In response to Russia's defeat on the front, Czar Nicholas II was dethroned in a revolution in March 1917 and a new government of mixed liberal-conservative complexion came into being. As political deadlock and defeats on the front continued, the socialists gained in popularity and their radical wing, the Bolshevik party, under Lenin, called for immediate peace and apportionment of land to the peasants. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power. The new government concluded an armistice with Germany in December 1917 and a separate peace treaty with Germany in March 1918, but slid into a protracted civil war with its opponents.
