The outcome of the First World War was disastrous for both German Reich and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. During the war, the Bolsheviks struggled for survival, and Vladimir Lenin had no option except recognize the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.[citation needed] Moreover, facing a German military advance, Lenin and Leon Trotsky were forced to enter into the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,[9] which ceded large swathes of western Russian territory to the German Empire. On 11 November 1918, the Germans signed armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War on the Western Front.