the mounting tide of anti-Bolshevik activity in the Far East did not immediately challenge the Communists’ grip on the core of Russian territory. The cornerstone of Lenin’s survival strategy was the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany. But this involved a contradiction. In the process of negotiating the treaty the Bolsheviks had done everything they could to empty it of legitimacy. But how could a treaty that the weaker party so flagrantly disowned have any binding force on the stronger party?