1918: The treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Bolshevik Russia signs the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, abandoning the Allied war effort and granting independence to its Polish and Baltic territories, the Ukraine and Finland.
Russia's disastrous involvement in World War I was a primary factor that led to Lenin's successful Marxist revolution in November 1917. One month later, Germany agreed to an armistice and peace talks. Lenin sent Leon Trotsky to Brest-Litovsk in Belarus to negotiate a treaty.
The talks broke off after Germany demanded independence for Russian holdings in Eastern Europe and in February 1918 fighting resumed on the Eastern Front. With German troops advancing on St. Petersburg, Lenin authorised the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3rd March 1918. German leaders hoped that the former Russian territories would fall under their sway, but in November 1918 an armistice ended World War I, dooming Germany to demilitarisation and Allied domination.
In 1919, Soviet Russia regained the Ukraine in the Russian Civil War, in 1939 they seized parts of Poland and in 1940 the Baltics, after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact.
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