Seward dies in office, Russia keeps Alaska, a Gold Rush in Alaska leads to a seccesion from the Russian Empire. The indepedent Alaska serves as a refuge for White Russians to commit raids on the USSR during the 20's. The USSR invades Alaska over a refusal for exradation, and, due to continuing sabotage and guirealla warfare, the USSR loses. (Like OTL Winter War) The USSR then suffers from continual raids and sabotage from the White exiles. This leads to butterflies, and Stalin is outsed by a military coup.
After that, I have no idea.
If the Russian Empire had kept Alaska, it could have survived as a frozen White Russian redoubt during and after the Russian Civil War thanks to the Monroe Doctrine.
Given the sharp reaction to the Bolsheviks in the US at the time, there was no way any US administration would allow Bolsheviks to raid, attack, or invade North America, whether in hot pursuit or not. My feeling is, the US Navy would protect Russian Alaska from the Bolsheviks. In any case, we should not assume automatic hostilities. Lenin recognized a nominally independent Far Eastern Republic (capital Vladivostok) for two years until the Japanese and the US removed their troops, after which he promptly reunified the Far East with the USSR.
Lenin might similarly recognize an independent Alaska, esp. given his complete inability to do anything about it in 1918-1921. After which, the US Navy would block any Soviet attempts to conquer Alaska. Russian Alaska would probably be ruled by some Romanov Grand Duke who managed to get out in time. It would be a rather poor and pathetic place, full of White Russian emigres trying to survive in a tough climate with few amenities.
The Cold War would ensure that the US umbrella would extend over Alyaska as well. However, the Soviets would have elaborate plans to seize it. After 1989...it would be interesting to imagine the interaction between post-Communist Russia and a formally monarchist Alyaska...we can imagine a fad for all things Alaskan in post-Soviet Moscow for a while...sounds like a good story to be written.
I can't see it.
The Russian Empire is seriously thin on the ground in the Russian far east never mind Alaska where there are only a few thousand traders of the Russian American Company and Imperial troops. The trans-Bikal was almost empty of Russians save for administrators, soldiers, merchants and some Cossacks until very late in the 19th century. The Trans-Siberian Railway was only fully completed in 1916 although to be fair it was largely functional for the Russo-Japanese war. Vladivostock was only founded in 1859 but for several years before that the Russian Pacific Squadron was based on Nicolaev-na-Amure or Kamchatky-Petropavlovsk. The Russian Pacific Squadron of the Crimean war/ACW period was larger than the US Pacific fleet but pretty inferior compared to the Royal Navy.
If the Russians do manage to hold onto Alaska until the TSR gets built then they are at least in with a chance. This is however pretty unlikely as American settlers, gold miners and commercial interests were pushing north from 1860 onwards and had been fairly effectively kept from acquiring bits of BNA by Governor Douglas, their next port of call would have been Russian North America - Alaska. The real killer for Russian North America would have been the Klondike gold rush which started around 1896 and as they used to say in colonial times 'whups! there goes Skagway' the only question is who gets it, dear old Vicky or plumptious Grover, or maybe if he is not quick enough off the mark young MacKinley.
In summary if they don't sell it to the USA then either the Americans end up taking it or the British do, with outside chances for the Spanish and Japanese late in the 19th century.
If by some fluke of chance it stayed part of Russia until the revolution I could see it becoming a refuge for White Russian counter-revolutionaries, what I can also see is Japan and perhaps the USA using it as an opportunity to acquire Alaska. It could be an early flash point between those countries around 1919 to say 1924. Out in the forests and beyond the tree line Eskimo agents provocateur from Chukotka preach revolution and Leninism to the Aleut, Inuit and Yupik.
No sorry non-starter.
Dure pats Daedulus on the back, "there, there, it will be alright"
Sorry about the downer I just can't see it happening. Russia is stretched too thin today, it is going to have great difficulty holding on to Yakutia and the far east. Holding onto Alaska until the revolution? It is asking an awful lot.
Could Japan own Alaska? Yes, but it could not aquire it much before 1900 (because it did not have the resources) or after 1925 (as the US and perhaps Britain would not let it).
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Valdemar II,
I understand the statements you are making but I can't seem to work out the justification for them, could you explain a little more?
I suspect that you have mis-understood some of what I have written.
Valdermar II,
There is half a century between 1867 when in OTL the USA purchased Alaska and 1917 and the start of the Bolshevik revolution in the Russian Empire. Immediately prior to this period the Russian Empire had been defeated by the British, French, Ottomans and others in the Crimean war. The British and French attacked Russia’s Pacific coast and Russia did not have the resources to resist. In 1867 the Russians both distrusted and disliked the British. The reason the Russians sold Alaska was that it was too remote and not profitable enough to defend especially in another war with Britain. The reason the USA brought it was, at least in part to box in the British. For the first twenty years of the period 1867-1917 the Russian Empire did not have significant naval forces in the Pacific, it was somewhere between the third and the fifth rated naval power in the region. In the following twenty years the Russian Pacific fleet grew stronger and internal communications improved as elements of the trans-Siberian railway began to replace the Grand Trunk Road. By the new century the Spanish ceased to have a significant naval interest in the Pacific but the American naval presence had grown. In 1904/5 the Russian Empire’s fleets were destroyed by those of the Japanese (a British client state in these matters) at Port Arthur and the Straights of Tsushima and they did not recover before the revolution. On the basis of the above therefore and what I have posted previously it is fair to say that both the British and probably the USA after 1880 had the naval and military strength to take Alaska away from the Russian Empire. One struggles to imagine how the Russians might build up sufficient naval forces in the Pacific to stop this as they have no major land route from European Russia to the Far East and no naval bases between Kronstadt and Vladivostok.
However, I was not suggesting, primarily, a military takeover of Alaska, I was suggesting settlement and development followed by a claim and a political settlement. You will perhaps recall that this was the method used by the Americans against the British in the Oregon, where it was successful and in British Columbia and later the Yukon where it failed, the British being aware of the threat and having the resources to resist. The (Russian) population of Alaska was tiny in 1867, a few thousand (Wiki says 700 but this is low), after over one and quarter centuries of development. There is no way that the Russians can bring the population levels up to the numbers required to keep British entrepreneurs from BC and Vancouver Island out of Alaska, never mind the vastly larger numbers of Americans. The most likely scenario is that at the time of the Yukon gold rush when Americans are arriving in large numbers the British and the Americans split Alaska between them with the US getting the lion’s share but the British getting Sitka and the coast up as far as what became Skagway in OTL
Finally, the idea that neither the British nor the Americans would take Alaska by whatever means because it would result in a hostile Russia does not stand up to close examination. It is hard to imagine why Russia would be any more hostile to Britain in the 1860s, 70s and 1880s than it already was, memory of Crimean war, support of Polish national aspirations, support of the Ottoman Empire and the Great Game. In later years Britain’s support of the Japanese especially in respect of the Russo-Japanese war. However, even this hostility was moderated by the personal relations of the two Imperial Families. Alaska would make no difference at all. The USA has never as I recall been bothered about any nation’s hostility unless there is a clear threat to the national interest and clearly between 1867 and 1917 Russia is no threat at all.
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If the Russian Empire had kept Alaska, it could have survived as a frozen White Russian redoubt during and after the Russian Civil War thanks to the Monroe Doctrine.