Lenin’s Bolshevik government announced Russia’s withdrawal from the fighting. This started long, drawn-out, clashing negotiations with Germany. Russia wanted a waiting solution that would be “neither war nor peace,” but the Germans’ advance on the Russian front forced the Bolsheviks to give in to German demands. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk would only be ratified by the Russians on March 18 of the following year, by which time, a new war had begun – a civil war between Imperial loyalists (the White Russians) and the Bolsheviks (the Reds).
