In late 1919 the leader of Russia's new communist government, Vladimir Lenin, was inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over White Russian anti-communist forces and their western allies, and began to see the future of the revolution with greater optimism. The Bolsheviks doctrine said that historical processes would lead to proletariat victory worldwide, and that the nation states would be replaced by a worldwide communist community. War with Poland was needed if the communist revolution in Russia was to be linked with the expected revolutions in the West, such as the one in Germany. Early Bolshevik ideology made it clear that Poland, which was located in between Russia and Germany, had to become the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross to fulfill the Marxist doctrine. It was not, however, until the Soviet successes in mid-1920 that this idea became for a short time dominant in Bolshevik policies.