I don't know what's worse - the level of atrocities committed that made this American think this, or the fact that it took 20 years for the world to prove him wrong.
Would a White-victory Russia be able to survive operation„Barbarossa“?
- Thread starter Kaloross
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Deleted member 94680
lol At an American saying that, given that the 40 year period would cover back ‘til 1879(?) and he comes from the country of the Wild West.
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Are you saying that the areas under Bolshevik rule did not see similar mayhem and disorder? Are you saying that the worst Bolshevik leaders were less evil in their wartime actions than a Kolchak or a Semyonov?
This was a nation in chaos, it was suffering from a civil war and its internal legal and political order had broken down. Going by your argument, even the USSR could have never become the more-or-less bearable nation it became after Stalin, looking only at what the Bolsheviks did during the Russian Civil War.
Of course things would be different after a bloody civil war in comparison to what they were during the war, after the faction that won the war would have vanquished its enemies. Look at the formerly Imperial Russian territories where the "White" instead of the "Red" side won and retained power in the 20s and 30s - Finland and the Baltics, say, or Poland: at the very worst, they turned into vanilla authoritarian dictatorships, not remotely as bad as Nazi Germany - or Stalin's USSR, for that matter.
And then we might even have an option where a civil war like IOTL is avoided and a White government takes over after crushing the Reds in a short battle for control. In that option, IMHO, a non-Communist Russia would have an even better chance of developing into something non-dystopian.
In short, there was nothing inevitable about White Russia turning into an unqualified dystopia.
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The book does no such thing.
All Kellogg shows is the Baltic German influence on Nazism. Which was significant, though not necessarily instrumental. Then he tries to justify the inflammatory title by equating Baltic German aristocracy with Russia (and shoving everything that doesn't fit under the carpet).
That's a gigantic exaggeration. It would be an exaggeration even if Semyonov or Kalmykov were to take power themselves - and that's extremely unlikely. The Atamans were autonomous borderline-rebels in bitter opposition to Kolchak. Their power was limited to certain regions, and they'd be kicked out as soon as the White Russian state stabilizes.
Or some protracted war against a foreign power leads to a urban proletariat uprising-oh, hey waitaminute...
A white Russian empire will probably butterfly away Nazi Germany. the failure of the Reds means no socialist paradise to inspire communist parties in Western Europe. Thus no red menace to scare the Prussian nobility/industrialists into bed with the Nazis. The Jewish Bolshevik trope becomes fairly irrelevant. So blaming international Jewry for the Versailles' treaty is not effective. I definately agree with some the previous posters about the White Russians embracing Pan Slavism which would prevent any sane German from looking for Lebensraum in the east. Actually, I could see a Pan slavist movement spearheaded by the Russians to drive westward. The Russians would definately be hobbled by the poor economy. I doubt they will get many loans from the West. I read that they had difficulty financing the 1905 war with Japan. One other butterfly would be a massive exodus of Jews from the Pale. Whether they go west to Poland or south to Palestine is anybody's guess.
What if Denkin imposes a kind of benign autocracy on the survivors. Think Nicholas horthy, in the 30’s. No democracy but not nazism either.
The question for the Jews in White Russia is where do they go? In the 20s will the British allow a lot of them to go to Palestine? By the early 20s the USA has imposed new immigration rules/quotas that excluded large numbers of Jews. Some countries in Western Europe (maybe), some in South America/Central America (maybe). South Africa and Australia might take some...
longsword14
Banned
Reminds me of an American's observations in 1917 of Germans killing Poles to use their crushed bones as fertilizers.
See my previous post from an earlier site on this topic. War Communism literally regressed Russian industrial development by over ten years OTL. Avoid it and even a fairly left leaning Socialist government is where Stalin planned to be by 1950 by 1939. A more right wing government even further ahead.
I don't think they would have had a poor economy, Russia is too rich in minerals and timber for that. And oil and precious and semi-precious stones. And the OTL slump in the early thirties wouldn't have happened as early or in quite the same way had Russia been a full participant in world trade.
I don't think they would have had a poor economy, Russia is too rich in minerals and timber for that. And oil and precious and semi-precious stones. And the OTL slump in the early thirties wouldn't have happened as early or in quite the same way had Russia been a full participant in world trade.[/QUOTE]
An economy based on exports of raw material will not do well in a world where the various empires have colonies to provide them with the same materials cheaply. They might leverage continues participation in the Sykes-Picot- (russian Name) treaty to hinder Gulf oil production and transportation but it doesn't really help them devlop the Baku oilfields nor does it provide them with the technology to discover and expliot Siberia.
An economy based on exports of raw material will not do well in a world where the various empires have colonies to provide them with the same materials cheaply. They might leverage continues participation in the Sykes-Picot- (russian Name) treaty to hinder Gulf oil production and transportation but it doesn't really help them devlop the Baku oilfields nor does it provide them with the technology to discover and expliot Siberia.
Redbeard
Banned
As I see the original post it is a question of whether a white Russia by 1941 will be able to put up as good a fight as Red Russia was in OTL, no matter who perform the test. But as Barbarossa actually happened in OTL 1941 it will a suitable "test-rig".
My short answer will be: yes it will be able to put up as good a fight as the Red were!
All this will of course prerequisite that the Whites succeed in creating a reasonably fair (and wealthy) society. That was by no means certain, it could very well have ended in extreme corruption, warlords and general chaos and without a Stalin at the other side to establish order the hard way. In that case Barbarossa might actually be like "kicking in the door and the whole house comes down".
BTW I'm (slowly) working on a timeline where Russia in the first half of 20th century is mainly inspired by what a Rasputin could have thought up than what Lenin, Stalin or the Zar dreamt about. This Russia I of course also have tested by dreadful foreign invaders...
My short answer will be: yes it will be able to put up as good a fight as the Red were!
- Before WWI Russia had the largest growth in industrial capacity of all countries and all other things being equal I think a white Russia will be able to continue this industrialisation much faster than a Red regime, which literally started from scratch and in a rather isolated situation. To get a glimpse of the muscles behind this Russian industrialisation just take look at the navy under construction by 1914.
- A purge like the OTL one in late 1930s in USSR is unlikely in a White Russia.
- A white regime will probably have better effects of pulling the "Mother Russia is in danger!" card than the OTL Red regime had.
- Even if a White regime has a smaller heavy industry then the OTL Red by 1941 it will also likely be less "fixed" on units with loads of "shiny" (but ill-maintained) tanks and guns but almost no support structure behind it. Instead a more balanced army and doctrines. That could be extremely expensive to any invader.
- It will be difficult to build anything as resistant to obvious intelligence as Stalin was in OTL 1941.
All this will of course prerequisite that the Whites succeed in creating a reasonably fair (and wealthy) society. That was by no means certain, it could very well have ended in extreme corruption, warlords and general chaos and without a Stalin at the other side to establish order the hard way. In that case Barbarossa might actually be like "kicking in the door and the whole house comes down".
BTW I'm (slowly) working on a timeline where Russia in the first half of 20th century is mainly inspired by what a Rasputin could have thought up than what Lenin, Stalin or the Zar dreamt about. This Russia I of course also have tested by dreadful foreign invaders...