However, in the Western literature, it is often argued that in fact Lenin and Stalin agreed to capture mostly the territories they had no sovereignty over since Russia had lost them to Central Powers in 1915 and 1916.
Many historians suggest that the purpose of the document was to limit the public dissent after Russia lost most of its western areas to the advancing German Empire and try to complicate the matters behind the front lines.
While Ukraine and Belarus were largely conquered, the Soviets ultimately also failed in their invasion of Poland after they were stopped at Warsaw, and hostilities ended with the signing of the Treaty of Riga of 1921.
Attempts to conquer the Moldavian Democratic Republic holding Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina also failed, and in 1918 Moldavia unified with Romania instead.
Years later, following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and subsequent outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union would attack many of these territories again, as the Red Army invaded Poland in 1939 and later occupied the Baltic States and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940.