Feeble Constitution - A Red-and-Green Russia 1917 Timeline

[Salvador79]

It will be 'fun' having them at Versailles, as i doubt that even the revolutionary goverment will want a strong Germany as a neighbourg regardless of the type of goverment and with their economic situation they will go towards the French route and try to squeeze everything from the defeated nations as a mean to rebuild Russia.
On the other side, bolshevick or not, London will want to limit Russia sorry the Union of equal influence expansion...for principle alone as they don't want a single nation have control of Europe, not with Germany and sure not with new Russia; this can create some strange bedfellows, from obstacolate France uber punishment of Germany to support them trying to keep them as allies as a counterpoint to the Union and a possible resurgent Germany, naturally there are couple of substitute/addition at this plan like Italy and Poland (it's part of the 14 points and frankly i doubt that the new goverment will mean anything to any Polish Patriotismus except some hardcore revolutionary).

Indeed the UoE will want reparations. And they want a world Peace order. So they vacillate possibly between aligning with the French or with Wilson. The Brits will be skeptical, and for many reasons; within the Entente, they are Most remote from the UoE.
Now of course everything Depends on whether the UoE's counteroffensive comes, how soon and how successful.
Italy's chances are in the Open yet, which is better than OTL.
As for Poland and its various Patriots, I am already looking forward to describing the Madness there...

 

[lukedalton]

Indeed the UoE will want reparations. And they want a world Peace order.

Well, not so ironically, everyone at Versailles wanted a world peace order and some mean to resolve dispute in alternative at the war, even the German were favorable to the LoN as like everybody else were extremely tired of the conflict and frankly were not really keen to repeat the experience anytime soon.
One of the biggest problem with Wilson and the LoN was that he was his child but he was hardly a man interested in the details and the gritty particular of the day to day administration and politics, thinking that all the problems will have been resolved at the moment and that this great idea will have bring immediately world peace because was the bestest idea ever and he know better than anyone else.
For the UoE addition to the discussion, well much depend on who's sent at Versailles, some pragmatic old school type of politician that can add some grounded reasoning to the discussion or some more idealistic revolutionary that will be more akin to Wilson way of thinking. At least the general situation in the aftermath of the war will be slighlty more pacific without the big russian civil war

 

[Salvador79]

I am sorry, I have an Update on Finland ready but I sent @Betelgeuse the wrong version for editing and now I'm away from my Computer. I'll post it on Monday and I Hope to have another one ready through next week.

Well, not so ironically, everyone at Versailles wanted a world peace order and some mean to resolve dispute in alternative at the war, even the German were favorable to the LoN as like everybody else were extremely tired of the conflict and frankly were not really keen to repeat the experience anytime soon.
One of the biggest problem with Wilson and the LoN was that he was his child but he was hardly a man interested in the details and the gritty particular of the day to day administration and politics, thinking that all the problems will have been resolved at the moment and that this great idea will have bring immediately world peace because was the bestest idea ever and he know better than anyone else.
For the UoE addition to the discussion, well much depend on who's sent at Versailles, some pragmatic old school type of politician that can add some grounded reasoning to the discussion or some more idealistic revolutionary that will be more akin to Wilson way of thinking. At least the general situation in the aftermath of the war will be slighlty more pacific without the big russian civil war

If it were the same Commission that governs now, then they'd probably send people similar to those who negotiated at Brest-Litowsk... But then again, there will be elections in the UoE and its member states soon...

 

[Salvador79]

Sorry I kept everyone waiting so long!
Here is the update on the Finnish Civil War. Thanks once again to @Karelian for his feedback and inspirations regarding Finnish history, and to @Betelgeuse for editing the first two thirds of this text...

The Finnish Civil War, part two (June 1918)

Trotsky decided not to get bogged down in a protracted civil war, but to instead foster the spreading of the Revolution with the help of sailors and thousands of additional raiding and landing troops on board their impressive vessels. He launched a series of naval attacks which would restore the Gulf of Finland to the control of the Union of Equals’ Baltic Fleet, which would have massive repercussions in Finland, as stated in the last update.

The departure of so many soldiers and experienced revolutionaries, along with a lot of military equipment, tilted the balance between the three warring factions in Finland. It left the Red revolutionaries in the South vulnerable, but while some of them seemed acutely aware of this existential threat, other revolutionary socialists in Helsinki, Tampere, Kotka, or Wyborg rejoiced. Especially to those socialists with syndicalist or anarchist leanings, the end of the military regime meant the great chance for all the workers - Finns, Russians, Swedes and everyone else united - to truly take their fate into their own hands, to decide on their factories’ inter-relations without everything being geared by a military commissar with an iron fist towards sustaining the civil war effort. Now was the time for the real socialist utopia to materialize itself in Finland!

The enthusiasm of this group, whose leaders were the brothers Eino and Jukka Rahja, August Wesley and Yrjö Sirola, did not last long. Their more cautious comrades saw the writing on the wall when a division of the Vaasa Senate swept away contingent after contingent of poorly organized militia of volunteers before them on their march on Tampere. Recruitment in the countryside went from bad to worse, with entire villages across the South now successfully resisting both the draft and requisitioning attempts while declaring themselves “restored” to the legitimate rule of the Kuopio Senate. On June 13th, Kullervo Manner, heading a delegation of realistically inclined factory deputies, met with Oskari Tokoi in Mikkeli, to discuss terms under which the South could accept the full restoration of the authority of the Kuopio Senate and its Eduskunta.

Tokoi had previously made another attempt at reconciliation with the Vaasa Senate. Negotiations failed, however, when Svinhufvud insisted on independence from Russia, an alliance with Germany, and the Red rebels in the South feeling the full might of the sword of legal order as preconditions for the disarming of his troops. Given the radicalization of the previous weeks and months, it is questionable if the conflict could have been ended immediately even if Tokoi had given in. Indeed, just as rebels supporting the Kuopio Senate had emerged among the landless throughout rural Finland, militant anti-socialists, mostly of formerly landowning background, formed their own clandestine networks aimed both against Tokoi and the Reds in the South. The most extreme of them, the “Brothers of Hate”, or “Vihan Veljet”, began its insurgence on the very day of the fruitless negotiations between Tokoi and Svinhufvud. They became well known for burning down huts, massacring Tokoi-loyalist peasant leaders, and targeting local Järjestyskunta officers in often suicidal terrorist attacks. [1]

Turned down by Svinhufvud, Tokoi saw the meeting with Manner as the last chance to reunify his conflict-stricken country, with his situational disposition towards compromise and leniency proving vital to the formulation of the compromise which resulted from this meeting. The Manner-Tokoi Pact committed to the reversion of extralegal expropriations and the upholding of property rights, especially in the industrial sector, but it also acknowledged the newly formed factory workers’ councils and their local networks of cooperation, granting them a new role as bodies of arbitration for disputes between employers and individual employees and allowing them to participate in the planning and oversight of welfare and relief measures. They would work alongside representatives from local church parishes, professional organizations, and the chambers into which manufacturers were organised. It placed the organization of conscription in the hands of the regular elected local bodies of communal government, emphasizing an equality of draftees from urban and rural backgrounds, and while it promised amnesty to anyone who surrendered to the legitimate government before June 30th and who had no committed “atrocities” in the name of ideology, it also clarified that any decrees issued by the soviets which were in contravention of existing laws were null and void.

The Pact did not go down without opposition in the industrial centres of the South. Uncompromising radicals like the Rahja brothers and others with connections to Russian ultra-left opposition groups like the rump Bolsheviks (notably among them Ali Aaltonen, Adolf Taimi, and Alexander Schrottman) continued to organize those among the socialist workers who would not lay down their arms and renounce what they had gained for themselves, not even in the face of the threat of the Vaasa troops, who conquered Tampere on June 19th after over a week of bitter fights, in which the courage and bravery of proletarian militia proved no match against the superior weaponry and organization of the Vaasa army and its Jääkäri backbone.

But as news of atrocious retributions even against unarmed workers committed by Suojeluskunta in Tampere spread across the South, socialist resistance against the Manner-Tokoi Pact began to falter, and factory after factory, town after town switched sides, closing the ranks against the Vaasa Army, which in its turn had prevailed in Pori, Rauma, and Turku.

In the last week of June, the new front line ran from Oulu in the North to Tammisaari in the South, dividing a Vaasa-controlled West Coast from the rest of the Finland, in which Oskari Tokoi’s Senate struggled, with increasing success, to restore its legitimate power.

While there were still initiatives for renewed negotiations aimed at a national reconciliation, the Vaasa and the Kuopio Senate both prepared for the last round in this bloody struggle. The Kuopio Senate controlled over three quarters of Finland’s population and territory and comparatively high popularity, but the forces of the Vaasa Senate were both better-trained and had received superior equipment from the Germans, while the Kuopio Senate merely received a trickle of weaponry from Murmansk, carried across the green border by an eager Russian Commission, who had rejoiced at the conclusion of the Tokoi-Manner Pact and attempted to support their fellow leftist reformers in Finland as best they could – but even combined with the output of hasty production undertaken all over the South, that was not enough by far to provide sufficient supplies to the increasingly large military force which the Kuopio Senate had managed to raise.

June 29th, 1918 was a comparatively quiet Sunday. The country seemed to hold its breath. Tokoi and his fellow Senators had decided to make a tour to Helsinki and show themselves to their citizens in a public ceremony, both to make a show of normalcy and keep up civil courage, and to garner support for the compromise and the new order which had been negotiated in the Tokoi-Manner Pact. Thousands had gathered in the sun-bathed Kaisaniemi Park, many waving the banners of various political groups which had formed over the past months, shouting this or that demand, attending the ceremony to support or protest against the Senate, to cry out their demands, but many more simply to watch. They would all become witnesses of the suicide attack by a Vihan Veljet group which targeted the assembled Senators, and managed to kill Oskari Tokoi, Kyösti Kallio and three bodyguards, wounding four more and further Senators Väinö Tanner and Karl Wiik.

To be continued…



[1] And quite certainly also, as @Karelian has pointed out, engaging in the violent settlement of local grudges in a context of general lawlessness and unrest.

 

[generalurist]

Always count on mad bombers to fuck things up. Let's hope that the Kuopio government can hold things together until the Russians manage to sink some German transports.

 

[Salvador79]

Always count on mad bombers to fuck things up. Let's hope that the Kuopio government can hold things together until the Russians manage to sink some German transports.

Yeah, I believe the Finnish situation was badly radicalised enough for such Mad bombers to arise. Boris Kamkov is lucky he has not yet been targeted (think of Lenin IOTL...)
As for German transports, by the end of June there are no longer any new ones arriving. The NYT reported on June 9th about a UoE Baltic Fleet attack on the Alands and other "naval encounters" - while they would certainly not all go Well for the UoE, their Baltic Fleet is Set loose now, with nowhere to Go Back to If they don't make some gains. The Germans have retreated for the moment, switching to U-boat-borne pin-pricks against Trotsky's motley Crew, and generally waiting for opportunities rather than seeking Open Battle.
The Vaasa side is already better equipped, though.

 

[Karelian]

Warships led by sailor soviets do not sound like a pinnacle of efficiency, and that's what Trotsky has. The narrow sea conditions, German aversion of casualties and minefields at of the Gulf of Finland are most likely the only reasons keeping the Russian ships from getting sunk.

 

[Karelian]

And I'm talking about really extensive mining here. The Russians mined the sea areas of the Gulf of Finland, the area between Porkkala and Tallinn, the Gulf of Riga, and the approaches to Reval and Helsinki to defend Petrograd. During the war, the fleet stationed to Helsinki included nearly 40 mineships.

 

[Salvador79]

Warships led by sailor soviets do not sound like a pinnacle of efficiency, and that's what Trotsky has. The narrow sea conditions, German aversion of casualties and minefields at of the Gulf of Finland are most likely the only reasons keeping the Russian ships from getting sunk.

And I'm talking about really extensive mining here. The Russians mined the sea areas of the Gulf of Finland, the area between Porkkala and Tallinn, the Gulf of Riga, and the approaches to Reval and Helsinki to defend Petrograd. During the war, the fleet stationed to Helsinki included nearly 40 mineships.

Mining is certainly an important point here. But while you're right about the problem of relaibility of ships led by sailor soviets in the case of a real impending major battle, where they all risk to die, I think the problem is less dramatic as long as they have overwhelming superiority and are only choosing easy targets (which is the case because the Germans have not sent their entire Ostseeflotte yet).

Also, the Germans ITTL don't really know (or at least can't be sure) about this unreliability of the Baltic Fleet; they don't have the experience of Russian mass-desertiion of a Kerensky Offensive, nor the experience of OTL's Faustschlag. Operations Peter and Paul were conducted against stiff resistance and with heavy German losses. Only Operation alt-Albion was a similar naval encounter to OTL's, and while the Germans prevailed, the Russians didn't just throw the towel there, either. If the Germans were aware of how easy Trotsky's fleet could fall apart, they might take the risk. As it stands, they are much rather aware of how easy their own sailors might mutiny...

 

[Salvador79]

Here's the next installment - a big thanks to @Betelgeuse for editing what was undoubtedly a bad mess at first and now looks uploadable to me

On the front pages of many Russian newspapers, June 30th, 1918:

THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSION ANNOUNCES: THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION TAKEN UP!

The following message to all citizens has been urgently sent to us for publication by the People’s Supreme Commissioner and the People’s Commissioners for Defense and Foreign Affairs:

Comrades! Soldiers and toilers of the countryside and the towns! Citizens of our Motherland! Our time has come. Had another proof been necessary, then the massacre at Novolpolye would have certainly sufficed to convince every man and woman whose heart and mind can distinguish Right from Wrong that the liberation of our brothers and sisters can wait no longer. Markov’s tyranny is murdering unarmed peasants and workers, women and children by the thousands in order to squeeze out the last drop of lifeblood from them. All this in order to feed the beast which has ravaged our continent for four long years now [1].

Our peoples have not started this war; indeed, they have gone to their utmost to stop it. We have tried to merely defend ourselves, and confronted with reckless, brutal forces who threatened to stomp the frail flower of our democratic and socialist revolution, we have retreated and ceded. But Novopolye has dispelled our last doubts: the Germans and their lap-dogs have forced our Union's hand. We want nothing but to build our new free and equal society in our peaceful land - in our peaceful villages, towns and cities. We do not want to take up arms against fellow toilers suffering under the yoke of their military monarchies. But the choice we are faced with has become clear to us: sit still and become accomplices to the atrocities committed against our own peoples, or, reluctantly, take the weapons back into our hands and rise as one man to shake off the yoke which cuts into our flesh, to liberate our compatriots who suffer under the whip of the dictator whom the Germans allow to play tsar of Petrograd, to allow the millions who had to flee to return to their homes, and to drive off the ghosts of yesterday. We have not wanted to return to the battlefields of this horrible war – but now, when our decision has been made, we are utterly determined, and we shall lay all our force into this one final blow.

And one final blow it shall be – the blow which ends this conflagration, for the edifice of imperialist aggression has cracked. It has exhausted itself and the entire world it controls with four years of relentless, unfettered, self-devouring destruction.The majority of capitalist empires have convened to see reason and entrust their future to the cartels of ultra-imperialism [2]. If our revolution shall survive this struggle for life or death, then it will continue its course towards universal freedom, equality, and brotherhood within this new global framework, leading the liberation of the toilers of the world until others shall join their hands with ours. But before we can stride into this future we must deliver the blow which causes the last bastions of unregenerate backwardness to shatter.

And shatter they will. Slovenia’s soldiers mutiny; Poland’s workers are refusing to fight for the empires which subdue them; Rumania’s peasants rally to the call of the liberation of their homeland, where they shall ultimately enjoy what is rightfully theirs [3]. And soon they shall be joined by their Bulgarian brethren, whose rulers are trying to hold onto their privileges by pleading for a separate truce, but who will not be able to control either their armed forces or their toiling masses for very much longer. Freedom, democracy, socialism, and lasting peace are the words of the day in the half of the European continent which we share with many proud nations whose populations are rising to the call of revolution.

Bearing these irrefutable circumstances in mind, the People’s Commission has decided, in agreement with the Supreme All-Union Soviet of the Soldiers and Sailors and after consultation with the prime ministers of the Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Georgian, and Armenian Federative Republics [4], that on this morning, by the dawn of the light, all front detachments shall move forward against the positions of the enemy on all sections of the Western Front [5].

The Commission and the brave comrades engaged in this last fight for liberation – in six Union Armies comprising fifty-five divisions, in thirty-seven divisions of the Republican Guards, and in the forces, over a hundred thousand men strong, which have prepared themselves well to defend or liberate the Federative Republics of Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia [6] – have convened with those who carry the banners of the future free republics of the Czechs and Slovaks, and of the Poles, as well as with our ally, the government of Rumania, to coordinate our efforts in a unified supreme command of the Eastern Front. No-one shall drive a wedge between our nations, for we are ultimately united in our struggle for freedom and justice. Together, we shall overcome the oppressors of peoples, and end this war once and for all.

Four years of imperialist war have drained our forces and our stores. We are tired, we are hungry, we are desperate - but we are not quite so desperate and weak as to prostrate ourselves before backwards powers who would seek to enslave us in perpetuation of a long-obsolete system. These very same powers call us “Easterners”. They shall witness that the sun of revolutionary triumph has risen in the East and shall shine into even the darkest corners of the continent. We shall gather our forces for one last fight, and they shall most certainly suffice to land the decisive blow against the military monarchies whose apparatuses are about to collapse under the revolutionary pressure of their own populations. Over a million men have begun their march to victory together, and we have taken utmost precautions to prepare and equip them with the best of what our workers have forged. The new age has dawned on our battlefields, too – no longer shall the sons of our Motherland be sacrificed like pawns. Employing all tools and tactics of modern warfare to their utmost advantage, they will advance with determination, but not without caution. Providing them with everything they need has been a strenuous effort for all of us, but the reorganisations and reforms in our industries, and the good harvests which this year is promising across the entire country [7], are giving us reasons for confidence in these last weeks of the war [8].

In this struggle our newly-founded Union does not stand alone, and it does not fight for selfish gains or its own aggrandizement. At this juncture in history we stand shoulder to shoulder with all those who struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialist oppression, and we deliver this ultimate blow against the military aggressors together with the most advanced nations of the world who have seen that the time has come to establish a peaceful world order.

Citizens! Comrades! Only a few short steps lay ahead of us. After all our sacrifices, we may not find them easy. But united, and in the certain knowledge of the righteousness of our cause, we shall, for one last time, find the courage and strength to take them. For freedom, justice, and our communities! For our Republic! For our Motherland!

Boris Kamkov; Tobias Axelrod; Pavel Lazimir.


[1] Evidently, Markov’s puppet government must confiscate grain, partly because of German delivery demands. That is bound to cause unrest in the countryside at some point, and the autocratic “Provisional All-Russian Government” in Petrograd has reacted with violence.

[2] Ultra-imperialism is a theory advocated by Kautsky, which IOTL was overshadowed by Lenin’s rebuttal and his theory of imperialism. Basically, Kautsky stated that as the imperialist stage of capitalism has proven, with its destructive military competition, too unstable and detrimental to the nationally cartelized interests of industrial capital and their bourgeois governments, the most advanced capitalist empires are about to establish a cartel among themselves to prevent further overly destructive competition. Looking back at the further history of the 20th century, this may look like a pretty adequate description, but at the time, in the Marxist camp, it was eclipsed by Lenin’s theory which held that (competitive) imperialism was the last stage of capitalist development, and that imperial cartels could never be stable, that they would always slide back into self-destructive warfare, and that only socialist revolution and the overcoming of capitalism could bring peace. ITTL, ultra-imperialism may yet have quite a theoretical career ahead of itself.

[3] The Union of Equals has exerted quite a lot of pressure on the Bratianu government to ultimately legislate Land Reform in Romania, and Bratianu’s government and the parliament which has relocated to Iasi have complied; ITTL, land reform occurs a few years ahead of schedule. The Peasant Party (Partidul Ţărănesc) is criticizing the bill as too limited in scope, and they promise to extend it should they gain a majority in the next parliamentary elections which, also under UoE influence, will be universal and equal.

[4] Finland is missing because Tokoi has just been assassinated. The other heads of governments are:

• Vsevolod Holubovych for the Ukrainian FR (who has followed Vynnychenko in this position, mirroring the superiority of the SRs both electorally, among local and regional soviets, and with regards to their numbers of militiamen, over the Ukrainian SDs),
• Jüri Vilms for the Estonian FR (whose government and parliament have all relocated to Moscow temporarily since their country is occupied; Vilms, leader of the centre-left Radical Socialists / Estonian Socialist Travaillists, is heading a broad national coalition which also includes the Estonian SRs, the centrist Estonian Radical Democratic Party, representatives of the Swedish minority, and even the moderately conservative Estonian Democratic Party),
• Pēteris Stučka for the Latvian FR (an actual Bolshevik leading a Federative Republic! But the Latvian SDs have not split ITTL, the party has many wings, its achievement of the autonomy agreement with the Constitutant Assembly in Petrograd has brought it immense popularity, and Stučka has moderated himself slightly in office, supported the November realignments in Petrograd, parted ways with Lenin and now Bukharin, served as supreme commander of territorial defense forces who fought valiantly but were forced to retreat… now he leads a leftist coalition government-in-exile of the Latvian SDs with various smaller socialist and left-agrarian parties)
• Evgeni Gegechkori for the Georgian FR (a Menshevik with a solid parliamentary majority behind him)
• and Hovhannes Kajaznouni for the Armenian FR (a Dashnak; the main opposition party, the Hunchaks, are also supporting the war, though).

[5] We tend to speak of this front as the “Eastern Front”, but to the Russians, it lay in the West, of course. And, of course, they're not attacking indiscriminately over thousands of kilometers of front line. But the military minutiae are not to be communicated through newspapers yet.

[6] The latter two operating very much from their exile in Russia, anyway.

[7] Unless the Spanish flu reaches the countryside at the wrong moment, that is…

[8] Or maybe not only weeks…

 

[generalurist]

A very impassioned speech, but I'm not very confident about this offensive... The best case scenario is that the British Thessaloniki front launches its offensive early while Russia has Austria distracted, resulting in Austria getting overwhelmed and their fronts collapsing.

 

[Hnau]

I love the prose! You nailed it, sounds legit. I like the sound of this "ultra-imperialism" theory, and all in all it'll be interesting to see where Russian socialism goes without its most extreme and deluded leaders driving the movement. This doesn't seem like a timeline where something like Lysenkoism gains traction, for example.

As for the Last Offensive on the Eastern Front, well, the armies of the Union of Equals may be tired and hungry but at least they're there! The Central Powers don't have much time left in this war do they? 1918 in this timeline is so markedly different from our own, and I can't wait to see where it leads. Please continue!

 

[lukedalton]

A very impassioned speech, but I'm not very confident about this offensive... The best case scenario is that the British Thessaloniki front launches its offensive early while Russia has Austria distracted, resulting in Austria getting overwhelmed and their fronts collapsing.

Honestly depend on the general scenario, A-H is already in a worse situation than OTL and Italy had launched at the beginning of the month an offensive to reconquest the lost territory, even if has not been a victory like Vittorio Veneto she had probably spent the last reserve and more importantly vital supply to fight against...and if the Slovene are in mutiny mean that the situation is very bleak, taking also in consideration that the OE already attempted to ask term and Bulgaria in OTL had also attempted to do it in this period, so the CP seem on the last leg and launching a final offensive can be seen as both a way to end it quicker and to have a better position on the peace conference (for all his nice words, even the UoE will want reparation and a safe border, plus there is the question to support Romania and i frankly doubt that they want a strong Germany...even if socialist).
So, the more sound strategy seem to concentrate towards A-H (the usual weak point) hitting them with everything they have and put a defensive stance against the German to block their attempt to save their allies

Ultra-Imperialism seem to have found a nice justification in the League

 

[galileo-034]

As lukedalton said, A-H is the safer bet.

Even reduced, the German forces are still a strong opponent, while the Austro-Hungarian front is comparatively weak and has been consistently the one the Russians won their greatest successes throughout the war so far.
Then, considering the Rumanian and Czechoslovak troops already facing the southern front could be said much more battle worthy than their Russian ally, the AH front is the best opportunity.
That said, given the recent developments in Bulgaria and Turkey, I'd say the better direction of an offensive would be not be westwards onto Galicia and the Carpathian mountains but southwestwards, towards the Danube.

Turkey is earlier into a bad position on its southern flank and Anatolia is threatened, while Russian forces are still a big factor on the Caucasus front without its OTL collapse.
Also, the Sublime Porte and Bulgaria have been into talks trying to get some separate peace but these talks have led nowhere, for the time being, though they indicate Ottomans and Bulgarians could be not far from the breaking point.

As I see a possible offensive, it would begin with diversionary attacks towards Petrograd and the Baltic region to pin down whatever Germans still hold in reserve and prevent these reserves from reinforcing the Austro-Hungarians in the south. After that, the main offensive is launched south and southwest into Rumania, with one pincer towards Bucharest, north of the Danube, and another to cross the Danube river into Dobruja, attacking southwards towards the Bulgarian border while trying to keep contact with the northern pincer and secure Constanza and Varna to secure supply routes from the sea with support of the Black Sea Fleet.
The result that can be hoped is to break at last the back of Bulgaria, should the breakout in Dobruja happen, falling the first of dominos. Also, a big morale boost in the short run would be the liberation of Bucharest.
The following dominoes would be Turkey, as it did IOTL after the breakout in Macedonia. Given the situation on the Italian front and in the Balkans, Austria-Hungary would follow suit quickly, and finally, Germany.


EDIT: Something like that map, with in blue the proposed offensive, red for the possible follow up, dark red for the ever crazy dream of taking Constantinople.

 

[Salvador79]

A very impassioned speech, but I'm not very confident about this offensive... The best case scenario is that the British Thessaloniki front launches its offensive early while Russia has Austria distracted, resulting in Austria getting overwhelmed and their fronts collapsing.

Austria is busy on various fronts; as @lukedalton has reminded us, there was this Italian offensive... (a little more on that in another update) and A-H has major problems with its own armed forces (discipline, revolts etc.). Various powers are just a few steps away from collapsing at this moment. But I understand your skepticism with regard to Russia's chances to win battles. Huge breakthroughs like the one sketched by @galileo-034 above are probably only possible if the enemy is disintegrating.

I love the prose! You nailed it, sounds legit.

Thank you so much!

I like the sound of this "ultra-imperialism" theory

Ultra-Imperialism seem to have found a nice justification in the League

Yeah, Kautsky is often derided, and he certainly wasn't a man of charisma, but I think his theories are somewhat under-rated, and his choices in a difficult time didn't make him a prominent leader, but they were also something he never had to be ashamed of.

and all in all it'll be interesting to see where Russian socialism goes without its most extreme and deluded leaders driving the movement. This doesn't seem like a timeline where something like Lysenkoism gains traction, for example.

Exploring how Russian socialism (or whatever will emerge there) and socialism in general is developing ITTL is what interests me, too. No, Lysenkoism is not likely to emerge. Speaking of sciences, it'll be interesting to see how Russian schools of thought (I'm thinking of Bogdanov as a leading figure, for example, because ITTL he's part of the IRSDLP unification bloc and thus in the middle of things) are developing if there is more interaction with the rest of the world.

the CP seem on the last leg and launching a final offensive can be seen as both a way to end it quicker and to have a better position on the peace conference

Indeed I think this is not entirely irrelevant. The UoE had to wait to reorganise, rebuild and resupply, but they also waited for what looks like the right moment to strike: Germany has finally committed the bulk of its reserves to the offensive in Flanders, the Italians are pushing against A-H in a very threatening way, and Bulgaria and the Ottomans are looking for a way out. Kamkov et al. sense weakness in their enemies, and their opportunity to regain ground and position themselves favourably for the post-war haggle, which this Commission has no illusions about.

So, the more sound strategy seem to concentrate towards A-H (the usual weak point) hitting them with everything they have and put a defensive stance against the German to block their attempt to save their allies

The Austro-Hungarians at the Romanian front are reinforced by the German Army Group Mackensen, too, though. And there's also the question - unified command or not - of what the various foreign legions and corps which the Russians harbour want and how much control the Commission can really exert here.

snip

Awesome map! The only way I see this happening is if A-H and Bulgaria are collapsing. If they are, though, the Romanians will immediately want to go West to occupy Transilvania before their window of opportunity closes, though...

 

[galileo-034]

Awesome map! The only way I see this happening is if A-H and Bulgaria are collapsing. If they are, though, the Romanians will immediately want to go West to occupy Transilvania before their window of opportunity closes, though...

As you said, the right time.
With the AH distracted on the Italian front and the Germans busy in Flanders, plus the Bulgarians having the bulk of their forces on the Macedonian front, I guessed the frontline on the Danubian plain would be spread thin, and even though there is Mackensen, there is no much room left, especially if the Entente force launch a limited offensive on the Macedonian front to fix Bulgarians. As I outlined it, I'm not seeing a breakthrough but more of a withdrawal.

From the Russian pov, that section of the front might be the easiest to push into and the best for potential ratio of resources involved to potential benefit, the former being due to the relative weakness of that section of the front on the Central powers side (few if any reserves available to AH and Bulgaria, AH busy on the Italian front, Bulgaria fixed in Macedonia, Germans busy in Flanders and the Baltic) and its relative strength on Entente side (Romanian and Czechoslovak forces, possibility to play the advantage of the Russian control of the Black sea to support coastal and riverine advances there) and the latter being the very perspective of achieving some progress at minimum and at best pushing Bulgaria and AH further into the brink of collapse.
Realistically, we can expect the blue arrows to be the maximum. It can be seen as a move to retrieve ground lost in late 1916.

 

[Hnau]

You armchair generals! The Southern Offensive idea is appropriate in this situation for all the reasons you expertly lay out. The Slavs would likely break for Russia with such a move, can you imagine the riots in Bucharest, let alone Belgrade and Subotica if the Russians started making massive territorial acquisitions in that direction? There will surely be Russian military leaders who favor such an approach. Remind me again what Brusilov is doing in this timeline? That kinda strategic move is dramatic, but he might be in favor of it if he was around. Taking Constantinople is a stretch but hey, generals made plans like that all the time in modern war in our world, that would be amazing if the Russians could take it, and if the Porte was collapsing it might become a very vulnerable target.

I have to say, on a quick re-read of the last installment, the feeling I have is that despite the ongoing war, I think that because Kamkov moved fast on the "Red Repartition" and railroading a (admittedly weak) political solution to the revolution, the Russian people will be at this point quite pacified and confident in their new government, at least relative to levels in 1916 and 1917. That's a huge advantage for this regime. Furthermore, it seems apparent that in Kamkov's speech two particularly decisive points were made that will bear noting, as they are radical moves on Kamkov's part.

• The speech explicitly labels the imperial capitalists in the Central Powers as the world's main threat, while trying to preserve the imperial capitalists among the Allies as friends and partners. This is an obvious move in a total war situation like Russia has found itself in, with breakdown always seeming to be around the corner, but it's a significant ideological development that was hardly even experimented in the Soviet Union. Ravnevik Socialists will have a more non-aggressive stance to the West in this world, and may cultivate international relations and projects that were never possible with the Soviet Communists of our world.
• The speech lays out a plan for a full advance on the Central Power territory, and argues that the new Union Army is not the old, that this time it'll work. Yet, we know that the Eastern Front's greatest successes were with breakout moves. Considering the weaknesses laid out before of the situation in Russia, perhaps this is just a misdirection on Kamkov's part completely. One possibility is that there is no "rolling advance", maybe he knows that the lines will just stay static, and so Kamkov can just wait for the other Allies to make the knockout moves against Berlin and Vienna and expend the men and resources. After all, the author did hint that a certain angel of death is about to enter Russia's borders...

 

[galileo-034]

Well, the arrows to Constantinople, Sofia and past Bucharest towards Serbia aren't meant at all as actual plans but far away objective that are unrealistic but, at least for the Constantinople one, consistent with Russia long-standing obsession to control the straits.
The proposed plan for a possible offensive is only the blue one, even though it's extent is only the maximum we could expect in the event of a yet to come collapse. In the reality, it translates into a crossing into Dobruja and an advance up the Danube river on its two banks.

Don't mistake an intent with the result,for what I wrote is only about intent, based on political situation and the bilan of military advantages that can be put forwards by a side there.
As for being an 'armchair general', I think we are all one in a way or another on this forum.
So when I wrote, I wrote of a plan and intents, but I would not dare venture past intent and into action, for I well know my capacities are limited to intent only.

 

[Salvador79]

You armchair generals! The Southern Offensive idea is appropriate in this situation for all the reasons you expertly lay out. The Slavs would likely break for Russia with such a move, can you imagine the riots in Bucharest, let alone Belgrade and Subotica if the Russians started making massive territorial acquisitions in that direction? There will surely be Russian military leaders who favor such an approach. Remind me again what Brusilov is doing in this timeline?

Alexey Alexeyevich Brusilov has remained Commander in Chief ITTL a good while longer than IOTL (in the absence of a Kerensky offensive...), basically until the November Realignment, which meant yet another political jump to the left. Brusilov had cooperated, not without serious skepticism, but loyally, with the Voykom under the moderately leftist Chernov Commission, and he has been instrumental in gearing the officer replacements, structural readjustments and changes in doctrine and tactics begun in summer 1917 so that they didn't just mirror the socialists' desire and political necessity to replace tsarist officers with pro-revolutionary people, but also, at least to some degree, capable and innovative people from the second and third row could come to the fore, and the new units and structures received tactical instruction which had drawn a few lessons from the war.
The much more leftist Kamkov Commission emphasised the political dimension of military restructuring a lot more after November, to an extent which Brusilov found very hard to stomach, and so threatened with resignation, and in the enthusiastic first weeks of the Kamkov Commission and its beginning peace negotiations at Brest-Litowsk, the restructured Voykom responded by encouraging him to resign, which he then did.

The head of Voykom (basically the Minister of Defense) has remained in office ever since the formation of the first Chernov Commission, though: Pavel Lazimir, who stands on the left wing of the SRs. Him being one of the architects of the November Realignments, which brought a good portions of the Bolsheviks into the coalition and a good number of Red Guards into the regular armed forces, he did not shed a tear when Brusilov left. At first. With time, I am sure he cannot fail to recognise what the Union Army has lost in its former Commander in Chief. What with the situation getting more and more dramatic throughout 1918 - the Germans besieging, poisoning and conquering Petrograd, then the plans for a counter-offensive -, I would not exclude Lazimir to try to call him back, and I would not exclude Brusilov to follow his sense of patriotic duty. There would be massive resistance within the new military leadership against reinstating Brusilov as Commander in Chief at this point in time, but some other important position, maybe within Voykom, may be conceivable. I'm not decided yet and eager to hear what you think. Lazimir is the longest serving commissioner by now, and heading the most powerful ressort, too, so he has undoubtedly become a powerful figure in Moscow by now - if he wants to bring Brusilov back on the train, he would find a way, I'm sure.

the Russian people will be at this point quite pacified and confident in their new government, at least relative to levels in 1916 and 1917. That's a huge advantage for this regime.

I would think so, too. At least if we're not focusing on the former elites, who are still somewhere between shock, fear, and rage. On the other hand, the war has always been most popular with this group, so this is not a quarter from where the Kamkov Commission must fear resistance against the counter-offensive.

The speech explicitly labels the imperial capitalists in the Central Powers as the world's main threat, while trying to preserve the imperial capitalists among the Allies as friends and partners. This is an obvious move in a total war situation like Russia has found itself in, with breakdown always seeming to be around the corner, but it's a significant ideological development that was hardly even experimented in the Soviet Union. Ravnevik Socialists will have a more non-aggressive stance to the West in this world, and may cultivate international relations and projects that were never possible with the Soviet Communists of our world.

Yup. I've been reading a lot of stuff from 1917-1919 from seriously leftist, but non-Leninist socialist thinkers lately (from within the German USPD, the Internationalist Mensheviks and the like - hence my appraisal of Kautsky), and the appreciation I got is that Lenin's views were really extremely unorthodox in a number of ways, among them attitudes towards the most advanced bourgeois democracies, and this, together with the separate peace at Brest-Litowsk and the ensuing engagement of capitalist powers on the side of the Whites in the Russian Civil War have brought forth a very sharp, very remarkable - and if it didn't happen IOTL people might have called it ASB - turn of the radical (chiefly, but not exclusively Russian) left against "the West".
Btw, I am sorry but I don't know what "Ravnevik" Socialists are, can you enlighten me?

After all, the author did hint that a certain angel of death is about to enter Russia's borders...

The Spanish flu is mostly sticking to OTL's schedule, and with massive interaction between CP and Union soldiers (prisoners etc.) along the front, plus more international trade, the Russians are fully hit by the first wave, too, entering Eastern Europe around the time of the counter-offensive, and peaking there towards the end of July. Overall, this need not be catastrophic:
1) the first wave has already ravaged Western and Central Europe, so it's not like Russia is at any particular disadvantage here
2) the first wave was by far not as deadly as the second wave.
But if it spreads at the wrong moment (e.g. when major crops need to be harvested) in an agricultural country like Russia, it could knock the feeble agricultural recovery flat out.

As for being an 'armchair general', I think we are all one in a way or another on this forum.

I fully agree. And I am glad to have such great generals as you all in my armchair HQ ;-)

 

[lukedalton]

Any decision towards Brusilov will be controversial, he represent the old regime but it also the more capable military commander of Russia and a patriot...and with the fall of Petrogad and the incoming 'final' offensive many of people involved will want any possible advantage and the former tsarist officer it's too good to waste. Said that, he becoming the new CinC will not only hit a lot of egos in the Union army and politicians but a reorganization so big just before an important operation can be destructive...a position inside the minister of defense or in an 'advisory' position in the Army staff (officially advisory but in practice he is the one calling the shot but as a saving face measure he had no official command).