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Concept
Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919
Summary
The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 was part of the campaign by Soviet Russia into areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany following that country's defeat in World War I. The initially successful offensive against the Republic of Estonia ignited the Estonian War of Independence which ended with the Soviet recognition of Estonia. Similarly, the campaigns against the Republic of Latvia and Republic of Lithuania ultimately failed, resulting in the Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty and Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty respectively. In Belarus, the Belarusian People's Republic was conquered and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia proclaimed.
The campaign eventually bogged down and led to the Estonian Pskov Offensive, the White Russian Petrograd Offensives, the Lithuanian–Soviet War, the Latvian War of Independence, continuation of the Ukrainian–Soviet War and the start of the Polish-Soviet War.
The newly-formed Red Army was growing in personnel, and Vladimir Lenin could gather enough strength to replace withdrawing Western curtain forces ("Западная завеса") by solid military and re-take the lands lost by Russia in 1917 by simply following the withdrawing German army. Upon receiving the news about the German Revolution, on November 13, 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and issued orders to the Red Army to move in the direction of Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States in order to establish Soviet governments there. The newly-formed (on November 16) Western Army moved at night of November 17, 1918, into the operational vacuum created by the withdrawing Imperial German Army. This move, in the general direction of Belarus, Ukraine and Poland (parts of the latter within Imperial Russia were referred to as "Privislinsky Krai" ), according to N. Davies, was code-named "Target-Vistula".
The offensive in the Vistula River direction by the newly-formed Western Army had the aim of establishing similar Soviet governments in Belarus, Ukraine and Poland and to drive as far west as possible in order to join up with the German Revolution and to ignite the world revolution.
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