . The Left Communists likely believed that the Germans would make a quick peace with Russia , so that they could defeat France and Britain before the Americans arrived in strength , even if this meant they would have to settle for less generous terms . Thus the Soviet delegation returned to the peace conference without instructions to sign the proposed treaty . Von Kuhlman and Hoffmann now proposed independence for the Baltic states , Poland , and Ukraine , as in accordance with the Soviets ' own national self - determination doctrine . Indeed the Germans were already negotiating with a separatist government in Ukraine . On February 9 , 1918 , Germany recognized that government and signed a treaty with it . Frustrated with continued German demands for cessions of territory , Trotsky on February 10 announced a new policy . Russia unilaterally declared an end of hostilities against the Central Powers , and Russia withdrew from peace negotiations with the Central Powers - a position summed up as " " no war — no peace " . " Other Bolshevik leaders denounced Trotsky for exceeding his instructions and exposing Soviet Russia to the threat of invasion . Trotsky subsequently defended his action on the grounds that the Bolshevik leaders had originally entered the peace talks in the hope of exposing their enemies ' territorial ambitions and rousing the workers of central Europe to revolution in defense of Russia ' s new workers ' state . Resumed hostilities . The consequences for the Bolsheviks were worse than what they had feared in December . The Central Powers repudiated the armistice on February 18 , 1918 , and in the next fortnight seized most of Ukraine , Belarus , and the Baltic countries . Through the ice of the Baltic Sea , a German fleet approached the Gulf of Finland and Russia ' s capital Petrograd . Despite strikes and demonstrations the month before in protest against economic hardship , the workers of Germany failed to rise up against their government . On February 23 , the Central Powers sent new terms for peace . These terms included cession of Dünaburg , Livonia , and Estonia to Germany , cession of western Armenia to Turkey , recognition of independent Ukraine , immediate evacuation of Russian troops from Finland and Ukraine , and complete demobilization of the Russian Army . Additionally , the Central Powers required that these terms be agreed to within 48 hours . Lenin again pressed for acceptance of these terms . This time a majority of the Central Committee supported Lenin . The Soviet government sent a new delegation headed by George V . Chichern and Lev Karakhan , with instructions to accept this proposal . On March 3 , Chichern signed the treaty . Thus the new Soviet government agreed to terms worse than those they had previously rejected . Terms . Signing . The Treaty of Brest - Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918 . The signatories were Bolshevik Russia on the one side and the German Empire , Austria - Hungary , Bulgaria , and Turkey on the other . The treaty marked Russia ' s final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co - signatories , on unexpectedly humiliating terms . In all , the treaty took away territory that included a quarter of the population and industry of the former Russian Empire and nine - tenths of its ing . Almost all of this area was territory which Russia had absorbed by conquest , with populations that did not speak Russian . Territorial cessions in eastern Europe . Russia renounced all territorial claims in Finland ( which it had already acknowledged ) , the future Baltic state s ( Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania ) , Belarus , and Ukraine . ( The territory of Congress Poland was not mentioned in the treaty . ) The treaty stated that " Germany and Austria - Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their populations . " Most of these territories were in effect ceded to Germany , which intended to have them become economic and political dependencies . The many ethnic German residents ( " volksdeutsch " ) would be the ruling elite . Two new monarchies were created : in Lithuania , and in Latvia and Estonia ; German aristocrats were appointed as rulers . This plan was detailed by German Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff , who wrote , " German prestige demands that we should hold a strong protecting hand , not only over German citizens , but over all Germans . " Continued German occupation of the ceded territories required a lot of manpower and transport , yet yielded little in the way of food or other war needs of Germany . Germany transferred hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to the Western Front for the 1918 Spring Offensive which badly shocked the Allies , but ultimately failed . Some Germans later blamed the occupation for significantly weakening the Spring Offensive . Transfer of territory to Ottoman Empire . At the insistence of Talat Pasha , the treaty declared that the territory Russia took from Ottoman Empire in the Russo - Turkish War ( 1877 – 1878 ) , specifically Ardahan , Kars , and Batumi , were to be returned . At the time of the treaty , this territory was under the effective control of the Armenian irregular forces . After the Soviets conquered these republics in 1921 , the territory under Armenian control , by and large , went to Turkey . The territory under Georgian control mostly reverted to the Soviet Union after Georgia ' s fall in March 1921 . Paragraph 3 of Article IV of the treaty states that : " The districts of Erdehan , Kars , and Batum will likewise and without delay be cleared of the Russian troops . Russia will not interfere in the reorganization of the national and international relations of these districts , but leave it to the population of these districts , to carry out this reorganization in agreement with the neighboring States , especially with Ottoman Empire . " Protection of Armenians ' right to self - determination . Russia supported the right of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Russia to determine their destiny , by ensuring the conditions necessary for a referendum : Russian - German financial agreement of August 1918 . In the wake of Russian repudiation of Tsarist bonds , nationalization of foreign - owned property and confiscation of foreign assets , Russia and Germany signed an additional agreement on August 27 , 1918 . Russia agreed to pay six billion marks in compensation to German interests for their losses . Lasting effects . The Treaty of Brest - Litovsk lasted only eight and a half months . Germany renounced the treaty and broke diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia on 5 November 1918 . Turkey broke the treaty after just two months by invading the newly created First Republic of Armenia in May 1918 . In the Armistice with Germany that ended World War I , one of the first conditions was the complete abrogation of the Brest - Litovsk treaty . Following the German capitulation , the Bolshevik legislature ( VTsIK ) annulled the treaty on 13 November 1918 , and the text of the VTsIK Decision was printed in " Pravda " the next day . In the year after the Armistice , the German Army withdrew its occupying units from the lands gained in Brest - Litovsk , leaving behind a power vacuum that various forces subsequently attempted to fill . In the Treaty of Rapallo , concluded in April 1922 , Germany accepted the Treaty ' s nullification , and the two powers agreed to abandon all war - related territorial and financial claims against each other . The Treaty of Brest - Litovsk marked a significant contraction of the territory which the Bolsheviks controlled or could lay claim to as effective successors of the Russian Empire . While the independence of Finland and Poland was already accepted by them in principle , the loss of Ukraine and the Baltics created , from the Bolshevik perspective , dangerous bases of anti - Bolshevik military activity in the subsequent Russian Civil War ( 1917 – 1922 ) . Indeed , many Russian nationalists and some revolutionaries were furious at the Bolsheviks ' acceptance of the treaty and joined forces to fight them . Non - Russians who inhabited the lands lost by Bolshevik Russia in the treaty saw the changes as an opportunity to set up independent states not under Bolshevik rule . Immediately after the signing of the treaty , Lenin moved the Soviet Russian government from Petrograd to Moscow . The fate of the region , and the location of the eventual western border of the Soviet Union , was settled in violent and chaotic struggles over the course of the next three and a half years . The Polish – Soviet War was particularly bitter and ended by the Treaty of Riga in 1921 . Although most of Ukraine fell under Bolshevik control and eventually became one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union , Poland and the Baltic states emerged as independent countries . This state of affairs lasted until 1939 . As a consequence of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet Union advanced its borders westward by invading Poland and Finland in 1939 , and annexing the Baltic States and Bessarabia in 1940 . It thus overturned almost all the territorial losses incurred at Brest - Litovsk , except for the main part of Finland , western Congress Poland , and eastern Armenia . For the Western Allies , the terms which Germany imposed on Russia were interpreted as a warning of what to expect if Germany and the other Central Powers won the war . Between Brest - Litovsk and the point when the German military situation in the west became dire , some officials in the German government and high command began to favor offering more lenient terms to the Allies in exchange for their recognition of German gains in the east . Russia ' s post - 1991 western border bears a marked similarity to that imposed by the Brest - Litovsk treaty . Other information . Emil Orlik , the Viennese Secession ist artist , attended the conference , at the invitation of Richard von Kühlmann . He drew portraits of all the participants , along with a series of smaller caricatures . These were gathered together into a book , " Brest - Litovsk , " a copy of which was given to each of the participants .