The Russian delegation returned to Brest on January 9 (the old calendar still operates in Russia, on which December 27), and it was already headed by Leon Trotsky himself, the people's commissar for foreign affairs, the second person in the red government. All the diplomatic tinsel of the instructions he received from the Central Committee and personally from the head of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, can be reduced to a simple to the point of genius formula, voiced by Ilyich himself: "… it was agreed between us that we hold on only until the ultimatum of the Germans, after the ultimatum we surrender." (1).
Immediately upon returning to Brest, the Russian delegation presented almost its main trump card - the question of the fate of the outskirts of the former empire. Trotsky decided to once again use the agreement declared by the representatives of the central powers with the principle of self-determination of nations. The Russian delegation demanded that the Germans and Austrians confirm that they did not intend to seize Lithuania, Poland and Finland, which previously belonged to the Romanovs, from Russia.
Trotsky himself went further, immediately raising the question of the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories, using here, among other things, the position of the Turkish delegation, which would be very happy with it. But the Turks, who declared that Trotsky's proposals were, if not acceptable to them, then at least interesting, were immediately put in place by Hoffman. And in response to the proposals of the Russian delegation, the German representatives prepared an unpleasant surprise - on January 18, they presented Trotsky with a card with a new Russian border.
The Bolsheviks were asked to immediately abandon 150 thousand square kilometers of their territory. The "Hoffmann Line", along which Russia was losing even Moonzund and the Gulf of Riga, is not as famous as, for example, the "Curzon Line", but it worked.
The Bolsheviks called the tough German demands unacceptable, and Trotsky immediately suggested … another break in the negotiations, now a ten-day break (remember Lenin's - that is how they "agreed"). The Germans categorically refuse him, which does not in the least prevent the red people's commissar from leaving for the new capital of the country, Moscow, to consult with Ilyich. The leaders of the Bolsheviks consulted not even ten, but eleven days, but before Trotsky returned to Brest, they managed to receive one more, perhaps the most severe blow from their opponents.
In the absence of the head of the Russian delegation, Kuhlmann and Chernin managed to come to terms with the representatives of Ukraine extremely quickly. To come to an agreement, of course, not with the local Bolsheviks, who in Brest were very prudently able to keep at a distance, but with the Radovtsy. The future "Petliurists" at that time hardly controlled a couple of counties in the country, but they had already proclaimed its independence. It happened on February 6 - Trotsky had not even returned to Brest yet.
This was naturally followed by the signing of a peace - both the Germans and the delegates from the Central Rada had to hurry, the red detachments were about to restore the power of the Bolsheviks in Kiev. The peace was signed with joy on 9 February.
The Central Rada showed amazing generosity, promising the Germans a million tons of bread and at least 50 thousand tons of meat by July 31. And in exchange she asked - just support in the fight against the Bolsheviks. Support, however, was not needed - literally in a matter of days, Soviet power in Ukraine was restored, and the Germans simply occupied it - under the terms of the peace concluded with Russia.
Therefore, it should be borne in mind that the Russian Bolsheviks went to the Peace of Brest-Litovsk not least in order to form at least a temporary diplomatic counterbalance to the initiatives of the independent from Ukraine. Indeed, according to the peace treaty concluded by the UPR with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, just a few days before the signing of the "obscene peace" by the Russians, "the borders that were before the war between Austria-Hungary and Russia" remained between Austria-Hungary and Ukraine.
On the territory of the former Russian Empire, the western border of the UPR was defined in general terms along the line Bilgorai - Shebreshin - Krasnostav - Pugachev - Radin - Mezhirechye - Sarnaki - Melnik - Vysoko-Litovskiy - Kamenets-Litovskiy - Pruzhany - Vygonovskoye Lake. Simultaneously with the treaty, a secret declaration was signed, providing for the unification of the eastern part of Galicia with a predominantly Ukrainian population and Bukovina into one Crown Territory as part of Austria-Hungary. In fact, this meant drawing the administrative Polish-Ukrainian border directly inside the Habsburg empire. The Austrian government pledged not later than July 20, 1918 to submit a bill on this to the Austro-Hungarian parliament and seek its approval (2).
The content of the declaration had to remain secret so as not to exacerbate national contradictions in the Habsburg Empire, which was crumbling literally before the eyes of the whole world. In particular, it was intended not to cause, at least until July 1918, resistance to the Austrian official policy on the part of the Polish and Hungarian circles on the ground and in parliament. It was also supposed to keep secret the by no means indisputable text of the main treaty.
However, it just didn't work out. The text of the treaty hit the pages of newspapers in Vienna, Prague, Pressburg and Budapest and provoked strong protests from the Polish public in Austria-Hungary, which was immediately supported by Hungarian deputies in parliament. The work of the Reichsrat was paralyzed, and the demonstrations and protests of the Polish public in Galicia only added to the instability of the two-pronged monarchy. In the not too numerous ranks of the Poles of the Austro-Hungarian army, the disclosure of the Brest agreements caused despondency, since it sharply weakened their position as supporters of the Austro-German solution to the Polish question.
Perhaps only Pilsudski's supporters did not lose heart, who at that moment rejoiced at literally all the news, if only they were bad, if not for the Russians, then for the Germans and the Austrians. Leon Trotsky was later even proud of how skillfully he delayed the time of the conclusion of peace with his unique formula, but the final assessment of Lenin was much more honest:
However, it must be admitted that Trotsky's formula nevertheless plunged the Germans into a real stupor for some time. Seeing how well the Reds are doing in Ukraine, the German General Staff did not exclude the possibility of a resumption of active hostilities on the Eastern Front. And this is on the eve of the decisive offensive in the West, when considerable forces were required to support the Austrian ally, when unlimited submarine warfare was no longer yielding results, when the fronts in the Balkans, Asia and Africa were about to collapse.
And on February 15, it became known that the Polish corps in France under the command of Colonel Jozef Haller, who was formally listed in the Austro-Hungarian army, announced the transition to the side of the Entente (4). By the way, he has already managed to replenish at the expense of prisoners more than twice. On the same day, the leader of the Polish Kolo in the Austrian parliament, Baron Gets, speaking in the Reichsrat, put forward the claims of the Poles to the entire Kholmshchina and Podlasie up to the Bug River. Moreover, he spoke in favor of resolving all controversial issues between Ukrainians and Poles in their bilateral negotiations without the participation of third parties (5).
It is unlikely that it was these events that prompted the participants in the negotiations in Brest to conclude a peace promptly - so, just a couple more drops in an overflowing bowl. But three days later, after another ultimatum of the Germans, which Trotsky and Co. had the right to reject again, Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty with the Germans in Brest. Formally - separate, in fact - saving for the young republic.
The peace was no longer signed by the main participants in the negotiations, but by secondary figures, on the Russian side - by Grigory Sokolnikov, who promptly replaced Trotsky, who had quickly left the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Kühlman and Chernin were no longer in Brest either - they urgently left for Bucharest to accept the surrender of defeated Romania. So much has been said about the content of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty that it is hardly worth repeating on topics not related to the problem of Poland's independence.
Nevertheless, rejected as quickly as no other known peace treaty, it was the Brest-Litovsk treaty that laid the real foundation for the future Polish statehood. After Russia, Austria and Germany had to come to terms with the existence of an independent, albeit still occupied, Poland - that is, those who once divided it, had only to wait for the end of the world war.
Only one thing is surprising - how unprepared many of those who, it would seem, put all their efforts on it turned out to be for the re-creation of the Polish state. Starting with the Endeks, and ending with many leaders of world diplomacy. Even the future head of the Polish state, who was at that time in the Magdeburg prison, did not hide his embarrassment, "having lost Russia" in the role of his main enemy.
And against this background, the cynicism of one of the allies is especially impressive - by the way, the former for Russia, but so desirable for Poland. The English General Ironside, who would later lead the interventionist corps in Arkhangelsk, did not even try to hide his satisfaction: "By signing the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, the Bolsheviks renounced their rights to all subordinate peoples. In my opinion, now the Allies could begin to liberate Finland, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and, possibly, even Ukraine "(6).
It is no less characteristic that in the treaty, which was signed in Brest, the Ukrainian People's Republic was fully mentioned, but not a word was heard about Poland, as well as about Belarus. Soviet diplomats were never able to get the Central Powers to give up Polish lands directly, but the propaganda work itself, which Trotsky himself almost single-handedly carried out, bore fruit.
In any case, the paths to the direct transfer of the unrecognized regency kingdom in Poland to a legal position for Austro-German diplomacy were, in fact, cut off. In addition, it cannot be ruled out that, when signing the peace, the Bolsheviks not only took into account the UPR treaty with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, but also the information they obviously had about the secret protocol to it. This, as it were, relieved the Bolsheviks, who were so alien to any sentiment, from any other obligations with respect to Poland. In addition to actually granting it independence. That is why the signing at the end of the summer of 1918 of an additional Soviet-German treaty to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, also secret, looks quite logical.
To complete the picture, it remains only to recall the content of this document, signed on August 17 in Berlin by the same Adolf Joffe and State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry Paul Hinz:
Germany will clear the occupied territory to the east of the Berezina River as soon as Russia pays the contributions specified in Article 2 of the Russian-German financial agreement.
Germany will not interfere in the relations of the Russian state with the national regions and will not encourage them to leave Russia or to form independent state organisms.
Russia will take immediate action to remove the military forces of the Entente from its North Russian regions (7).
By that time, the successive German offensives on the Western Front had finally failed, and American field armies had already entered into action one after another. And in the East, the situation also changed rapidly - the signing of an additional treaty only freed the hands of the government of people's commissars, and already on August 29, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree to renounce the treaties concluded by the former Russian Empire on the partition of Poland. So, one more declaration of recognition of the future independent Poland "de jure":
"All treaties and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire with the government of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire concerning the partition of Poland in view of their contradiction with the principle of self-determination of nations and the revolutionary legal consciousness of the Russian people, which recognizes the Polish people as an inalienable right to independence and unity, are hereby canceled. irrevocably "(8).
The Bolshevik press and radio immediately rushed to disseminate information about the decree, reminding once again that it was adopted in the development of the Decree on Peace and the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia. It seems that the Polish question, as a matter of domestic policy, was finally removed from the agenda by the new Russian government.
In the fall of 1918, revolutions took place in Germany and Hungary, on the verge of revolution, and with the real prospect of creating a united Red Germany, there was also Austria left alone. All this predetermined the outcome of the world war not in favor of the Central Powers that occupied Poland. And soon the revolutionary All-Russian Central Executive Committee annulled the Brest-Litovsk Treaty itself (9). So, the Polish question, which had already been resolved de facto, in spite of any occupation of the territories inhabited by Poles, could already be considered resolved in advance and de jure.
Notes (edit)
1. V. I. Lenin, VII Congress of the RCP (b), Closing remarks on the political report of the Central Committee on March 8, Collected Works, v. 36, p. 30.
2. Witos W. Moje wspomnienia. Warszawa, 1988. Cz. I. S.410.
3. VI Lenin, VII Congress of the RCP (b), Closing remarks on the political report of the Central Committee on March 8, Collected Works, v. 36, p. 30.
4. Bulletin … V pik, number 8. p.11.
5. Ibid. Doroshenko D. History of Ukraine … v.1. pp. 431-432.
6. Ironside E., Arkhangelsk 1918-1919, Cit. by Abandoned into oblivion. Intervention in the Russian North through the eyes of its participants, comp. Goldin V. I., Arkhangelsk, Pravda Severa, 1997
7. Quoted. by A. Shirokorad, Great oppositions. Long-standing dispute of the Slavs. Russia, Poland, Lithuania. M. 2007, p. 582.
8. Decrees of the Soviet power, T. III, M. 1964
9. Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, True, 1918, November 14.
