1920s after failed Bolshevik Revolution

Well first, the chronology here is messed up, the white movement were not Monarchists, their roots as a group lie in the February revolution. Even the most conservative of them had no wish to restore the monarchy and were mostly happy with a military dictatorship.

Is it easy to tell? Was there not a doctrine of deliberately avoiding making statements on how Russia would be governed after the war was won, in order to avoid splitting the White movement?

I doubt the victorious Whites would restore the Romanovs to absolute power, but I can easily imagine a de jure Romanov emperor as a figleaf to legitimise a de facto conservative stratocracy led by whoever emerged from the presumable power struggle between Denikin, Kolchak, Yudenich et al.

Further even if the Bolsheviks are crushed early on in October, the whites would quickly find that Russia had no capacity to continue fighting the war, that the military had essentially totally collapsed, and that the only option was demobilization or facing the fact that what remained of their army wouldn't fight. They'd have to choose Peace or total defeat to Germany.

I would note that the OP supposes an earlier Triple Entente victory, presumably due to changes on the Western Front. I would also note that the Bolsheviks continued the war beyond 1917 in OTL and may well have attempted to continue it longer if Imperial Germany's situation in the west looked sufficiently precarious. Indeed, I suggested this as a way to weaken public support of the Bolsheviks, on the basis that a cry for peace and not imperialist war looks less credible when the movement making it is continuing the very war that it is decrying as imperialist; that way, if the Whites were also given more support by the West than they were in OTL and if the Whites got sufficiently lucky, the Whites could potentially have seized the poor areas of central Russia that were the key source of Bolshevik support.

In stodge's way of putting it, the way I interpreted the OP was "What if the Bolshevik Government was overthrown during the Russian Civil War?" rather than supposing an earlier Bolshevik collapse.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Wait, are we assuming White victory in the Civil War or just that the Bolshevik coup attempt goes nowhere due to a more competent Provisional Government?

Because these are two very different things. And I have argued before that White victory is one of the hardest of the popular AH clichés to actually pull of (but then again all the popular AH clichés tend to be challenges).

Actually the having the Bolshevik revolution fail or never take off in the first place would be easier, since what's needed is just the Bolsheviks running out of luck at some critical moment in 1917.

Either way I can't see the Romanov monarchy being reestablished in either scenario.

Regarding the size of Russia:

Civil War scenario: Russia will shrink, the question is by how much
No bolshevik revolution/ revolution crushed: Russia will grow, due to still being a part of the Entente.
 
No bolshevik revolution/ revolution crushed: Russia will grow, due to still being a part of the Entente.

The growth would also cause some real lasting problems in Anatolia. It might be enough to create some Great Game rivalry between United Kingdom and Russia. Shared or Russian control of Constantinople would be a serious source of conflict.
 
Failure in October

FWIW, I can't see the Bolshevik coup failing in Petrograd. The events of the autumn had left Kerensky completely isolated and as it turned out, apart from a small group of women, nobody fought for the Provisional Government.

By October, the Bolsheviks are too strong to be simply crushed - the POD either needs to be a more successful response to the July Days and/or no Kornilov Affair.

We can add other butterflies such as a more successful Galician Offensive and less internal strife within the Provisional Government.

So, by the end of July, Lenin and Trotsky are behind bars and the Bolshevik Party has been dismembered and suppressed. The Soviets have been closed down and the Provisional Government, under the SR leadership of Kerensky, is in full control.

With the conclusion of the Galician Offensive, Kornilov pledges his loyalty to the Provisional Government and the front stabilises in the East and the food situation improves thanks to supplies from the west and the USA.

It's a harsh winter in Europe but especially for the Germans who are near starvation. Hindenburg and Moltke reason the Russians can be contained but the growing threat of American forces means the West has to be subdued and quickly.

Leaving just a holding force, the Germans move vast numbers of men and materiel from the Eastern Front and on 21st March 1918 launch a huge offensive.

As in OTL, this fails and the consequences are disastrous for the Germans on all fronts. The allied push begins in early August and Krensky is persuaded to join the general offensive.

With German and Austrian lines thin and suffering from desertion and re-supplied from France and the Americans, the Russians, on August 10th 1918, begin their own offensive. The results are spectacular as the Germans fall into a headlong retreat back to the Vistula. There, the Russians are held briefly before a second offensive in ealry October breaks the German lines again.

Symbolically, the Russians re-enter Prussia on October 15th and are heading for Tilsit and Koenigsberg with only patchy resistance.

With the near-collapse in the West, Ludendorff and Hindenburg urge the Kaiser to seek terms but before he can do so, there are mass demonstrations against the war led by dserting soldiers and sailors and politically by the Social Democrats.

The Kaiser abdicates on October 26th and the Germans agree an armistice on October 31st.

Kerensky's Government is represented at Versailles and wins key territorial concessions in the west - the young Kerensky cuts a contrasting figure to Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau.

The post-war European world is a place of shifting alliances - though politically very different, Krensky finds a new ally in German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann and the Treaty of Rappallo (1922) begins a new era of German-Russian friendship. The new states of Eastern Europe, fearful of this new rapprochement, move closer to France, Britain and Italy.

By 1940, Kerensky remains the dominant political figure in Russia - his social democratic Government is widely admired and respected and Russia has cordial relations with Scandinavia and especially so with Franklin Roosevelt's United States.

Germany has not fared so well - following Stresemann's death, a succession of weak centrist Governments do not serve the country well in the 1930s
 
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