At the time of the victory of the October Revolution, Russia had suffered three years of imperialist warfare, and the entire national economy was on the brink of collapse.

On the second day after the victory of the revolution, on November 8, 1917, the Soviet regime issued the Peace Decree, but the group of Allied States led by Britain and France ignored the peace proposals of the Soviet Union, and Soviet Russia was forced to start peace talks alone with Germany and its allies.

On December 3, 1917, the two sides negotiated on behalf of the German army in Brest-Litovsk and signed a 10-day ceasefire agreement.

The second phase of the peace talks began on 9 January 1918. On 10 February, the German side issued a ultimate communiqué requiring the Soviet Union to immediately conclude a peace treaty and abandon the Baltic coast to the territories of the Narva, Pskov and Devinsk Belt. The head of the Soviet government delegation Trotsky rejected the peace treaty and informed Germany in the name of the Soviet People's Committee that the Soviet Union unilaterally ended the state of war and dismantled the army, the German army used this as a pretext to launch a full-line offensive on 18 February against the Soviet Union and occupy large parts of the Soviet territory.

In order to preserve the new Soviet regime, Lenin firmly advocated the immediate signature of the treaty on German terms; the "Left Communist Group" led by Bucharin demanded the cessation of peace talks and the "revolutionary war" against Germany; Trotsky proposed a non-combat proposal.

On March 3, 1918, the Soviet government delegation in Brest signed a peace treaty with Germany, which stipulated that part of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Estonia would be occupied by the German army; the Russian army should be fully resigned; the Soviet Russia should pay compensation to Germany, etc. The Brest peace was approved by the Bolshevik Party¡¯s Seven Assemblies and the Soviet 4th Extraordinary Assembly.

After the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Soviet government announced the abolition of the Treaty of Brest on 13 November 1918.