The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Paper Summary:

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 1917 closed the Eastern theater of World War I some two years before the Western armistice. Although the Treaty of Versailles traditionally overshadows that of Brest-Litovsk, the legacy of Russia's and Germany's separate peace treaty is arguably more important than Versailles's. This paper explores the personalities of the Russian leaders involved with the treaty, the internal political struggle behind the Soviet's foreign policy, and the legacy the treaty had in European affairs and Soviet policy.

From the Paper:

"The terms of the final Treaty signed at Brest-Litovsk were harsher than the ones dictated to Russia a month earlier. The Germans, who had also desired peace initially, had been insulted by Trotsky and the Bolsheviks to such a degree that they no would no longer act fairly towards Russia. Russia lost huge quantities of its natural resources, arable land, population and territory. For Lenin, the challenge now became getting the Congress of Bolsheviks to ratify such an embarrassing treaty."

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