Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919

Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919
	Part of the Russian Civil War, Polish–Soviet War, Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Lithuanian Wars of Independence, and Ukrainian War of Independence
	; Soviet anti-Polish propaganda poster 1920
Date	November 18, 1918 – March, 1919
Location	Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,; Poland, Russia, Ukraine
Result	Soviet victory in Eastern Belorussia Start of the Polish Soviet War; ; Soviet defeat in the Baltic states;
Territorial; changes	Occupation of the Baltic states and most of Belarus by the Red Army, creation of the Soviet republics - Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR and Belorussian SSR
Belligerents
White Movement; Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; Belarus; Poland; Romania; Ukraine; France; United Kingdom; Ober Ost ; Finnish, Danish, and Swedish volunteers	Russian SFSR; Soviet Estonia; Soviet Latvia; Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR; Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee; Ukrainian SSR; Finnish Red Guards
Commanders and leaders
Jānis Puriņš; Johan Laidoner; Józef Piłsudski; Max Hoffmann	Jukums Vācietis; Dmitry Nadyozhny
Strength
Total: Unknown, 70,000+Estonia: 19,000; Poland: ~50,000	285,000

The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 was part of the campaign by Soviet Russia into areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany following that country's defeat in World War I. The initially successful offensive against the Republic of Estonia ignited the Estonian War of Independence which ended with the Soviet recognition of Estonia. Similarly, the campaigns against the Republic of Latvia and Republic of Lithuania ultimately failed, resulting in the Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty and Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty respectively. In Belarus, the Belarusian People's Republic was conquered and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia proclaimed.

The campaign eventually became bogged down, leading to the Estonian Pskov Offensive, the White Russian Petrograd Offensives, the Lithuanian–Soviet War, the Latvian War of Independence and the continuation of the Ukrainian–Soviet War.