Neither Russia nor China go communist - a tripolar world?

Abdominalz

Just imagine, if only the Kerensky offensive had succeeded then the democratic Russian Republic might have endured. It survived a coup attempt by Kornilov in OTL and without the offensive failing could have won the Great War. Imagine that, a democratic capitalist Russia. With its vast potential, I can see it rivalling the United States in terms of economic power, much more than the Soviet Union did. With a capitalistic Russia, would China be at less risk of becoming communist? If so, then China could have also industrialised earlier and be a democracy. Thereby you have a tripolar world. If a lack of a red scare butterflies WW2,then Germany would be even more powerful than today.
Here are some questions:
How do you think Kerensky and Russia would have fared at Versailles?
What problems would the Russian Republic face?
Would WW2 still happen?
If so, how would a democratic Russia behave and be seen by Germany and the west?
Would decolonisation still happen? Would it happen within Russia?
Would China and Russia be as powerful as America?
How would they get on with each other?
Would Mandarin and Russian rival English as world languages? Would there be three Holywoods?
 

Swedswar

Russia is still a pre industrial backwater; to fix that will take time and effort. I don't see a democratic government surviving. A lot of people forget most of what would become the Eastern Block where dictatorships before WWII. I don't see Russia having much of an impact on the Treaty of Versailles. Without the USSR around, the Germans become communist. This may, or may not lead to a World War. IIRC China was already a dictatorship. If anything I see the Empires of Europe kicking around longer.
 

M. A. Dickens

Abdominalz said:
Just imagine, if only the Kerensky offensive had succeeded then the democratic Russian Republic might have endured. It survived a coup attempt by Kornilov in OTL and without the offensive failing could have won the Great War. Imagine that, a democratic capitalist Russia. With its vast potential, I can see it rivalling the United States in terms of economic power, much more than the Soviet Union did. With a capitalistic Russia, would China be at less risk of becoming communist? If so, then China could have also industrialised earlier and be a democracy. Thereby you have a tripolar world. If a lack of a red scare butterflies WW2,then Germany would be even more powerful than today.
Here are some questions:
How do you think Kerensky and Russia would have fared at Versailles?
What problems would the Russian Republic face?
Would WW2 still happen?
If so, how would a democratic Russia behave and be seen by Germany and the west?
Would decolonisation still happen? Would it happen within Russia?
Would China and Russia be as powerful as America?
How would they get on with each other?
Would Mandarin and Russian rival English as world languages? Would there be three Holywoods?
Click to expand...

By butterflying away Communist Russia, you also butterflied away China from 1921 onwards as we know it. For one, you won't get a CP of China (at least not in its OTL form), and Sun Yat-sen will not have Soviet support in establishing the National Revolutionary Army (mind you, no one else was supporting him in the amount that he needed at the time), and therefore no Northern Expedition, so on and so forth.

Marc A
 
juanml82

juanml82

I'm not so sure Russia could rival the USA in terms of economic power nor about China becoming democratic.

And while a non communist Russia won't be seen as an international danger/pariah, the Great Game between the UK and Russia will still continue. I think a key point in Europe is whether an alt-WWII takes place or not. The Red Scare might weaken nazism, but there would still be communist parties all over Europe, including Germany. I still see a resurgent Germany and that Germany would probably fight for the Danzing Corridor. Without nazism this could be a regional war only, though, instead of a general European war.

In this case, however, we have more than a tripolar world: The UK and France would hold to their empire for longer, Germany will remain a major power and a Russia which avoids the civil war and the millions of deaths caused by Hitler and Stalin will be far more prosperous. And all the while, the USA will have a lot less influence in Europe - there will be no Marshall Plan and no NATO.

So we have at least five powerful non nuclear powers struggling for influence and dominance during the mid 20th Century: The USA, Japan, the UK, France, Germany and Russia.
 

sciscisciortino

Russia is still going to be starving after the Kerensky Offensive and I don't know how democracy is going to magically stick. It certainly wasn't a capitalist regime either.
 

Abdominalz

sciscisciortino said:
Russia is still going to be starving after the Kerensky Offensive and I don't know how democracy is going to magically stick. It certainly wasn't a capitalist regime either.
Click to expand...

What if Kerensky surrenders and signs an ATL Brest-Litovsk treaty which prevents the Bolshevik Revolution and allows Russia to industrialise à la capitaliste? No reason for a coup and Russia develops democratically and has good relations with the nations of Eastern Europe. Perhaps it might see itself as the big brother to all the Slavic nations.
The person who said that the Great Game might continue could be right, except how will the two democratic nations justify a war against each other?
How will Russia treat its Turkic and Caucasian populations?
 

Abdominalz

juanml82 said:
I'm not so sure Russia could rival the USA in terms of economic power nor about China becoming democratic.

And while a non communist Russia won't be seen as an international danger/pariah, the Great Game between the UK and Russia will still continue. I think a key point in Europe is whether an alt-WWII takes place or not. The Red Scare might weaken nazism, but there would still be communist parties all over Europe, including Germany. I still see a resurgent Germany and that Germany would probably fight for the Danzing Corridor. Without nazism this could be a regional war only, though, instead of a general European war.

In this case, however, we have more than a tripolar world: The UK and France would hold to their empire for longer, Germany will remain a major power and a Russia which avoids the civil war and the millions of deaths caused by Hitler and Stalin will be far more prosperous. And all the while, the USA will have a lot less influence in Europe - there will be no Marshall Plan and no NATO.

So we have at least five powerful non nuclear powers struggling for influence and dominance during the mid 20th Century: The USA, Japan, the UK, France, Germany and Russia.
Click to expand...
So you think Russia and Britain might go to war over Afghanistan. How will both governments justify such a war? If Germany and Poland fight a regional war over the Polish corridor, won't Russia, along with France and Britain back Poland?
Even if there is no Second World War, won't the African colonies get their independence eventually through the rise of a politically aware elite and eventually a bourgeoisie? Would this happen by the year 2000? Also what about the rise of China?
 

Alex1guy

Abdominalz said:
So you think Russia and Britain might go to war over Afghanistan. How will both governments justify such a war? If Germany and Poland fight a regional war over the Polish corridor, won't Russia, along with France and Britain back Poland?
Even if there is no Second World War, won't the African colonies get their independence eventually through the rise of a politically aware elite and eventually a bourgeoisie? Would this happen by the year 2000? Also what about the rise of China?
Click to expand...

Regarding the Great Game in Afghanistan, I don't know if Britain and Russia would go to war directly, more do the whole proxy conflict thing. Some African colonies may become independent, but without a WWII analogue, the Imperial powers may well still retain control over or remain influential in large parts of Africa eg. France in Algeria, Italy in Lybia etc. I mean you may also see some sort of African Napoleon born from butterflies but by 2000 think Europe is going to throw it's weight around in Africa quite a bit still. Regarding the Danzig corridor, it depends on how Germany goes about reclaiming it's former territory. Remember claims like the Sudetenland and Danzig were seen as somewhat justified but Hitler was just so... Overt in his actions and had a tendency to go back on his word regarding just about everything, which made the Entente uneasy.
 

Tyr

I don't see why a democratic Russia would somehow be a richer Russia.
As bad as Stalinism was, it did actually work in it's way, really shool things up a lot and led to a large amount of modernization. I just don't see a democratic Russia being willing to cause so much suffering for a few GDP points.

China on the other hand... If china can get it's act together there is a lot of potential .
 
Hashoosh

Hashoosh

The idea of Kerensky's government surviving is laughable. The SRs were wildly incompetent and didn't even run the country in the first place. Dual Power ensured that the Provisional Government had to pander to the Soviets (the local governments made up of councils of workers) to actually do anything. Either someone to the left (like Lenin and the Bolsheviks, for example) or someone to the right (all the White Generals) will make a move to seize power, and the Provisional Government will collapse. Democratic Russia post February revolution is not feasible.

Now, a non-communist Russian Empire that survives the Great War and thus gets to go to Versailles would be quite interesting. All of the land Poland got from Germany would probably still go to Poland, but it would be a puppet of whoever is in control of Petrograd. If the government of Russia is weak enough, and still fighting a civil war, then the Poles will break off, as will a lot of areas of Empire. If the government in Petrograd is somehow strong, then we have a Russia that dominates the Poles, controls the Straights, dominates the entire Balkans and might even get East Prussia (I don't know what the fate of it would be if Russia was party to Versailles as victors).

Moving forward, the KPD is still not going to get power in Germany. It wasn't the Nazis that stopped them, and the Nazis weren't solely based off fear of the USSR. The SPD will still 'betray' the communists and work with industry and the government and there will still be a very strong right-wing in Germany that can count on support of the freikorps. A non-communist Russia will probably hinder, rather than galvanise, global communist revolution (in the short term, at least) as the presence of a successful revolution showed the international proletariat it could be done. If they commies fail in Russia, then who knows what happens, but I hardly think it will mollify the existing elites' fears across Europe of Communism.

Past the 1920s and 30s, it's hard to see what will happen. If Russia is strong then a raprochement between the Entente and Germany will occur, in order to balance out Russian influence on the continent. Hard to say where Czechoslovakia would fall in this alliance system, but Austria and Hungary would be pro-West while the Slavic states would be in the Russian camp (most likely). Romania wouldn't have any choice in the matter, being surrounded by Russians and pro-Russians, and so be co-opted into supporting them. Bulgaria is hard to say, but they would probably be forced to bow to Russian dominance. What remains of Turkey will be seething, but if it's the Sultan then he might be a pawn of Petrograd, while if it's a Republic under Ataturk then they could be aligned with the West. Italy will probably align with the West, because of it's designs in the Balkans conflicting with the Russians'.

Now, America might not leave her isolation for a long time, and ignore affairs in Europe. The Japanese, on the other hand, are probably going down the same path they took OTL, and so conflict with America and the European colonial powers seems inevitable. An invasion of China is also possible, but if Russia is powerful enough then it would be avoided entirely due to the threat of Russian intervention against them (and it would not go the way of 1905...).
 

sciscisciortino

It's either the Soviets or a military dictatorship. But even a non-Bolshevik government I don't see getting the straits. Otherwise, yeah.
 

sciscisciortino

The class that everything pivoted on at this point really were the peasants, though. Without their cooperation, the military and the cities starve, and the czar, provisional government, Whites, Reds and NEPmen all figured this out.
 
Hashoosh

Hashoosh

sciscisciortino said:
It's either the Soviets or a military dictatorship. But even a non-Bolshevik government I don't see getting the straits. Otherwise, yeah.
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If Russia stays the course until the end of the war, why not? I think the British and French had agreed to give it to Russia in 1914 at the outbreak of war with the Ottomans.
 

sciscisciortino

I'd think the British would be too skittish about giving them a passage to the Mediterranean. Maybe not though. The French won't care, though.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Yes, a non- Communist Russia means butterflies all over the World, and the situation in China definitely changes, the Nationalists were at first backed by the USSR, will they get support from non- Communist Russia (not that likely imo), or will they find themselves without foreign sponsors and thus in a weaker position in regards to both the Warlords and Japan.
 
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