A Surviving Russian Republic

CaliGuy

Banned
It's not selling out it's accepting that you are getting ass handed to you and making a prompt exit with minimal losses ie not being stubborn.
Besides the thread is about a surviving Russian republic, it doesn't say anything about who's in charge and with an early exit in the war the Russians are less likely to fall to an extreme political wing.
I think that you are overestimating how pro-peace the Russian public was during this time:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!s.../soc.history.what-if/WznPulAWWzo/Om7_VTHXIOAJ

"In December 1917 the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries held its Fourth
Congress. The extreme left of the party had already defected to form the
Left SR Party but there were still people of quite left-wing views at the
Congress. One of them, Kogan-Bernstein, proposed that the forthcoming
Constituent Assembly summon the Allies to begin peace talks without delay,
and in the event of their refusal or failure to reply within a specified
time limit, Russia would have a free hand. The resolution did not say how
this freedom would be used, but it did at least imply separate action if not
a separate peace. The resolution was voted down 72-52 with 32 abstentions.
(Oliver Radkey, *The Sickle under the Hammer: the Russian Socialist
Revolutionaries in the Early Months of Soviet Rule*, p. 192.) And this was
after not only the disastrous summer offensive but the October insurrection!
Yet *even then*, only one-third of the mainstream SRs were willing to demand
tangible progress toward peace, even at the cost of breaking with the Allies.
So how likely were they (or their similarly-minded Menshevik comrades) to do
so several months earlier?"
 
I think that you are overestimating how pro-peace the Russian public was during this time:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/soc.history.what-if/72-52|sort:relevance/soc.history.what-if/WznPulAWWzo/Om7_VTHXIOAJ

"In December 1917 the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries held its Fourth
Congress. The extreme left of the party had already defected to form the
Left SR Party but there were still people of quite left-wing views at the
Congress. One of them, Kogan-Bernstein, proposed that the forthcoming
Constituent Assembly summon the Allies to begin peace talks without delay,
and in the event of their refusal or failure to reply within a specified
time limit, Russia would have a free hand. The resolution did not say how
this freedom would be used, but it did at least imply separate action if not
a separate peace. The resolution was voted down 72-52 with 32 abstentions.
(Oliver Radkey, *The Sickle under the Hammer: the Russian Socialist
Revolutionaries in the Early Months of Soviet Rule*, p. 192.) And this was
after not only the disastrous summer offensive but the October insurrection!
Yet *even then*, only one-third of the mainstream SRs were willing to demand
tangible progress toward peace, even at the cost of breaking with the Allies.
So how likely were they (or their similarly-minded Menshevik comrades) to do
so several months earlier?"
I didn't say anything about how pro peace the Russians were at the time, I'm suggesting that coming to terms with the Germans earlier will help the provisional government
 
They initially wanted to wait for the Constituent Assembly to gather and to defer this decision to them, correct?

That was one of the their problems--they used the forthcoming Constituent Assembly as an excuse for delaying many important decisions ("this must wait for the Constituent Assembly")--yet at the same time they didn't hold the elections to the Constituent Assembly until it was too late. Oliver Radkey has argued that the election could have been held much sooner, but that the Kadets in particular wanted to delay it because they knew they would do poorly. "Precious weeks were wasted in sterile debates on such subjects as electoral rights for the defunct dynasty, no member of which could have mustered a corporal's guard (better, a general's guard). At first there had been talk of holding the election in August, but August yielded to September, September yielded to October, and it required an ultimatum from Minister-President Kerenski's own party to hold the government to a date in November. Actually, November 25 marked merely the beginning of the electoral process, which dragged on into December and then into January of 1918. It was a miserable performance." *Russia Goes to the Polls: The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917* (second edition, 1990), p. 92.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
That was one of the their problems--they used the forthcoming Constituent Assembly as an excuse for delaying many important decisions ("this must wait for the Constituent Assembly")--yet at the same time they didn't hold the elections to the Constituent Assembly until it was too late. Oliver Radkey has argued that the election could have been held much sooner, but that the Kadets in particular wanted to delay it because they knew they would do poorly. "Precious weeks were wasted in sterile debates on such subjects as electoral rights for the defunct dynasty, no member of which could have mustered a corporal's guard (better, a general's guard). At first there had been talk of holding the election in August, but August yielded to September, September yielded to October, and it required an ultimatum from Minister-President Kerenski's own party to hold the government to a date in November. Actually, November 25 marked merely the beginning of the electoral process, which dragged on into December and then into January of 1918. It was a miserable performance." *Russia Goes to the Polls: The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917* (second edition, 1990), p. 92.
Thanks for this information!

Also, wouldn't holding these elections during wartime be problematic in the sense that not everyone could vote (after all, the people in German-occupied areas wouldn't be able to vote)? Or was that something which was a necessary evil?
 
Thanks for this information!

Also, wouldn't holding these elections during wartime be problematic in the sense that not everyone could vote (after all, the people in German-occupied areas wouldn't be able to vote)? Or was that something which was a necessary evil?

That was regarded as a necessary evil--AFAIK no major party, even the Kadets, openly argued for delaying the Constituent Assembly elections until after the war was over. Anyway, the Germans as of 1917 did not occupy very much truly Russian territory. They did of course occupy Congress Poland, but the Provisional Government had recognized the independence of Poland. Yes, there were Lithuania and Latvia (though the Germans didn't take Riga until September 1917) and some areas of western Belarus and Ukraine. Still, as Radkey points out:

"There are those who contend that the situation both within the country and outside it precluded any satisfactory consultation of the population in 1917. This contention, made in exculpation of the Provisional Government, does not stand the test of history. Two months had been enough to enable France to choose its constituent assembly in 1848. Two months had sufficed for Germany (9 November 1918-January 1919). And two weeks had seen an election held and the Bordeaux assembly convened after the capitulation of Paris (29 January-13 February 1871). Eight months were required for Russia to *begin* to elect its constituent assembly and almost two more for *half* this assembly to convene. But, it will be objected, France and Germany are nation-states and limited in size, whereas Russia is an empire, vast and many-peopled. Actually Russia was in far better condition to elect an assembly in 1917 than France in 1871 or Germany in 1919, countries that were wholly at the mercy of enemy powers as well as being racked by revolution and Germany by near famine. For France even to hold an election required the indulgence of Bismarck. Russia had lost nothing except the outer belt of territories that it had taken from others; hardly anywhere did the enemv stand on truly Russian soil. It is not the unwieldiness or backwardness of Russia that accounts for the difference, it is the will of the respective governments. Those of France and Germany sincerely sought an expression of the national will because of democratic principle and as a means of coping with a desperate situation: that of Russia outwardly deferred to popular sovereignty but was determined to thwart or delay as long as possible anything that might detract from prosecution of the war. It quite failed to see that this course was creating for itself as well as for the assembly a situation that would become not only desperate but hopeless." *Russia Goes to the Polls: The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917* (second edition, 1990), pp. 95-96.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
That was regarded as a necessary evil--AFAIK no major party, even the Kadets, openly argued for delaying the Constituent Assembly elections until after the war was over. Anyway, the Germans as of 1917 did not occupy very much truly Russian territory. They did of course occupy Congress Poland, but the Provisional Government had recognized the independence of Poland. Yes, there were Lithuania and Latvia (though the Germans didn't take Riga until September 1917) and some areas of western Belarus and Ukraine. Still, as Radkey points out:

"There are those who contend that the situation both within the country and outside it precluded any satisfactory consultation of the population in 1917. This contention, made in exculpation of the Provisional Government, does not stand the test of history. Two months had been enough to enable France to choose its constituent assembly in 1848. Two months had sufficed for Germany (9 November 1918-January 1919). And two weeks had seen an election held and the Bordeaux assembly convened after the capitulation of Paris (29 January-13 February 1871). Eight months were required for Russia to *begin* to elect its constituent assembly and almost two more for *half* this assembly to convene. But, it will be objected, France and Germany are nation-states and limited in size, whereas Russia is an empire, vast and many-peopled. Actually Russia was in far better condition to elect an assembly in 1917 than France in 1871 or Germany in 1919, countries that were wholly at the mercy of enemy powers as well as being racked by revolution and Germany by near famine. For France even to hold an election required the indulgence of Bismarck. Russia had lost nothing except the outer belt of territories that it had taken from others; hardly anywhere did the enemv stand on truly Russian soil. It is not the unwieldiness or backwardness of Russia that accounts for the difference, it is the will of the respective governments. Those of France and Germany sincerely sought an expression of the national will because of democratic principle and as a means of coping with a desperate situation: that of Russia outwardly deferred to popular sovereignty but was determined to thwart or delay as long as possible anything that might detract from prosecution of the war. It quite failed to see that this course was creating for itself as well as for the assembly a situation that would become not only desperate but hopeless." *Russia Goes to the Polls: The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917* (second edition, 1990), pp. 95-96.
Thanks for this information, David! :) Indeed, based on this information, the Russians were truly idiots for refusing to hold constituent assembly elections as soon as possible in 1917. :(

Of course, what I am curious about is this--who do you think would have won these elections? The SRs? Also, what about if the right SRs and left SRs manage to split in time? Then who would have won these elections?
 
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