Editing Decree on Peace (section)

==Significance==
The Decree on Peace was an appeal to the governments of all the warring states and to their peoples to conclude an immediate truce (armistice). 
It is common among historians to assert that from September 1917 the Russian army was already in the process of complete disintegration. [[Marc Ferro]], however, claims that only after the [[October Revolution]] the great exodus of soldiers from the front began, to enjoy the promised gains of peace and land.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/decree_on_peace|title = Decree on Peace &#124; International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)}}</ref>

The Peace Decree had two audiences: the war-weary Russia and international.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://staff.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect16.htm|title=Legacy of 1917 and 1918|last=Sowers|first=Steven W.|website=Michigan State University}}</ref> The new People’s Commissar for External Affairs, [[Lev Trotsky|Leon Trotsky]] published secret treaties between [[Nicholas II]] and the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]] in order to provoke international popular outrage. However, the likelihood of European insurrections was overestimated and instead of triggering a universal proletarian peace, the new regime became embroiled in negotiations with [[German Empire|Germany]], resulting in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] on 3 March 1918 under which Russia lost 34% of its population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/decree_on_peace|title = Decree on Peace &#124; International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Liulevicius |first=Vejas Gabriel |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/war-land-on-the-eastern-front/37A70F73D85026B41A641BA0DF68E9B0 |title=War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I |date=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-66157-7 |series=Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511497186}}</ref>