Mark O'Neill

“on 3 March 1918 the new Soviet republic signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, ending the war on the Eastern Front. It was a humiliation for Russia. The country lost one-quarter of the former Russian Empire’s population and industry, including 90 per cent of its coalmines. It renounced all territorial claims to Finland, Belarus and Ukraine, and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Poland became an independent state. The driving force behind the signing of the treaty was Lenin. Despite the enormous losses, he believed that only an immediate peace would allow the young Bolshevik government to consolidate power in Russia, against all its enemies.”
― O'Neill Mark, From the Tsar's Railway to the Red Army: Penguin Specials

“Ji was one of more than 200 000 Chinese workers who went to Russia during the Great War to assist in the Allied war effort. Some 135 000 Chinese men were also sent to France and Belgium between 1916 and 1922, but Russia would receive the majority of China’s wartime labourers.”
― O'Neill Mark, From the Tsar's Railway to the Red Army: Penguin Specials