Largest plausible Russia/USSR?

With a POD after Jan 1st 1914, what is the largest realistic Russia or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics we could see?
 
With a POD after Jan 1st 1914, what is the largest realistic Russia or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics we could see?

Well, that should be enough time to result in an early entente victory, which would lead to Russia picking up perhaps Galicia and Bukovina, Great Poland and bits of Silesia, the straits and a chunk of eastern Anatolia, and we could subsequently have Russia stay together and create spheres of influence in the Middle and Far east from Anatolia through the Mashriq and Iranian plateau up to the outer ramparts of China, Manchuria, and Korea. Much bigger than that is really pushing it, and as I said, a lot of that would be spheres of influence. As RGB has pointed out, Russia has in the last century been propelled rather above its station by events and brought back down. The borders of 1914 represent a very respectable chunk of the world under Russian sway. It could certainly hold these to the present day, but it doesn't have much reason to go much further.

The only other thing of note is that Bulgaria applied for SSR status at one point.
 
Well, the USSR could possible have become the world union of soviet socialist republics. Thats probable what Lenin imagined it would be.
 
Well, the USSR could possible have become the world union of soviet socialist republics. Thats probable what Lenin imagined it would be.

Lenin's imagination and reality were not always directly connected, and in any case whether his ideology, Lenin had a realistic "Russian" foreign policy, and it's really not likley for any opportunities for world conquest to present themselves.
 
They could have annexed Finland, Manchuria and Hokkaido if they'd played their cards a little differently at the start of WW2.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Stalin could certainly decide to annex more conquered countries directly to the USSR rather than setting them up as independent puppet states, Moreover, he can decide to keep Finnmark and northern Persia, which it had occupied during WWII, and to invade Finland. The PoD might be an early start of the Cold War, or more anti-Communist resistance in the closing days of WWII, which convinces Stalin to go down hard with Sovietization of Eastern Europe all the way from 1944-45.

So: a Polish SSR (with East Prussia and Lwow, but without Pomerania and Silesia, which East Germany would keep), a Finnish SSR (with Finnmark and East Karelia), a Romanian SSR (with Bessarabia/Moldova), a Bulgarian SSR, and northern Iran being carved in various SSRs. Stalin would go down hard on Titoist attempts to drift away from Soviet allegiance, which may easily result in Vardar Macedonia being annexed to Bulgarian SSR. This would surely mean even more Stalinist atrocities and Soviet oppression, but it has the bright side that reunified Germany, Poland, Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria would keep more of their national claims when the Soviet empire collapses (even if Finnmark might become a bone of contention between Norway and Finland, and Vardar Macedonia would be so between Serbia and Bulgaria). Russia has not the demographic leverage to build large Russian minorities in annexed Eastern Europe. The geopolitical effects of a divided Iran would be interesting, to say the least, and may easily butterfly the Islamist Revolution away.
 
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Lenin's imagination and reality were not always directly connected, and in any case whether his ideology, Lenin had a realistic "Russian" foreign policy, and it's really not likley for any opportunities for world conquest to present themselves.

I was thinking of a more internationalist soviet union absorbing eastern europe.
 
I was thinking of a more internationalist soviet union absorbing eastern europe.

Not easy: most Eastern Europeans, after all, were rather nationalist by this point, and communism was weak in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. Indeed, it probably would require a WWII the US stayed out of: absorbing Eastern Europe would be very bad propaganda-wise (Imperialism!), and would definitely harshen the Cold War. (Stalin had other reasons: for one thing, it had been enough hard work entirely breaking the Soviet Communist party to his will: having a bunch of new Eastern European members gunning for top jobs would be a pain).

Bruce
 

Eurofed

Banned
Not easy: most Eastern Europeans, after all, were rather nationalist by this point, and communism was weak in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.

That's what the NKVD was for.

Indeed, it probably would require a WWII the US stayed out of: absorbing Eastern Europe would be very bad propaganda-wise (Imperialism!), and would definitely harshen the Cold War.

The Cold War would indeed be harshened, but this might be a cause and not an effect of the annexations. Let's say the usual Valkyrie succeeds PoD occurs, and the Germans are able to broker a separate conditional surrender to the Western Allies, and this motivates Stalin to clamp down on everything the Red Army occupies. Only ITTL the West only succeeds to claim Greater Germany, Czechia, Albania, and Greece for its camp.

(Stalin had other reasons: for one thing, it had been enough hard work entirely breaking the Soviet Communist party to his will: having a bunch of new Eastern European members gunning for top jobs would be a pain).

An entirely different issue. He was the unquestioned master of Russia, and any new Eastern European apparatnicks would find themselves at the bottom of the totem pole. Moreover, our lovely paranoid pal Joe did plan another huge sweep of purges, just before death claimed him. If he annexes Eastern Europe, he is going to anticipate them to the mid-late 1940s, just to crush any nationalist resistance. And again, it is not like the NKVD lacks the means or the know-how to turn Soviet Eastern Europe into a cowed abattoir if Joe gives the order.
 

Eurofed

Banned
I've made up a TL map for your uber-USSR.

PoD is that Valkyrie succeeds, post-Nazi Germany surrenders to the western Allies in exchange for a guarantee on 1938 borders and national unity, and Stalin is PO into annexing all the countries he conquered as SSRs. The NKVD and the Red Army are busy slaughtering Eastern European nationalists for the good part of a decade (even if internal borders are rerranged to appease some nationalities), the Cold War gets super-nasty (probably the most difficult part of the TL is to explain why America does not declare war and nuke Russia while they still have a nuclear supremacy, if anything like the Korean War ever happens), federal integration and massive rearmament of western Europe happens very quickly.

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Hrm.... Largest possible.... I'll look at the Soviets.

You need to get early expansion, both to prevent all that Socialism-in-One-Country talk and to avoid a Russian majority early on.

You probably want to avoid Stalin coming to power, as he industrialized at best slightly faster than projections of Bukharinist policies, while otherwise ruining the country.

You absolutely need a total war in western Europe, and you need it to be well begun before direct Russian involvement in the conflict.

You want the right men (ones who see annexation as a good) running things when the SSSR goes a conquerin'.

You must not allow a large-scale invasion to be even initially successful after the Civil War. The Soviet Union recovered from Barbarossa, technically, but it never came close to the momentum it had before. Plus it's most efficient not to move all your industry to the Urals.

You can't, unfortunately, get China, so you want to arrange things to take as many reasonable chunks as possible.

The Reds do better in the Civil War because *dah*dah*something*. That means a less damaged Russia, plus let's say retention of Estonia, Latvia, and a wee bit of southeast Finland. If Poland goes Russia will be in central Europe and the rest of the continent will be less likely to fight among themselves, so let's leave it independent.

For one reason or another the Russians intervene more effectively in favor of the Persian SSR c1920 and it is incorporated. The result is a new front against the British and an eventual partition of Persia between White and Red. Mongolia and Tannu Tuva are annexed as a combined federal unit for some reason (not really important, but it gives the Soviets a lot of claims in northern China).

Without Stalin's full-bore collectivization we have less severe famines, and more opportunity to deal with them, so a tremendously larger number of Russians and Ukrainians. In Germany, the Nazis aren't in power, so we can still have a viable communist movement.

Still, have war break out between Germany and, say, France, Poland, Britain, and Italy. Soviet support as a neutral is granted in exchange for inclusion of the German Communists in coalition government and a sphere of influence. Let's say.... Lithuania, eastern Poland, Finland, and Romania. Poland is overrun (we can't have a short war) and Paris captured, but Germany isn't doing as well as in OTL. Mobile offensives heave back and forth across northern France and the Low Countries.

Meanwhile, the Russians march to Helsinki in high summer, annexing Lithuania, Finland, Sinkiang (hey, almost did OTL), and the near bits of Poland and Romania. When the war in the west begins to go downhill for the Germans, they literally sell Poland to the Soviets for a ridiculous amount of materiel and men (in the form of "unofficial volunteers"). In Persia the British and Russians stare at each other hostily.

The West eventually breaks German lines and marches into the Ruhr. In desperation, the german government hands the reins to the German communists in an attempt to force Russian intervention on their side. It's too much for the British, and they do the job themselves, bombing Baku and Sevastopol.

At this point, things get out of hand. Japan declares war on the Europeans and goes haring off into southeast Asia while still grappling unsuccessfully with China. The Russians and British clash in Persia, Iraq, and Romania while both sides march into Germany. The allies get about half of the place by the time the lines form, which, given that they are viewed as occupiers and the Russians are not, is not such a great advantage to have.

On the peripheral fronts the existence of mass Russian armored columns on a fairly short logistic train is decisive. White Persia is overrun and Mesopotamia follows it. Romania falls, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are plowed over, and the Front in the Balkans is left somewhere in central Bulgaria.

The western allies have a year or two of experience at semi-mobile warfare to the Soviets' "we didn't lose to Finland", and first in Germany and then Poland they force the Russians back. Poland, and then Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria are liberated rather easily, in no small part because the populace is new-conquered and very anti-Soviet. The allies press on with their momentum for a combined thrust into Russia with the idea of swiftly toppling the Communist Regime.

Then they cross the border into lands that have always been Soviet, and this develops to have been a less than ideal strategy. Western Europeans didn't have the highest opinion of the eastern peoples at this time. They don't have a great deal of patience - having fought for a few years against the Russian-funded Germans. And they have unrealistic expectations of flowers being thrown at their feet. Incidents of partisan warfare are reacted to brutally. In spite of this, shockingly, more partisans appear.

The Soviets have more (and often better) tanks, friendly ground, a very large number of unpurged commanders, and now they know how to fight a modern war.

The great spearheads sweep through Lithuania into a meatgrinder in Riga and across Belarus and the Pripet to be ground to a halt in western Russia. The real disaster strikes in western Ukraine, where the mass blitz to the Black Sea is flanked, pocketed, and forced to surrender. Most of a year is lost desperately trying to keep a toehold in Russia proper, while grinding east through Romania. At the end of it, the Russians get a major breakthrough in the Ukraine, and the collapse begins.

An armored thrust races the length of the Vistula, forcing a mass evacuation from East Prussia, Lithuania, and Latvia and the loss of a mind-boggling amount of tanks and heavy equipment. The next push rushes into Germany, where the absence of a real peace and the use of German industry to help run a war against Germany's ally results in mass support for the Russians.

The rest of the war is a slogging, brutal affair, fought across the Balkan Peninsula and Germany. In the end the west is unwilling to continue a war that includes occupying a hostile Germany for years on end. Japan is losing ground steadily, and a peace deal is made. The Soviets annex Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, White Persia, and Iraq permanently. After a short wait, they also pile on Japan's back and annex Manchuria and Korea, plus Chinese Mongolia while they're in the neighborhood.

The new awkward superstate feels, acts, and thinks much the same way the Soviet Union did in OTL (but without the "Omg, thank God Stalin isn't killing us"). But it's stronger in essentially every way.

Oof.
 
With a POD after Jan 1st 1914, what is the largest realistic Russia or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics we could see?
If you don't mind, I strech your timetable a little.
So, after 1850, the largest Russian Confederate could be:
Russia

Finland
The Baltic Countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)
Poland
Belarus
Ukraine
Moldova
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Kyrgyzstan
Mongolia
Alaska
Korea

Kalingrad/Koningsberg, special status (HQ of 2nd Baltic Fleet)
Port Arthur/Dalian, special status (Hq of 2nd Paltic Fleet)
 
Pondered some more, and it strikes me unlikely even in my scenario that Germany or Korea would be annexed. If all of them fell into Soviet hands they'd probably be made allied states, for both geographic and political reasons. South Korea is easy to outflank by sea and West Germany is easy for a united West to hold against an over-extended Russia, regardless of the wishes of the Germans. The biggest possible USSR would likely entail a stalemated war that ended in the partition of those two countries.

So in Scandinavia, maximum Soviet borders would be with Norway and Sweden. In mainland Europe, along the shared border with Federal Germany (hrm, let's say the south, west, and northwest are left in western hands), Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. In West Asia the Union would have Turkish, Syrian, Arabian, and Kuwaiti frontiers. For the rest, the shared border would run somewhere through Baluchistan, north around Afghanistan, east along the north edge of the Tibetan Plateau and the southern edge of the Gobi, to the Yellow Sea. A good two-thirds of OTL North Korea would be included.

That's.... fairly large.
 
If you don't mind, I strech your timetable a little.
So, after 1850, the largest Russian Confederate could be:
Russia

Finland
The Baltic Countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)
Poland
Belarus
Ukraine
Moldova
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Kyrgyzstan
Mongolia
Alaska
Korea

Kalingrad/Koningsberg, special status (HQ of 2nd Baltic Fleet)
Port Arthur/Dalian, special status (Hq of 2nd Paltic Fleet)

Oh come on, you can do better than that from 1850.
 
That map, if it's supposed to represented 1866, is in any case severely flawed in the "areas of influence" is depicts (and Wikipedia had recognised this and chucked it out). I can only assume it's an anacronistic depiction of all Russian influence zones in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The smaller Pacific interests had whithered by the 1860s and earlier; Russia's right to consider Moldavia-Wallachia as its back garden ended in 1856, and shortly after that the Romanian state came into existence; Russia's influence-blob in Anatolia seems to correspond either to the areas in easy reach of its armies or the areas most subject to the operations of the Armenian terrorists which it began to support (with considerable reservations) after about 1880 or so, and isn't far from the sphere Russia was promised in 1913 but never actually received owing to the war; the Persian sphere shown was clarified in 1907 and up to that point Russian influence in Persia was not formal and could be shallowed or deeper than that depending on Russian resource at the time; the Central Asian boundaries were clarified in 1885 (and those portrayals of Russia's vassal khanates are utter fantasy); Russian influence in Afghanistan never went beyond the consular phase; Russian influnece in outer Mongolia and Tuva began in earnest in 1911, and its influence in Xinjiang was really a Soviet thing; its interests in Manchuria also varied, but at their high point before 1904 they just about did have their primacy recognised in the area shown.
 
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