Abstract

The article highlights the overhyped significance of the Decree on Peace which is present in the works by the country’s historians who misrepresent the fact of the Bolsheviks’ cutting a separate truce with the German troops in Brest-Litovsk as the result of the struggle of the working people of Belarus and the soldiers of the Western Front for the implementation of Leninэs Decree on Peace. The position of the Provisional Government and Russia’s main political forces in the ongoing war is outlined. The ways and methods of the Bolsheviks of the Western Front for establishing control over the armed forces are shown. The focus is put on the Bolsheviks’ unprecedentedly demonising military commanders and servicemen of national formations as overt and secret counter-revolutionaries.

The author makes an attempt to define the real purpose of the decree on peace as a tool in the Bolsheviks' push for power. The probability of Russia’s having an alternative way to withdraw from the First World War after convening the Constituent Assembly and holding consultations with the Entente allies is brought into view. The author summarizes the consequences of the implementation of the Decree on Peace which were reflected in the outbreak of the civil war; the Bolsheviks’ tearing down the Western Front which was then rather combat-effective; the occupation of the best part of Belarus by the Kaiser army; the forced signing of the ‘shameful’ peace treaty with Germany by Soviet Russia in Brest-Litovsk.