in 1918, a faction emerged within the russian communist party named the left communists which opposed the signing of the brest-litovsk peace treaty with imperial germany. the left communists wanted international proletarian revolution across the world. in the beginning, the leader of this faction was nikolai bukharin. they stood for a revolutionary war against the central powers; opposed the right of nations to self-determination (specifically in the case of poland since there were many poles in this communist group and they did not want a polish capitalist state to be established); and they generally took a voluntarist stance regarding the possibilities for social revolution at that time.