Dear Phylo_roadkin. From my point of view there is a big difference between de facto and de jurephylo_roadking wrote:One nation alone negotiating with a government does NOT make it the de facto national government to the rest of the world
For example, once upon a time Oliver Cromwell became de facto a ruller of the Great Britain. It doesn't matter that no one country (France for example) recognised his status. He was namely de facto ruler. It mean that he and his government controlled armed forces, British territory including capital and big cities. That time de jure and de facto Ireland was independent country. But after Cromwell's invasion Ireland became de facto British colony. Later Irealand became de jure a part of the UK.
So, in 1917, Bolshevik government became de facto Russian government. No matter that it was not internationally recognised. De facto status doesn't require international recognition.
Bolshevik governmet established control over the capital - Petrograd, over Moscow and other big cities and huge populated territories. Bolshevik government has own armed forces and negotiated with strong military power (Germany). Of coure the only fact of the negotiations doen't prove that Bolshevik government was de facto Russian government. But a combination of all mentioned arguments shows that Bolshevik government was (I stress) de facto Russian government. Kochak government existed only few months. It controlled only some remote parts of Russia (mainly in Siberia). By all accounts it can't be regarded as de facto Russian government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._Bruce_Lockhart
So British government sent its envoy in January of 1918 namely to Bolshevik government as de facto Russian government.Lockhart was Acting British Consul-General in Moscow when the first Russian Revolution broke out in early 1917, but left shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution of October that year.
He soon returned to Russia at the behest of Prime Minister Lloyd George and Lord Milner as the United Kingdom's first envoy to the Bolsheviks (Russia) in January of 1918 in an attempt to counteract German influence.
Lockhart was asked in March 1918 to persuade the new Soviet government to allow a Japanese army onto Soviet territory to fight Germany on the Eastern Front. He was unsuccessful in this endeavour.
In 1918, Lockhart and fellow British agent, Sidney Reilly, were dramatically implicated in a plot to assassinate Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. He was accused of plotting against the Bolshevik regime and, for a time during 1918, was confined in the Kremlin as a prisoner and condemned to death. However, his life was spared in an exchange of "secret agents" for the Russian diplomat Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov.