AH Challenge: A Russia-friendly "utopia"

Recently there's been the question which TL was the most utopian?

Someone said Weimar World, expect when you're at the Soviet Civil War.
Same could be said of the Anglo-Dutch Empire TL. It's a paradise unless you live in the Empire of All Russian.


So your challenge is to find, suggest or draft a TL that is both somehow utopian to OTL and also gives Russia a bright day (the Russian people, that is).
 

maverick

Banned
Already written?

Lee of the Union...which can be found at OTL.com and at the exile site, Different worlds.com...the author just draw the line at 1861 and everything from then on became more utopian...the February Revolution of 1917 leads to a stable Keresnky government for no reason which as a democracy takes part in the victory over nazi germany in 1940 (despite being an utopia, the author didn't have enough imagination to picture a 20th century without Nazi Germany)...then cold war between Democratic but socialist russia and the United States and finally in 2008, the still democratic Russia solves its differences with Georgia, a state that shouldn't even have existed in that TL...

I tend to be neutral towards Russia in my TLs...there's Decembrist Russia in my "The Fallen Prince", although not exactly a democracy...most 20th century TLs I've seen lately paint Russia as a worse place...

Suggestions?...well...

I'd go with the typical successful Decembrist Revolution, then Constitutional Monarchy under Constantin, democracy by the early 1900s, progress and reforms under liberals like Stolypin...etc...Constitution, free elections, etc...

No interventions of 1848, Independent Hungary, reduced Austria, several liberal states in Germany perhaps, probably not...

Then its hard to say...Constantin had no sons, so the crown goes to Alexander II or preferably to a liberal Grand Duke...
 
I was about to say DoD, where Russia is well off and considerably more humanitarian and better to live in than OTL, but then I remembered, well, the rest of the world in that TL.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Decades of Darkness show Russia as relative stable, relative rich and a lot more democratic. The truth are unless you live in France, UK or America DoD is a improvement to OTL.
 
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Decades of Darkness show Russia as relative stable, relative rich and a lot mor democratic. The truth are unless you live in France, UK or America DoD is a improvement to OTL.

That was my point. Generally, DoD has the more liberally democratic countries from OTL worse places to live, with the places that weren't very nice in OTL much better off. I think that Jared did a splendid job with the role reversals, I would like to see how he'd pull off a utopian TL.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
That was my point. Generally, DoD has the more liberally democratic countries from OTL worse places to live, with the places that weren't very nice in OTL much better off. I think that Jared did a splendid job with the role reversals, I would like to see how he'd pull off a utopian TL.

Of course for me DoD wouldn't be a big change except that I would likely speak German (1st) and Russian (2nd) as foreign languages instead of English (1st) and German (2nd). I* would still live in nice welfarestate except with a richer Europe I would likely have a even better life quality.

*If the butterfly premitted my existens
 
Of course for me DoD wouldn't be a big change except that I would likely speak German (1st) and Russian (2nd) as foreign languages instead of English (1st) and German (2nd). I* would still live in nice welfarestate except with a richer Europe I would likely have a even better life quality.

*If the butterfly premitted my existens

I would not exist in DoD, as one half of my family would have stayed in Eastern Europe, while the other half would have stayed in Britain.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I would not exist in DoD, as one half of my family would have stayed in Eastern Europe, while the other half would have stayed in Britain.

I think the butterfly would have got rid of us all, but there's nothing else in the way for my existens, my immigrant ancestors would likely still move to Denmark and there's no wars to kill my Danish ancestors.
 

Xen

Banned
I tend to think Alexander II not being assassinated would be a huge leap in the right direction for Russia, he then outlives his son (OTL Alexander III) and passes his reign to his grandson Nicholas II. Little Boy Nick begins to reverse some of his grandfather's policies, but there are some that have become to embraced by the Russian people to safely touch, and Nicky is advised to skirt around them. Fortunately for the Romanov family, Anastasia is born a boy, Alexei.

Not suffering the same problems as OTL Alexei, this TL Alexei does not need constant medical attention, and during the First world War (which is still likely to happen) there is no Rasputin living with the Royal Family. Russia fares slightly better in the war, but is still on the losing end, to make matters worse Nicholas II dies suddenly in 1917. A 16 year old Alexei is crowned Tsar Alexander III in Petrograd, and begins to send feelers to Berlin to seek a peace with Germany. Russia bows out of the war in 1917 just as the United States is coming in, but because the war is ending, and the loss is blamed on Nicholas II, Russian's aren't too hard on the young Tsar. To help Alexander out is Lenin is never sent to Russia to spark a revolution and dies in exile in 1923.

Alexander is somewhat progressive and marries Princess Mary of the UK in 1919 (though she is like 4 years older than he). She has a profound impact on his views and the way he governs, and he begins to write a new constitution based in part on that of the United Kingdom. The Duma is strengthened and the position of Grand Chancellor is created. In a short time several political parties form, socialists, bolsheviks, reformers, liberals, conservatives, monarchists, democrats and theocrats each develop their own parties, and sometimes build coalitions with one another to gain a majority in the duma, however these alliances are often weak and lead to the collapse of the government.

During the Great Depression, the Socialists and Bolsheviks gain a large amount of seats in the Duma, as do the fascist Nationalists, a coalition government of Monarchists, Nationalists, Theocrats and Conservatives form the Russian Patriotic Union coalition, and is opposed by the alliance of Socialists, Bolsheviks, Reformers, Liberals, and Democrats (as well as some Monarchists) forming the Peoples Constitution Alliance.

The radicals of both parties are unable to get a leg up on the other, and both eventually begin to shift towards the center leaving the radicals without a voice. The hardcore fascists/theocrats form the Pamyat Party, and the radical Bolsheviks form the Proletarian Party. However these are fringe organizations and has very limited representation in the Duma.

Now its the 21st Century, Russia is an advanced, Democratic state, with an industrial economy and high standards of living.

Okay Im sure this has its holes, but its a start
 
I was about to say DoD, where Russia is well off and considerably more humanitarian and better to live in than OTL, but then I remembered, well, the rest of the world in that TL.

Decades of Darkness show Russia as relative stable, relative rich and a lot more democratic. The truth are unless you live in France, UK or America DoD is a improvement to OTL.

Or anywhere else in the Americas (Canada, Mexico, Brazil, even Argentina), or Italy, or Turkey, or the Philippines. Quite a few places in DoD are arguably both better off and worse off than in OTL. Australia has a much better history in terms of race relations, and a higher population, but ye gods, the environmental damage that's going to do is not going to be pleasant. China has been colonised, seen all the damage of a victorious Taiping Revolution, and has had a longer period of warlordism. On the other hand, it's likely to miss out on the Cultural Revolution. Would that all of that be a net gain or loss. Even a lot of the smaller nations are ambiguous. Spain has missed out on the twentieth-century civil war and the rule of Franco, but it has also seen some worse nineteenth century wars and been partitioned. Liberia is a lot better off in a lot of ways, but there is this whole Duvalier thing.

On a broader scale, there have been some trends which are both better and worse. Out-and-out racism is discredited in most of the world outside of the *US sphere - or at least, more discredited than in OTL. But fascism hasn't been discredited. The whole nastiness of the eugenics movement was stopped dead by the aftermath of WW2... but that hasn't happened in DoD. The end of colonialism is a lot messier... it starts sooner, but there's rather more potential for continued imperialism/colonialism amongst the superpowers.

There's also a lack of a United Nations. For all of the criticism of the UN, it remains an interesting point that since the end of WW2, no nation which was a member of the UN has been successfully invaded and annexed against the will of its people. Not one. This was largely because in WW2, the nations who launched wars of conquest were defeated. In DoD, the nations who launched wars of conquest have succeeded, which results in a rather different post-war world.

That was my point. Generally, DoD has the more liberally democratic countries from OTL worse places to live, with the places that weren't very nice in OTL much better off. I think that Jared did a splendid job with the role reversals, I would like to see how he'd pull off a utopian TL.

The problem with a utopian TL is that a utopia would be very nice to live in, but kind of boring to read about. So if I wrote a utopian TL, it would be a rather short one.

I would not exist in DoD, as one half of my family would have stayed in Eastern Europe, while the other half would have stayed in Britain.

I think the butterfly would have got rid of us all, but there's nothing else in the way for my existens, my immigrant ancestors would likely still move to Denmark and there's no wars to kill my Danish ancestors.

Depends how much the butterflies get caged, really. For narrative reasons, I do have a fair few historical characters show up in DoD even quite a while after the PoD, but a lot more who don't. I know damn well that I would be born in the DoD universe, though. The nation I was born in doesn't exist, even in a modified form.
 
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