AHC:better 20th century for Russia

samcster94

Banned
What can be to make the 20th century "Better" for Russia??? That country lost a lot of people through emigration, death by the Nazis, and Stalin's cruelty. It didn't help that the USSR collapsed in the worst way possible without a violent war, and Russia was run by a corrupt drunk in the 90's.
Any POD is allowed as long as it falls in the 20th century, but the obvious ones are probably the best.
Bonus points if China is improved too(given the history involving the Japanese ruling brutally followed by Mao being awful too).
 
Hmm...IMO be a challenge if the POD is in the 20th century. The POD I’m thinking of is Alexander II doesn’t get assassinated in 1881, gets more political reforms done in however many years he has to live. Alexander III doesn’t see his father get killed and doesn’t reverse the reforms.

By the time we get to Nicholas II, Russia is either a constitutional monarchy or is too far down the road towards it. Maybe Russia would do better or make better decisions with a constitutional monarchy rather than an autocracy.
 
To be honest, you mainly have to avoid the Bolsheviks coming to power. And the Mensheviks who though not as autocratic as the Bolsheviks were also highly ideological (and obviously any Iron Guard /Black Hundreds type fascist regimes in the 1930s). Any regime that will modernise without getting messianic whether dictatorial or democratic will improve living standards without trying to force humanity into an ideological mould.
 

samcster94

Banned
To be honest, you mainly have to avoid the Bolsheviks coming to power. And the Mensheviks who though not as autocratic as the Bolsheviks were also highly ideological (and obviously any Iron Guard /Black Hundreds type fascist regimes in the 1930s). Any regime that will modernise without getting messianic whether dictatorial or democratic will improve living standards without trying to force humanity into an ideological mould.
True. How would a "white" pseudo-fascist regime do compared to Stalin???
 
True. How would a "white" pseudo-fascist regime do compared to Stalin???
I don't think anybody would do quite as much damage as Stalin -even Hitler didn't kill, imprison or exile as many scientists, engineers, military officers and diplomats as Stalin. A White military dictatorship would have been modestly modernising, possibly more so if Gobyato isn't killed and becomes prominent. and there was another White Russian General whose name eludes me who was very interested in aeroplane and submarine development
An overtly fascist regime would have lost some talented people through illiberalism and anti-Semiticism but, again, would have been damaging where Stalin was devatating.
 

samcster94

Banned
and the 60s, and the 70s and (with a brief interlude under Andropov whose liver and kidneys wouldn't stand it) the 80s. So no change there then! Massive underlying continuity in the Yeltsin years.
Brezhnev had some Putin-ish moves at times as he went shirtless sometimes.
 
I don't think anybody would do quite as much damage as Stalin -even Hitler didn't kill, imprison or exile as many scientists, engineers, military officers and diplomats as Stalin. A White military dictatorship would have been modestly modernising, possibly more so if Gobyato isn't killed and becomes prominent. and there was another White Russian General whose name eludes me who was very interested in aeroplane and submarine development
An overtly fascist regime would have lost some talented people through illiberalism and anti-Semiticism but, again, would have been damaging where Stalin was devatating.

The biggest problem with the Whites is that they were pretty much anyone who wasn't a Red or anarchist. You had them disagreeing on pretty well everything beyond getting rid of the Reds, so it would have been exceedingly difficult to eke out a victory. Maybe if there was some sort of Bolshevik/Menshevik "civil war" would level things a bit?
 
I think Russia would have ended up rather like Horthy's Hungary. An authoritarian semi-democracy with a Regent and the Army maintaining "order". Weak and corrupt if Kolchak is in charge. Strong and corrupt with Yudenich or Miller in charge. Decently modernising and not too oppressive (if you aren't very left-wing) with Alexiev or Kornilov in charge and moving towards democracy with Denekin in the top slot. Only mildly corrupt and not too blatant in the last three cases.
 
Nicholas II reads Durnovo's memorandum (see http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/history-the-durnovo-memorandum/ for a discussion):

"If the war ends in victory, the putting down of the Socialist movement will not offer any insurmountable
obstacles. There will be agrarian troubles, as a result of agitation for compensating the soldiers with
additional land allotments; there will be labor troubles during the transition from the probably increased
wages of war time to normal schedules; and this, it is to be hoped, will be all, so long as the wave of the
German social revolution has not reached us. But in the event of defeat, the possibility of which in a
struggle with a foe like Germany cannot be overlooked, social revolution in its most extreme form is
inevitable.

"As has already been said, the trouble will start with the blaming of the Government for all disasters. In
the legislative institutions a bitter campaign against the Government will begin, followed by
revolutionary agitations throughout the country, with Socialist slogans, capable of arousing and rallying
the masses, beginning with the division of the land and succeeded by a division of all valuables and
property. The defeated army, having lost its most dependable men, and carried away by the tide of
primitive peasant desire for land, will find itself too demoralized to serve as a bulwark of law and order.
The legislative institutions and the intellectual opposition parties, lacking real authority in the eyes of the
people, will be powerless to stem the popular tide, aroused by themselves, and Russia will be flung into
hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen..."

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/evans/his242/Documents/Durnovo.pdf
 
Three funerals and a wedding.

Kill Lenin, Trotsky and Nicholas II before 1904 and marry off Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovic to a nice princess.
 
IMG_3091.JPG


A cycle which will most likely continue.
 
Top