Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19

Soviet westward offensives of 1918–1919
Part of Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet War, Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Lithuanian Wars of Independence, and Ukrainian War of Independence
Soviet anti-Polish propaganda poster 1920
Date November 18, 1918 – March, 1919 Location Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine Result Soviet defeat
Belligerents
Belarus  Estonia  Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania White Movement Ukraine  United Kingdom Ober Ost Finnish volunteers	Russian SFSR
Commanders and leaders
Johan Laidoner Józef Piłsudski Max Hoffmann	Jukums Vācietis Dmitry Nikolayevich Nadyozhny
Strength
Estonia: 19,000 Poland: ?	285,000

The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 was part of the general move of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic into areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany following that country's defeat in World War I. The initially successful offensive against Estonia ignited the Estonian War of Independence which ended with the Soviet recognition of Estonia. The war against Latvia and Lithuania was more successful and the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics were established. 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, Lithuanian–Soviet War, Latvian War of Independence, continuation of the Ukrainian–Soviet War and 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 move of the newly created (on November 16) Western Army that started at night of November 17, 1918, in the operational vacuum created by the withdrawing German Imperial army, in the geneal direction of Belarus, Ukraine and Poland (parts of the latter within the Imperial Russia were referred to as "Privislinsky Krai" ), according to N. Davies, was code-named Target-Vistula.

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