I think the best bet is to keep Stalin from getting any position of authority.
AHC: Make the Soviet Union more Liberterian Socialist and less Totalitarian
- Thread starter Scorpio Retindar
- Start date
Also, IIRC from the last time this came up, Stalin himself brought up Lenin's testament before the central committee and addressed its criticisms in a very Goldwater-esque way. "Yes, I'm stern as he said, but sternness in defense of the revolution is no sin!" or something like that. The point is, it came up and wasn't a dealbreaker, so it's no silver bullet.
Not only that, but it's not like @Scorpio Retindar is claiming that the USSR was utopian. The OP itself makes it very clear that OTL's USSR was a totalitarian regime and asks the question of how things could have gone better.
... is this a satire of certain modern views regarding a certain modern country, or are you seriously arguing this point?
kill Vladimir Lenin. and with a lot of luck in the ensuing power struggle hopefully most of the Bolshevik leaders get killed
Fanny Kaplan - Wikipedia
Fanny Kaplan - Wikipedia
BigBlueBox
Banned
If it goes by the name “USSR” then this is obviously the Leninist state we all know, and not some other left-wing Russia. Leninism is inherently incompatible with liberalism, human rights, rule of law, democracy, and political pluralism. The easiest way to get a democractic left-wing Russia is a stronger Provisional Government and no October Revolution, but then there would be no USSR.
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
There were many layers and sections of the Bolshevik Party who were dedicated to workers democracy. There were also other organisations who held similar soviet aspirations, such as the left wing of both the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. In the immediate period following October, and for much of the time up to the revolution, there was multi-party Soviet democracy. Avoid Brest-Litovsk, avoid the worst of the civil war, boost the left wing of the Bolsheviks, and you would have a different Soviet Union altogether.
I think the problem for a democrat-communist USSR is not communism, it's Russia. Most of Russians have no idea of how a democracy works, Russia as we know it is a huge Moscovia, and the only way for Ubermoscovia to keep it's lands together is to be despotic. When Catherine the Great summoned an Assembly of free people (1/10 of Russia was represented) they didn't do anything but find her a honorary title "The Great" ... and they were the educated 1/10.
The problem is that if Russians don't know how to handle a democracy before a bloodbath, they won't be more experienced after. The same thing happened with French Revolution.
So my pick would be a Constitutionnal monarchy in Russia, more and more democratic, and then a Tsar that we'll call Ivan Stupidovitch starts being a horrible ruler and gets kicked out of the throne
The problem is that if Russians don't know how to handle a democracy before a bloodbath, they won't be more experienced after. The same thing happened with French Revolution.
So my pick would be a Constitutionnal monarchy in Russia, more and more democratic, and then a Tsar that we'll call Ivan Stupidovitch starts being a horrible ruler and gets kicked out of the throne
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One has to remember Fuhrerreich is an alternate history of an alternate history. The idea is that the Fuhrerreich author model the USSR after the socialist states in his/ her TL, i.e. Syndicalist states. And Syndicalist states work very different than anything the Bolsheviks ever had in mind, you basically need another Socialist faction than the Bolsheviks to form alt USSR for it to be Libertarian (or have someone like Rosa Luxemburg in charge, but the USSR didn't have anyone like that, and certainly not Lenin, since the USSR was built upon his ideas where Centralism was a key feature).
It can just be randompeasant3456 from Tver, remember that Catherine the Great of Russia would probably be totally forgotten if she didn't have an extraordinary destiny : when she was a teenager, she was just some random girl from an obscure branch of her not very important family.
You can create a Rozovy Luksemburg if you need one
I'm pretty sure the thread is asking for how a democratic communist Russia could come into existence. It's probably not going to be called the USSR (although such a name is still a possibility), however, it's still pretty similar. If you changed the leaders of the Bolsheviks (or even the RSDLP, that way what would otherwise become the Mensehiks in OTL are allied with this democratic USSR) then you could get a nation that utilizes the same names and symbolism as the Soviet Union of OTL, it's leadership has just changed.
I guess one could argue that this thread is not exactly asking "what if the USSR was democratic," but rather "what if the Bolshevik Party and whatever nation they establish afterwards was democratic." With Vladimir Lenin in charge, a democratic USSR is nearly impossible, so the very leadership of the Bolshevik movement would have to change.
One of the largest political parties in Russia during the Russian Revolution (larger than the Bolsheviks!) was the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which advocated for agrarian and democratic socialism. If you could get the SRP to endorse communist teachings and either ally or outright join the Soviet Union, then there the Soviets would have substantially more support from agrarian communities.
True. The so called "Left SRs" did ally with the bolsheviks, until they split with them over the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. However, most of the SRs were "right SRs," hostile to the communists. IOTL both right and left SRs ended up joining the white movement, before Kolchak decided to expel them, leading many left SRs to defect back to communists and eventually become assimilated into their ranks.
So, in short, the relationship between the bolsheviks and the SRs was complex and contentious, but I wouldn't discount the possibility of an alliance between them.
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
It depends what you mean by 'most'. The left sr presence was stronger amongst the soldiers, was stronger in all the region's around the two capitals - these are the only two areas in which we can actually look at figures to judge support. In the army, all the soldiers were virtual Bolshevik diehards whatever party they belonged to, in policies that they supported at least. Most of the average SR membership voted indiscriminantly for SR leaders but were far to the left of the leadership. It's why the Bolsheviks managed to rally so many to their cause even despite appearing, on paper, to be a minority. The average peasant or worker supported the policies that the Bolsheviks advocated, the average soldier supported the Bolsheviks or 'voted with their feet' by deserting.
You've been here for better than 10 years, you should KNOW that bigotry is dealt with quite harshly AND that unsubstantiated accusations of bigotry are treated the same way.
Kicked for a week.
After double digit years here this is your third action, unfortunately it is your third action in under six months. Don't know why you've chosen this path, but it leads nowhere good.
markus meecham
Banned
I don't have much to say other than that i'm eagerly waiting for more installments of your interpretation of this scenario
BigBlueBox
Banned
Nah, you actually need the opposite. The left-SRs did side with the Bolsheviks, but turned against them when the Bolsheviks revealed their true colors (See Kronstadt and Tambov rebellions). If the ultra-reactionaries in the White Movement like Kolchak were sidelined and all the SRs joined the Whites then that is the best bet for a liberal democratic left-wing Russia.
I'd like to defend the large estates general (in essence) that Catherine summoned. They DID have suggestions. They had suggestions by the dozen, on all sorts of issues from the highest levels of society to the lowest. If she had kept them meeting and given them actual power to draft and pass legislation, I think they would have come up with some very interesting stuff.
As it is, though, Pugachev's rebellion cut it short, and after that she decided to abandon her reform plans and just rule the country as a tyrant. Honestly, it's one of the things I find most disappointing about Catherine as a person. She was *this close* to building an institution that could have changed Russian history for the better, and she strangled it in the crib because of a completely unrelated uprising.
That's pretty much the story of Russian democracy/republicanism every time it tries to get off the ground. The rulership gets pissed because people who have never done this before aren't very good at it, and rather than giving them time to learn, calls the whole thing off.