Chp5.3Treaty Of Brest-Litvosk Flashcards
What was the difference between Lenin and Trotsky’s aim to end the war?
Lenin wanted an immediate peace
Trotsky wanted a delay
Why did Lenin think it was pointless for Bolshevik Russia to continue to fight?
1) If Germany won the war on both fronts it would retain the Russian territory that it now possessed
2) If Germany lost the war against the Western allies, Russia would gain occupied lands
How was Lenin’s readiness to make peace with Germany not wholly ideological? explain.
3 main points
- between 1914-1917 the German Foreign Office had funded substantial amounts of money to Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the hope that they would pull Russia out of the war
- Germany continued to fund the Bolsheviks even after the October Revolution and the armistice of December 1917
- A settlement with Germany was therefore in Lenin’s interests in order to maintain this lucrative source of Bolshevik revenue
When was the armistice between Russia and Germany?
December 1917
What did left Revolutionaries and some Bolsheviks want in terms of war?
they wanted a continuation of the war
Why did some Bolsheviks and Left Revolutionaries want a continuation of war?
they saw the continuation of the war as a revolutionary crusade against imperialist Germany
What did Trotsky hope would happen when discussing peace treaties with the Germans over a period of time?
That German armies would collapse on the Western Front and revolution would follow in Germany
What did Trotsky hope Bolshevik agitators could do while peace talks were protracted?
He hoped Bolshevik agitators could exploit the mutinies in the Austo-German armies
What slogan did Trotsky coin which confused and infuriated the German delegation at Brest-Litvosk
“neither piece, nor war”
What was Brest-Litvosk?
the Polish town where the Germans and Russians gathered to discuss peace terms
Why were Trotsky and Lenin not perturbed by the thought of national defeat?
they believed that a great international political victory was imminent
Why were Trotsky and Lenin prepared to sign the devastating Brest-Litvisk Treaty ?
They were international revolutionaries and their first concern was to spread the proletarian revolution not towards Russia as a nation
Why did the Soviet delegation feel pressured into signing the devastating Treaty of Brest-Litvosk?
Germans were seriously considering marching to Petrograd to overthrow Lenin’s government
What did Sokolnikov, under Trotsky’s instructions, declare about the Treaty of Brest-litvosk?
that this was a German diktat not a freely negotiated peace treaty
What were the 3 main terms of the treaty?
1) Russian territory
2) Population in that territory
3) Reparations
