AH Challenge: Have Tsarist Russia last to present day

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Hnau

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I like the death of Nicholas II in 1891... its a minimalist approach to the challenge. I would say that George dies only a little later than OTL, he already had so much medical attention as it was, so by the year 1900 his younger brother Michael of twenty-two years takes the throne. The West will be shocked when a twice-divorced commoner becomes the Russian Empress.

Michael won't be as stubborn as Nicholas, that's for sure. If I've read the man well enough, he was cautious and listened to the advice of others, he was more practical and rational than Nicholas, but he was also somewhat lazy and dispassionate. He'll probably make the same decisions as Nicholas II... until he finds himself in a situation in which Nicholas would have stubbornly forged ahead against the odds, faithful that God was on his side. Instead he'll panic and make rash deferments to the advice of others as well as popular opinion.

So where Nicholas was completely oblivious to the rising tensions with Japan, Michael will pay attention. The Japanese offered to negotiate in 1903 and early 1904, and there was fear that Russia would win if a war did come. They offered a guarantee of Russian suzerainty in Manchuria in return for a guarantee of Japanese suzerainty in the Korean peninsula. If the Russians become more involved in this dialogue, they'd be stupid not to agree to these terms. By 1905, a treaty divides Manchuria and Korea between the two powers. When Japan annexes Korea in 1910... who knows, the Russians will probably tighten control over Manchuria as well, though I don't think the region would be annexed.

The 1905 Russian Revolution will still happen, but it will be less intense, and I don't think Michael will be so adamant to keep total authority over the country... I think that the State Duma will have more powers, and that Michael will want the creation of the Duma to end opposition to his rule... within a few years, the Duma will take full control as the legislative branch of the Tsarist government, and the Russian Empire will become a representative constitutional monarchy. By 1910 there is something like a Bill of Rights, ensuring religious freedom and freedom of the press, as well as more freedoms for labor unions. Russification ends very quickly, though the non-Russians won't be encouraged at all to differentiate themselves. Finland and Poland aren't given any more autonomy than any other part of the country, but they do get more representation compared to OTL. Though Stolypin may or may not gain as much influence as he did, reforms of the type he pioneered will be present: privatization of land, as well as introduction of agricultural cooperatives, Siberian homesteading, dissemination of new technologies and knowledge to the peasants to help farming, etc. etc.

There's a number of butterflies. The Anglo-Russian conflict in Central Asia continues, as Russia doesn't find itself in a place of weakness, which sours relations. Franz Ferdinand might not be assassinated, though another crisis might wrap Europe into a conflict, sooner, or later. A slightly stronger Russian economy, the existence of three Russian fleets instead of one... if war does come, it will be completely different. Britain might not join, America might join earlier with a more democratic Russia, etc. etc... in any case, there is much, much less chance for a revolution as devastating as the one that occurred in 1917. The Russian Empire continues, adapts, fortifies itself... and it remains by the year 2009, probably in a radically different world.
 
Imperial Russia to the 1930s?

With either Georgiy I or Mikhail II as tsar, the odds of Romanov rule surviving improve significantly...both would have been much more likely to work productively with leading Imperial officials like Count Witte, PM Stolypin and the like...plus the absence of the completely unhelpful Tsaritsa Alexandra would also help purge the Romanov court of corrupt and decadent influences (i.e., Rasputin stays an obscure provincial degenerate...) Without a Russo-Japanese war, the 1905 revolution is avoidable, however this will also reduce the pressure for a constitutional monarchy...However, I think that the benign influence of people like Witte etc. will lead the tsar to adopt a constitution in any case, but probably later on.

Labor unrest will surge after 1910, given industrialization and harsh conditions for the proles, but the regime should survive. A Paris 1870-style uprising in Moscow is possible, however (look at 1905); it will be suppressed with many casualties and street fighting.

WWI will come most likely anyway, but this Russia will be better prepared to fight and win. The regime will survive to be one of the victors in 1918 or 1919, and could achieve the old Russian goal of an occupation zone in the Turkish straits (perhaps in concert with the British and French, perhaps on their own). Other likely rewards are the annexation of Austrian Galicia to Russian Poland and gains in Rumania...

So Tsarist Russia survives WWI...things get clouded after that...Imperial Russia will be part of the world economy in the 1920s, unlike teh autarkic Soviets, and will suffer from the Great Depression accordingly...We should not discount the role of the far right (see "Black Hundreds") and could see the emergence of a native Russian fascist movement in the 1930s...About this time, we have to start thinking about the imperial succession...Without Lenin and Stalin, Hitler is far less likely to come to power, so WWII, if one comes, would be much different even if Weimar Germany succumbs to a right-wing coup...More likely a military-nationalist dictatorship, but conservative and not fascist/radical as IOTL.

In any case, the Romanovs will make it to the 1930s for sure...after that, hard to say...a fascist Russia is even scarier than Stalin, and that's saying something.
 
I would say a Russia without serfdom and with self owning farmers would be more stabile.

Indeed, as I've been saying, people are forgetting that while certainly a WW1 PoD can save the Ysar, it gets easier the further back you go. Having a differant system of land tenure develop would help a lot. The natural inclination of the rural masses, under the guidance of the Orthodox Church, was devout Tsarism, and it was the land issue that did the most to politicise them and make them discontended (indeed, a big goal of the late 19thC land reforms was to try and create a class of conservative free peasent farmers, which was partially succesful: the Kulaks, whether they were counterrevolutionary or not, looked the part enough for Stalin to obliterate them).
 
My opinion (in short):

Alexander II survives, continues modernization of Russia and liberalization of society. Russia achieves modernization and quality of life similar to life in Europe abroad. However, the downside of this is Russia will of course suffer deficit and financial woes from how costly the modernization was. To balance this out, I'd say have the resources of Alaska discovered. The colony becomes profitable, and Russia receives funds to pay off its debts. Everbody happy!
 
My opinion (in short):

Alexander II survives, continues modernization of Russia and liberalization of society. Russia achieves modernization and quality of life similar to life in Europe abroad. However, the downside of this is Russia will of course suffer deficit and financial woes from how costly the modernization was. To balance this out, I'd say have the resources of Alaska discovered. The colony becomes profitable, and Russia receives funds to pay off its debts. Everbody happy!

Not only will changes in Alaska while it's still Russian have butterflies well before AII, but I'm not sure how substantial those resources were anyway, compared to the French investment. And anyway, it's not like secret police are a cost-reducer. Russia was economically modernising (quite frantically) under AIII as it was, and political modernisation shouldn't be that expensive.

Ah, AII. A prominent What If, like many assasination victims. Much as I'm a fan of his, he was lucky to last as long as he did with all the assaination attempts made on him. While ideally he should se up a primitive Duma to set Russia on the constitutional path, perhaps the most helpful and reliable thing he can do is die in his bed. There's an argument to be made tht AIII wouldn't have been so paranoid if his dad hadn't been murdered. Combine that with the beginnng of constitutionalism and Russia can, if not leap forward, avoid stepping back from its condition iof 1882.
 
Alexander III was a Conservative in the way his father wasn't and would have stepped back the liberalization regardless.

Changes in Alaska won't have butterflies before Alexander II if the discovery happens under Alexander, and there were a great many resources (and valuable metals) to be found. And regardless, Russia was getting bogged down and entangled dangerously by their borrowing from European powers and banks to pay off all the built up debts and such, and economic independence from being able to pull away from those powers and companies and such that they borrowed from would have been welcoming.
 
I like the death of Nicholas II in 1891... its a minimalist approach to the challenge. I would say that George dies only a little later than OTL, he already had so much medical attention as it was, so by the year 1900 his younger brother Michael of twenty-two years takes the throne. The West will be shocked when a twice-divorced commoner becomes the Russian Empress.

Michael won't be as stubborn as Nicholas, that's for sure. If I've read the man well enough, he was cautious and listened to the advice of others, he was more practical and rational than Nicholas, but he was also somewhat lazy and dispassionate. He'll probably make the same decisions as Nicholas II... until he finds himself in a situation in which Nicholas would have stubbornly forged ahead against the odds, faithful that God was on his side. Instead he'll panic and make rash deferments to the advice of others as well as popular opinion.

So where Nicholas was completely oblivious to the rising tensions with Japan, Michael will pay attention. The Japanese offered to negotiate in 1903 and early 1904, and there was fear that Russia would win if a war did come. They offered a guarantee of Russian suzerainty in Manchuria in return for a guarantee of Japanese suzerainty in the Korean peninsula. If the Russians become more involved in this dialogue, they'd be stupid not to agree to these terms. By 1905, a treaty divides Manchuria and Korea between the two powers. When Japan annexes Korea in 1910... who knows, the Russians will probably tighten control over Manchuria as well, though I don't think the region would be annexed.

The 1905 Russian Revolution will still happen, but it will be less intense, and I don't think Michael will be so adamant to keep total authority over the country... I think that the State Duma will have more powers, and that Michael will want the creation of the Duma to end opposition to his rule... within a few years, the Duma will take full control as the legislative branch of the Tsarist government, and the Russian Empire will become a representative constitutional monarchy. By 1910 there is something like a Bill of Rights, ensuring religious freedom and freedom of the press, as well as more freedoms for labor unions. Russification ends very quickly, though the non-Russians won't be encouraged at all to differentiate themselves. Finland and Poland aren't given any more autonomy than any other part of the country, but they do get more representation compared to OTL. Though Stolypin may or may not gain as much influence as he did, reforms of the type he pioneered will be present: privatization of land, as well as introduction of agricultural cooperatives, Siberian homesteading, dissemination of new technologies and knowledge to the peasants to help farming, etc. etc.

There's a number of butterflies. The Anglo-Russian conflict in Central Asia continues, as Russia doesn't find itself in a place of weakness, which sours relations. Franz Ferdinand might not be assassinated, though another crisis might wrap Europe into a conflict, sooner, or later. A slightly stronger Russian economy, the existence of three Russian fleets instead of one... if war does come, it will be completely different. Britain might not join, America might join earlier with a more democratic Russia, etc. etc... in any case, there is much, much less chance for a revolution as devastating as the one that occurred in 1917. The Russian Empire continues, adapts, fortifies itself... and it remains by the year 2009, probably in a radically different world.

You stole my whole TL lol I have just started it. I should point out that Michael was not half as Reformist as you think
 
I like the death of Nicholas II in 1891... its a minimalist approach to the challenge. I would say that George dies only a little later than OTL, he already had so much medical attention as it was, so by the year 1900 his younger brother Michael of twenty-two years takes the throne. The West will be shocked when a twice-divorced commoner becomes the Russian Empress.

Michael won't be as stubborn as Nicholas, that's for sure. If I've read the man well enough, he was cautious and listened to the advice of others, he was more practical and rational than Nicholas, but he was also somewhat lazy and dispassionate. He'll probably make the same decisions as Nicholas II... until he finds himself in a situation in which Nicholas would have stubbornly forged ahead against the odds, faithful that God was on his side. Instead he'll panic and make rash deferments to the advice of others as well as popular opinion.

So where Nicholas was completely oblivious to the rising tensions with Japan, Michael will pay attention. The Japanese offered to negotiate in 1903 and early 1904, and there was fear that Russia would win if a war did come. They offered a guarantee of Russian suzerainty in Manchuria in return for a guarantee of Japanese suzerainty in the Korean peninsula. If the Russians become more involved in this dialogue, they'd be stupid not to agree to these terms. By 1905, a treaty divides Manchuria and Korea between the two powers. When Japan annexes Korea in 1910... who knows, the Russians will probably tighten control over Manchuria as well, though I don't think the region would be annexed.

The 1905 Russian Revolution will still happen, but it will be less intense, and I don't think Michael will be so adamant to keep total authority over the country... I think that the State Duma will have more powers, and that Michael will want the creation of the Duma to end opposition to his rule... within a few years, the Duma will take full control as the legislative branch of the Tsarist government, and the Russian Empire will become a representative constitutional monarchy. By 1910 there is something like a Bill of Rights, ensuring religious freedom and freedom of the press, as well as more freedoms for labor unions. Russification ends very quickly, though the non-Russians won't be encouraged at all to differentiate themselves. Finland and Poland aren't given any more autonomy than any other part of the country, but they do get more representation compared to OTL. Though Stolypin may or may not gain as much influence as he did, reforms of the type he pioneered will be present: privatization of land, as well as introduction of agricultural cooperatives, Siberian homesteading, dissemination of new technologies and knowledge to the peasants to help farming, etc. etc.

There's a number of butterflies. The Anglo-Russian conflict in Central Asia continues, as Russia doesn't find itself in a place of weakness, which sours relations. Franz Ferdinand might not be assassinated, though another crisis might wrap Europe into a conflict, sooner, or later. A slightly stronger Russian economy, the existence of three Russian fleets instead of one... if war does come, it will be completely different. Britain might not join, America might join earlier with a more democratic Russia, etc. etc... in any case, there is much, much less chance for a revolution as devastating as the one that occurred in 1917. The Russian Empire continues, adapts, fortifies itself... and it remains by the year 2009, probably in a radically different world.

I agree with the general gist of your scenario, but aren't you in disagreement with yourself in the bolded section? Would Finland be relegated from its existing status of autonomy, if it is to be on par with "any other part of the country"? That would be exactly what was the major threat of Russification and the main point of protest here IOTL.

If Finns have "more representation", but in a Russian State Duma rather in their own representative body in Helsinki, it will be seen as a huge step back from even the old system of Estates. Your scenario, if I read it correctly, would have made Finland go through a as thorough, or even worse, process of Russification than what the Grand Duchy really protested before 1905. That, I think, would have made the Finland pretty fast a more rebellious province it ever was before 1917 IOTL.
 
Firstly to keep it before 1900 -
POD 1- Have Nicholas Alexandrovitch survive his ill health and succeed his father as Nicholas II not his ill prepared and more reactionary brother Alexander (OTL A III). He is still going to have a slight German bias through his Danish wife but possibly will live his full life span and have a far more liberal (if still essentially autocratic) approach than his brother.
POD 2 - have Alexander II survive his final assassination attempt and sign into law his manifest granting some form of Duma - assuming he lived a natural life span and live another decade such reforms would have been well established before his son acceeded.
POD 3 - Nicholas Alexandrovitch (OTL Nicholas II) succeeds his father as per our time line but Alix of Hesse continues to refuse his offers of marriage because of her reluctance to convert or Nicholas allows his mother to convince him that the marriage is a non starter = he marries someone else who gives him a healthy male heir, he doesn't retreat into a private family life and listens to his mother more result the regime doesn't face some of the significant causes of its incapacity to reform and adapt.
POD 4 - Nicholas dies of typhus at Livadia in around 1900 leaving his more adaptable and pragmatic brother as heir - Czar Michael marries his cousin Beatrice of Saxe Coburg Gotha in 1904 - they fell in love in the early 1900's Michael was forbidden by Nicholas to marry her because they were first cousins as Czar Michael would have been the sole arbiter and Romanovs had married cousins before despite it being forbidden by the church.
Michael was certainly his parents favourite son and had more personality than Nicholas - he also given a happy family life, was far less committed to the autocracy than his brother who like many weak men clung to an idea long after it was proved a failure.
POD 5 - have Nicholas killed in Japan - result George succeeds his father and with quick wedding might have been able to produce an heir of his own before his premature death - with a minor on the throne the government would have fallen to George's widow or more likely to his mother the Dowager Empress - if not intelligent she was shrewd and was pragmatic - she would have happily retained reformist leaning men such as Witte and Stolypin in government - more importanly she would have avoided war with Japan in 1905.
Incidentally any time line that either removes Nicholas II or Alix of Hesse as consort leaves a more united Romanov dynasty better able to exert authority (which in OTL they failed to do spectacularly in 1916/7]
 
OK, so we've reached the 1930s, by this stage the Duma has become the equivalent of Parliament under William III and Mary II, the monarch still has much power, but parliament has a big say in deciding policies. At this point the depression kicks in. The Tsar desides that the best way to ensure he survives any problems is to delegate full responsibilty for the economy to the Duma. this means that any problem are restricted to the Duma. Poland and Finland have full autonomy. WWII, and an agreement is reached which first allows Germany to concentrate on the West. The Eastern assault is enacted, and Russian modernisation means that the front is a line between Tallin and Volgograd (named Stalingrad OTL). St. Petersburg and Moscow are safe, but Kiev, Riga, and Poland are in German hands. The Germans are repulsed and the Oder-Neisse boundary enforced, but with Russia on the other side. By the 50s, Polish independance has been secured (with all East Prussia) as well as Finnish Independance. East/West Germany never happens, eastern europe is as economically developed as Western Europe due to lack of Communism. The states we know as Ukraine, Lithuania, Ubekistan etc. are granted greater autonomy, eventually gaining independance in the 1980s-1990s, the exception is Belarus which remains part of Russia as an autonomous province. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechyna and the other unrecognised states (except trnsdinester) also gain independance. The Tsar of Russia may remain head of state for many, like QEII with the Commonwealth
 
OK, so we've reached the 1930s, by this stage the Duma has become the equivalent of Parliament under William III and Mary II, the monarch still has much power, but parliament has a big say in deciding policies. At this point the depression kicks in. The Tsar desides that the best way to ensure he survives any problems is to delegate full responsibilty for the economy to the Duma. this means that any problem are restricted to the Duma. Poland and Finland have full autonomy. WWII, and an agreement is reached which first allows Germany to concentrate on the West. The Eastern assault is enacted, and Russian modernisation means that the front is a line between Tallin and Volgograd (named Stalingrad OTL). St. Petersburg and Moscow are safe, but Kiev, Riga, and Poland are in German hands. The Germans are repulsed and the Oder-Neisse boundary enforced, but with Russia on the other side. By the 50s, Polish independance has been secured (with all East Prussia) as well as Finnish Independance. East/West Germany never happens, eastern europe is as economically developed as Western Europe due to lack of Communism. The states we know as Ukraine, Lithuania, Ubekistan etc. are granted greater autonomy, eventually gaining independance in the 1980s-1990s, the exception is Belarus which remains part of Russia as an autonomous province. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechyna and the other unrecognised states (except trnsdinester) also gain independance. The Tsar of Russia may remain head of state for many, like QEII with the Commonwealth

Sorry, what?

Nazis still coming to power iin Tsarist world? Independent Chechnya? Independent UKRAINE?

WHAT?
 
Tsarist Russia

I agree, there is no way in HECK the Tsars would allow Ukraine and Central Asia to become independent. The Tsars didn't even acknowledge any such entity as Ukraine, they always called it 'Little Russia'...Also agree that we can't expect the Nazis to come to power absent the Bolsheviks. However, a war against a revanchist Germany in the 1930s is certainly possible, adding in the negative effects of the Great Depression. I can imagine the Russian Empire becoming more liberal and possibly giving up russification of the borderlands, but I can't see it as a British-style commonwealth...not enlightened enough for that.
 
I agree, there is no way in HECK the Tsars would allow Ukraine and Central Asia to become independent. The Tsars didn't even acknowledge any such entity as Ukraine, they always called it 'Little Russia'...Also agree that we can't expect the Nazis to come to power absent the Bolsheviks. However, a war against a revanchist Germany in the 1930s is certainly possible, adding in the negative effects of the Great Depression. I can imagine the Russian Empire becoming more liberal and possibly giving up russification of the borderlands, but I can't see it as a British-style commonwealth...not enlightened enough for that.

Another important thing to note is that a Ukrainian opposed to Russianism rather than special within it was a Boslvehik invention outside of eastern Galicia. While the three east-Slavic laguages have long been recognised as seperate despite their closeness and overlap, whether a village dialect in 1914 Russia was closer to Moscow or Kiev wasn't really relevent to a illiterate population who defined their national identity as Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland, not language.

Only the small but growing educated class partook in Ukrainian nationalism, and that in any case partly a matter of education: those who attended Kiev university were among Ukrainians and recognised and wrote in their distinct speech (until it was stupidly banned by the Tsars in the 1870s, of course), whereas those who went to other places were generally wholly Russian. In any case, even the nationalists generally saw Ukraine as a Scotland to Russia's Britain in my sense: "Of course we're special and our ancient traditions are rich blah blah dissolve the union? Are you on drugs?" Only a minority of the minorioty were nationalists in a seperatist way.

The exception was in the Hapsburg lands. Not having a Russian faith, a Russian Tsar, or a Russian fatherland, the Slavs there had become aware of themselves as "Ukrainians", although if the division had continued (unlikely in a Russian WW1 victory scenario) they may have become a "Galician nation" instead. Ukrainianian nationalism even today is strongest here and the neighbouring region of Volhynia. That's were the Ukrainian partisans and the Ukrainian SS division came from.

In the chaos of 1917 Russia, the moderate Ukrainian nationalists created an autonomous government under a national flag. But for comparison, so did Siberia and the Don Cossacks. They only signed a treaty with germany in desperation after the Reds had taken Kiev, and even germany's hand-picked puppet, Pavlo Skoropadsky, wanted a federation with Russia after Germany was beaten.

The Reds won, of course, and they didn't just stop Russification: they reversed it, effectively creating Ukraine and Belarus as we know them now. And even today, there are plenty of Ukrainian citizens in the east and centre of the country of Russian language and identity. Belarus is in my opinion a nation only insofar as Austria is.

The whole name thing is rather a red herring. "Malorussia" actually comes from Byzantine maps, not Russian nationalism (and Belarussia is still Belarussia) and the moderate 19th Century nationalist of Dniepr Ukraine (ie not Galicia and the western plains) use dthe name themselves. "Ukrayina", "border provinces", implies subordination to Russia just as much if you think about it, and it was hardly a banned term, much as the Tsars pursued a stupid and quixotic policy of trying to stamp out even moderate Ukrainianism.

Further problems:

1) The fucking Oder-Neisse line? Stalin's ruler-mark? The Russians weren't actually very keen on Poland, you know.

2) It wasn't called Volgograd until de-Stalinisation. Before Stalingrad there was Tsaritsyn, which isn't actually monarchist: it's from the local Tatar for "yellow river", that is, the Volga. It's name was changed not because it was moanrchist but because Stalin had a famous victory there during the RCW. It was again changed to "Volgograd" (pathetically dull name if you ask me) becuae renaming the national myth, even if it was the myth of the murderous psychopath, was controversial enough as it was, and most Russian don't know Tatar, so changing it something that looked Tsarist would have been too much.
 
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Going for the earlier POD, what about making Russia not more modern and developed than OTL, but less? It seems Tsarist Russia strained to keep up with the (western) Joneses, its partial failure to do so helped undermine it; and Russian revolutionaries of all stripes saw their mission to outdo their western counterparts, i.e. succeed where Germans and Frenchmen of 1848 wimped out. So...

Have the wars of the early modern period end more favorably for Russia's enemies so that there is simply less western European influence, but also less of a rivalry with Europe, and Russia remains insular and its center of gravity is farther east.

Possible events: it takes the Muscovites a century longer to throw off the Mongol yoke. Poland-Lithuania manages to achieve centralization of kingly power so it holds onto its eastern conquests. Peter the Great goes lost at sea when a mast swings around and he hasn't learned the Dutch for "Duck!". Sweden pauses in its warmaking to colonize and develop the eastern Baltic region-- so Ingrians and Karelians end up like Estonians and Finns, and St. Petersburg doesn't exist as a Russian city.

Thus no frenchified Russian aristocracy, no Baltic Germans holding plum state positions, no Italian architects, etc., always reinforcing the message that Russia was a stunted, backward version of a properly civilized country. No sense that tsarist rule had to be gotten past for Russia to fulfill its potential, whether as the Third Rome or otherwise. That might have kept it tsarist quite a bit longer, but I have no idea how such an insular Russia would actually look in 2009.
 
I like the death of Nicholas II in 1891... its a minimalist approach to the challenge. I would say that George dies only a little later than OTL, he already had so much medical attention as it was, so by the year 1900 his younger brother Michael of twenty-two years takes the throne. The West will be shocked when a twice-divorced commoner becomes the Russian Empress.

Just one thing though, Michael won't be Tsar, morganatic marriages lead to being disinherited.

Which gives us the Vladimirovichis as Tsars.
 
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