Say instead of the Bolsheviks managing to beat down their rivals on the left and right, central government post-Czarist Russia crumbles entirely? (Possible POD - Lenin and Trotsky turn on each other or one or the other dies in the turmoil of the times, crippling the Bolsheviks but not handing victory to the Whites)
So, by 1925 you might have:
* The USSR with a capital in Petersburg, stretching eastwards as far as Vologda or so.
* An uneasy coalition between the Constitutional Democratic and Socialist-Revolutionary parties in Moscow controlling some, but not all, of the Muscovite heartland.
* In Samara, a Provisonal All-Russian Government run by the counter-revolutionary Komuch group.
* An Anglo-American supported North Russia Provisional Government controlling the Arctic coast from Archangelsk to Murmansk.
* The Kolchak-led Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia centered on Tomsk.
* A Japanese backed Provisional Priamurye Government in Vladivostok.
* A rival Bolshevik Far Eastern Republic in Chita.
* A constantly shifting struggle between Bolsheviks, non-Bolshevik leftists, Anarchists, Whites and Ukrainian nationalists in Ukraine.
* Denikin's South Russian Volunteer Army Zone in the Crimea and south Russia along the Sea of Azov.
* A small Ukrainian Republic of the Far East along the middle and upper reaches of the Ussuri River.
* Regional strongmen (usually former Czarist officers with a cadre of veteran soldiers and a larger mob of bandits to prop them up) almost everywhere.
* And God knows what else.
In short, Russia as OTL's China. Who will be the Chiang Kai-shek of this TL?
So, by 1925 you might have:
* The USSR with a capital in Petersburg, stretching eastwards as far as Vologda or so.
* An uneasy coalition between the Constitutional Democratic and Socialist-Revolutionary parties in Moscow controlling some, but not all, of the Muscovite heartland.
* In Samara, a Provisonal All-Russian Government run by the counter-revolutionary Komuch group.
* An Anglo-American supported North Russia Provisional Government controlling the Arctic coast from Archangelsk to Murmansk.
* The Kolchak-led Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia centered on Tomsk.
* A Japanese backed Provisional Priamurye Government in Vladivostok.
* A rival Bolshevik Far Eastern Republic in Chita.
* A constantly shifting struggle between Bolsheviks, non-Bolshevik leftists, Anarchists, Whites and Ukrainian nationalists in Ukraine.
* Denikin's South Russian Volunteer Army Zone in the Crimea and south Russia along the Sea of Azov.
* A small Ukrainian Republic of the Far East along the middle and upper reaches of the Ussuri River.
* Regional strongmen (usually former Czarist officers with a cadre of veteran soldiers and a larger mob of bandits to prop them up) almost everywhere.
* And God knows what else.
In short, Russia as OTL's China. Who will be the Chiang Kai-shek of this TL?