AHC: Liberal Russian Superpower

With a PoD no earlier than 1547 create a Russia that has all the current European territory of OTL's Russia (Kaliningrad optional) but is also a major economic power and a bastion of human rights and liberal democracy. It can be a constitutional monarchy or a republic.

Note: This Russia can have both more or less territory than OTL's Russia, but it must include all of current European Russia except for Kaliningrad.

ED: Okay, if you must you can go pre-1547 but try not to.
 
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For one thing, a Russian unification with Lithuania would actually help since the Lithuanians could become the modifying influence on the autocratic Muscovite government. Liberal democracy wise, I'm not exactly sure if they have a democratic tradition unless you count the Novgorod Republic. An additional bonus would be no Massacre of Novgorod since the Oprichnikis have been responsible for the elimination of most of Novgorod's population.

Alternatively, a Russia that joins the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would ensure that religious tolerance would be the main policy, but then again there are more Orthodox Christians than there are Catholics. Finally, you may want to have a less destructive Golden Horde to be able to stabilize and make Russia as liberal or conservative as possible.
 
Or you could have the Republic of Novgorod come out as the power to unite Russia. That would be a good place to start, the same needs for an all-weather warm water port will push expansion regardless.
 
Or you could have the Republic of Novgorod come out as the power to unite Russia. That would be a good place to start, the same needs for an all-weather warm water port will push expansion regardless.

Novgorod needs a strong, agricultural base as well as a strong military if they could unite Russia. Also, although they were too far from where the Mongols had occupied the rest of Russia, Muscovy became powerful due to it playing the role of a middle man between the Golden Horde and Novgorod. Find a way to somehow weaken Muscovy and you could have Novgorod become the alpha dog that could also capture Tver', Vladimir-Sudzal and Ryazan.
 
Novgorod needs a strong, agricultural base as well as a strong military if they could unite Russia. Also, although they were too far from where the Mongols had occupied the rest of Russia, Muscovy became powerful due to it playing the role of a middle man between the Golden Horde and Novgorod. Find a way to somehow weaken Muscovy and you could have Novgorod become the alpha dog that could also capture Tver', Vladimir-Sudzal and Ryazan.
If the later were the case, what would prevent one of these regions from eventually becoming more powerful than Novgorod because of the agricultural base and taking over, displacing the more representative tradition?
 
In otl on December 26, 1825 in Russia Mikhail Miloradovich a general and a hero who sympathized with the decembrists came to parley on the orders of Nicholas. However he was assassinated.

Lets assume he wasnt assassinated and the parley goes well and some sort of compromise which allows Nicholas to assume the throne smoothly while enacting some sort of constitution occurs. Serfdom ends in Russia 40 years earlier than in OTL. Instead of radicalization you have gradual liberalization. Nicholas is marginalized and perhaps even eventually forced to abdicated in favor of his son Alexander II as early as the 1840s.
 
The PoD required was before 1547, but the Decembrist idea with Miloradovich would be just as a good idea as Novgorod uniting Russia.
 
What about Peter III, Catherine's husband? I understand he made a lot of liberal, pro-enlightenment, modernizing reforms - could they have lasted, had he stayed in power?
 
The best bet for a superpower certainly seems to be either an alternate formations or (later) Decembrists succeeding and not going insane/discrediting themselves. You probably could get a democratic Russia out of the February Revolution, but I'm not completely sure how stable or "super-powerey" it would end up being.
 
The best bet for a superpower certainly seems to be either an alternate formations or (later) Decembrists succeeding and not going insane/discrediting themselves. You probably could get a democratic Russia out of the February Revolution, but I'm not completely sure how stable or "super-powerey" it would end up being.

Alternate formations would have to be the option of Novgorod uniting Russia, which would be extremely difficult. Having Peter III survive, wasn't that included in Look to the West by Thande?
 
I think the transfortmative power of the twentieth century can hardly be overestimated. A successful 1905 revolution might be ernough, unless your standard of democracy and human rights is Scandinavia or somesuch. If the revolution somehow produces as reasonably stable and reasonably democratic Russia (and the chances were not that bad), the country cannot help being economically influential (all the natural resources plus an industrial base worth mentioning) and powerful (huge army, huge territory, naval bases on three seas). A fortuitously timed heart attack felling Nicholas II might be enough, leaving Mikhail to rule. He'd treat the Duma differently. He might even be smart enough not to get sucked into WWI. Imagine what not fighting that war could do for Russia: The Germans would still bleed every baby step on the way to Paris, and the Russians would sell them grain, cloth, iron, copper, oil and whatever else they'd need. By the end of the war, Russia might well end up holding a huge stake in German government bonds and pretty much all of Berlin's former gold reserves. Allied bonds, too, for good measure. And since that development might well see the Ottoman Empire non-belligerent, too, Russia could subsequently agree with other powers on a carve-up of its remaining surplus territories, so to speak. I don't think it would work, but it would be more worth fighting than WWI, and Germany would be so exhausted they wouldn't be able to prevent it even if they wanted to.

That leaves the problem of Poland, since in order to have its current borders, the boundaries would somehow have to be rolled back a bit. Dunno, some kind of nationalist revolt maybe, but they can't enforce the old borders of the Kingdom of Poland?
 
What about Peter III, Catherine's husband? I understand he made a lot of liberal, pro-enlightenment, modernizing reforms - could they have lasted, had he stayed in power?

Peter III?! He was a terrible tsar who would have practically given Russia to the Prussians if he could. He wasn't in power long enough to really do much other than switch sides and ally with Prussia, and then go to war with Denmark to expand his duchy of Holstein. Which is why the coup happened.
 
I think the transfortmative power of the twentieth century can hardly be overestimated. A successful 1905 revolution might be ernough, unless your standard of democracy and human rights is Scandinavia or somesuch. If the revolution somehow produces as reasonably stable and reasonably democratic Russia (and the chances were not that bad), the country cannot help being economically influential (all the natural resources plus an industrial base worth mentioning) and powerful (huge army, huge territory, naval bases on three seas). A fortuitously timed heart attack felling Nicholas II might be enough, leaving Mikhail to rule. He'd treat the Duma differently. He might even be smart enough not to get sucked into WWI. Imagine what not fighting that war could do for Russia: The Germans would still bleed every baby step on the way to Paris, and the Russians would sell them grain, cloth, iron, copper, oil and whatever else they'd need. By the end of the war, Russia might well end up holding a huge stake in German government bonds and pretty much all of Berlin's former gold reserves. Allied bonds, too, for good measure. And since that development might well see the Ottoman Empire non-belligerent, too, Russia could subsequently agree with other powers on a carve-up of its remaining surplus territories, so to speak. I don't think it would work, but it would be more worth fighting than WWI, and Germany would be so exhausted they wouldn't be able to prevent it even if they wanted to.

That leaves the problem of Poland, since in order to have its current borders, the boundaries would somehow have to be rolled back a bit. Dunno, some kind of nationalist revolt maybe, but they can't enforce the old borders of the Kingdom of Poland?

If Russia does stay out of WWI, it would have to compel Serbia to behave itself or they cannot help them. After all, the reason why Russia entered WWI was because they had to help Serbia against Austria-Hungary. Mikhail would have either: tried to solve the issue with regards to the Balkans in the Bosnian Crisis or allocate Serbia to Austria's sphere of influence while Bulgaria becomes Russia's partner. Although that would have backfired, if it was centered around the territories of Vardar Macedonia and Kosovo.
 
Alexander II was going to announce plans for creating the Duma 2 days after he was assassinated. It would probably have the same power as the it did OTL in 1905, but would have an extra 24 years to gain power. You would probably need to avoid Alexander III becoming Tsar though. Maybe keep Tsarevich Nicholas from taking the tip to Italy where he caught the disease that killed him?
 
The best chance would be a Decembrist compromise followed by decades of slow liberalization. Alexander II comes to power after the Duma forces Nicholas I to abdicate in 1848(clash over whether to oppose uprisings) by that time Alexander II would be 30 years old.

1) Serfdom ends in 1825 or within several years

2) The Crimean war is butterflied away (not unreasonable since Alex II ended the war in OTL.

3) With a more liberal russia already, radicalization is minimized.

4) Poland and Finland are given autonomy no polish uprising.

5) Development of rail in russia happens sooner and more aggressively as a means of transporting labor.

6) The Russian economy grows rapidly with several decades to grow between 1840s and any possible world war.

7) With no Polish rebellion no need to support german reunification.

8) With no crimean war and no direct threat from the west Russia focuses on industrialization instead of militarization.

9) Trans-siberian railway gets built in the 1870s. As Russia sees the impressive work done on the american transcontinental rail.
 
Or you could have the Republic of Novgorod come out as the power to unite Russia. That would be a good place to start, the same needs for an all-weather warm water port will push expansion regardless.

Whilst Novogorod was representative within the city itself, much like the Italian merchant republics it was pretty autocratic over its hinterlands. I don't see why'd it be any different with a larger hinterland, especially as communication problems will increase.
 
The best chance would be a Decembrist compromise followed by decades of slow liberalization. Alexander II comes to power after the Duma forces Nicholas I to abdicate in 1848(clash over whether to oppose uprisings) by that time Alexander II would be 30 years old.

1) Serfdom ends in 1825 or within several years

2) The Crimean war is butterflied away (not unreasonable since Alex II ended the war in OTL.

3) With a more liberal russia already, radicalization is minimized.

4) Poland and Finland are given autonomy no polish uprising.

5) Development of rail in russia happens sooner and more aggressively as a means of transporting labor.

6) The Russian economy grows rapidly with several decades to grow between 1840s and any possible world war.

7) With no Polish rebellion no need to support german reunification.

8) With no crimean war and no direct threat from the west Russia focuses on industrialization instead of militarization.

9) Trans-siberian railway gets built in the 1870s. As Russia sees the impressive work done on the american transcontinental rail.
That's quite an impressive list, but I see a possible issue. If the country is more liberal and some level of autonomy (how much?) is granted to certain regions why wouldn't that just encourage them to rise further since Russia seems to be unwilling to use force?

Would there be a conservative revolution trying to resist these changes? Was that possible at all during the period?
 
Ironically an attempted conservative putsch might do the same thing to old russia that it did to the Soviet Union rallying radicals and liberals around "The good czar" and toppling the remnants of the ancien regime. The liberal czar calling in modern well trained troops from Finland and Poland with these threats. Even in OTL Finland was relatively well treated by Russia until post-1905 and even had their own legislature. Without Russification, while there was support for independence there was no rush and independence was not even sought until after the October Russian revolution. Until the attempted Russification the finns were considered very loyal to the czar so were largely left alone. Lets move along the time a bit

10) Russian military as a consequence of reforms becomes a smaller and more professional force making it easier to mechanize including military transport on rails. Also increasing education tends to liberalize the army.

11) The earlier expansion of the Trans-siberian allows earlier exploitation of mineral resources and demand for skilled labor that can be filled by Polish and finnish subjects. Polish machinery goes east while siberian raw materials go west and later east as trade from siberia goes to Japan and north america.

Yes there are setbacks 1) Russian industrialization poses a threat to Japan , Russia still seeking a warm water port does still make its deal for Port Arthur so Japan still attacks but instead of attacking a autocratic now theyve attacked a liberal monarchy who has spend decades industrializing and has had time to complete the trans-siberian railway. Instead of a quick surprise japanese victory you have a surprise japanese attack (Even in OTL Pearl harbor was not the first time Japanese did a sneak attack prior to a declaration of war) followed by Russia battling back inflicting heavy losses on the Japanese while suffering likewise heavy losses. The Russo-Japanese war ends in a stalemate with Russia keeping Port Arthur and Japan keeping Korea which is as close to a Russian victory as one can get.

12) Russia keeping Port Arthur reduces the importance of the black sea and european expansionism while allowing to Russian trade with Asia and China to explode.

13) The trans-siberian quickly adds more chinese extensions including the Qing dynasty allowing rail expansion to shanghai. Russian rail expansion strengthens the economy of China.
 
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