As a general rule no government wants to accept a punitive peace that strips it of a good chunk of its territory and millions of citizens. Brest-Litovsk was an emasculating settlement, one unprecedented in the history of Great Power relations. The final treaty proposed the German annexation of Poland, the Baltics and Belarus, the establishment of a German client state in Ukraine and a number of clauses relating to demobilisation, propaganda and indemnities. This harsh settlement was only accepted by the Soviet government after an internal political crisis and the confirmation that continued military struggle was simply not possible.

So how did we get to this place? Mirroring the rest of Tsarist Russia, the Imperial Army had been in a state of terminal decay throughout 1917. Discontent in the ranks, a refusal to fight and the mass desertion of peasant soldiers (keen to participate in their villages' land redistribution) amounted to a collapse in the army's capabilities. As early as July 1917 the failure of the Kerensky Offensive - an offensive that quickly turned into a rout - showed that the Imperial Army could no longer be relied upon as a fighting force. This decay only gathered pace after the signing of the armistice with Germany (11 Nov, NS); entire formations simply melted away, equipment was abandoned and any remaining units were hopelessly disorganised. The army formally declared demobilised on 29 Jan 1918. The Soviet government may have wanted a peace without annexations or indemnities but it had had no army with which to resist German demands.

This was not as worrying for the Soviets as you might expect. There was plenty of enthusiasm for continuing the war regardless. This was shared by both the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Bolshevik partners in government) and strong current within the Bolshevik party itself. Broadly three approaches emerged within the Bolshevik leadership in early 1918 as to how to deal with the crisis:

• The Left Communists advocated a rejection of peace and continued war. Their key spokesman was Bukharin, who emphasised the 'illusion' of peace with German imperialism and the potential for a revolutionary war to spark insurrection in Germany itself. They therefore advocated war, accepting that major cities might be lost but trusting in local militias for defence and revolutionary risings in the German ranks. As Bukharin put it: "Let the Germans strike, let them advance another 100 versts, what interests us is how this affects the international movement." This was also the position of the Bolsheviks' coalition partners, the Left SRs.

• Diametrically opposed to the above was Lenin, always the arch-pragmatist. Aghast at the idea of going to war without an army, putting the survival of the Soviet state at extreme risk, he urged an immediate acceptance of German demands. Using the comparison of a pregnant woman and a healthy child, Lenin argued that Bukharin wanted to endanger the emerging Soviet state for the potential of a German revolution. They might have to 'rub their noses in the dirt' but it would be worth it to obtain some 'breathing space' to secure Soviet power at home.

• Striking an intermediate ground was Trotsky with the extremely novel formulation of 'neither war nor peace'. This was the argument that the Soviets should simply walk out of the peace negotiations without concluding a treaty or resuming hostilities... a unilateral declaration of peace, if you will. Given that real resistance was in any case impossible, this would clearly present the Germans as the aggressors and provide a propaganda triumph for the Soviets (again, with an eye to revolution in Germany). Opinions have differed in the century since as to whether this was genius or insanity.

These positions were debated at length by the Bolsheviks during January 1918. At a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 24 Jan (NS), Trotsky's 'political showmanship' (Lenin) was accepted as the compromise position, by nine votes to seven. A couple of weeks later, with pressure mounting from Berlin and a separate German-Ukrainian treaty negotiated, Trotsky dropped his bombshell and walked out of the peace negotiations (10 February). The response of the German negotiating team was a stunned unerhört, 'unheard of!'

Of course the Germans then went ahead and called Trotsky's bluff, resuming their advance on 18 February. As might be expected, there was little organised resistance. As a German general noted:

It is the most comical war I have ever known. We put a handful of infantrymen and one gun onto a train and rush them off to the next station; they take it, make prisoners of the Bolsheviks, pick up a few more troops and so on. This proceeding has, at any rate, the charm of novelty.

Far from Bukharin's '100 versts', in fourteen days the front was pushed back twice that distance; the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine (definitely) were lost and German soldiers stationed on the Don. Resistance was minimal. Turns out that Lenin was right: it's hard to fight a war without an army.

In these sharply deteriorating conditions, the Central Committee debated peace again on 23 February. This time Lenin pulled no punches: if there was no vote for immediate acceptance of the German terms then he would resign both his government and party posts. This re-framed the question as a matter of a split in the Bolshevik Party. The Left Communists may have comprised a majority of the party (assessments differ) but that was really academic: no one wanted a split or to oust Lenin. As Bukharin asked himself at the time:

Am I of sufficient stature to become leader of a party and declare war on Lenin and the Bolshevik Party? No, don't let us deceive ourselves.

As such Lenin got his way, albeit later than he would have liked, and the Central Committee accepted peace on the new, even more humiliating, terms. (The vote tally was still far from unanimous: seven for, four against, four abstaining.) The fallout of the treaty would continue to resonate: it motivated the Left SRs to leave government and, eventually, move into armed opposition; accepting peace on these terms spurred outraged nationalism and the creation of White armies; the capital left Petrograd for Moscow; and the fate of these borderlands would be thrown into flux and uncertainty for the next few years. Yet eight months after signing the embryonic Red Army was taking shape and the German occupation was falling apart. It was longer than expected but Lenin got his invaluable 'breathing space'.

So to revisit your initial questions, yes the Bolsheviks accepted the treaty with deep reluctance and only after the most severe political crisis of the young Soviet state. But they were forced into this by the simple fact there was no credible means of resisting the German advance. Yet civil war was not a concern at this time: Lenin was keen to secure Soviet power at home before embarking on a revolutionary war but it was not until later in 1918 that the Whites would emerge as a threat. If it weighed on the discussions it was only insofar as the Left Communists questioned whether a Soviet Russia could survive without revolution in Germany, as Bukharin prophetically warned "the civil war must not be only in one country".

Reading

Most of this can be found in general histories. Orlando Figes' People's Tragedy gives a fairly colourful account of the negotiations. For the mechanics of the German advance, and the source of the railway quote, see Evan Mawdsley's Russian Civil War. Other quotes are lifted from RSDLP minutes from The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution, translated by Ann Bone.