AHC: Mass Eastern Slavic Immigration to USA

With a POD of at least 1850 have there be mass Orthodox, East Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarussians) immigration on the same levels of the Irish and Italians. For bonus points, get them to have the same levels as the Germans with 1/8 of Americans being East Slavic. For even more points, have them be on the same levels as Mexican immigrants from the late 20th century to 2018. What has to happen in the Russian Empire and in the United States for this to happen?
 
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Well, you did see mass German-Russian immigration to the northern plains in both the US and Canada during the last half of the 19th century. Obviously German-Russians were neither Slavic nor Orthodox, but it does show that emigration from the region was happening. There was also some Ukrainian immigration to the same region at the time (the Orthodox Church in the US was actually founded of Ukrainian Unate Catholics who were feuding with Archbishop John Ireland of Minneapolis and went back to the Orthodox Church as a result. Gaining Ireland the ironic moniker of "The Father of the American Orthodox Church" in the process). In any case, this is a time frame in which you are seeing a good deal of land in the northern plains being available, so there are definitely draw factors for East Slavic immigrants. I guess the better question is: why did't the emigrate in OTL/what was preventing them.
 
Ukrainian immigration to the West began at an earlier date and took on a greater level than emigration from Russia, at least. Much of this may have to do with the fact that may of the Ukrainian emigrants came not from Russian Ukraine but from Austrian Galicia, an outlying province of an empire more globalized than Russia. Many Ukrainian emigrants OTL went not west but east, to Siberia.

One possibility, I suppose, is that more Ukrainians could have found themselves in a state outside of the Russian Empire. Surviving Poland-Lithuania?
 
In any case, this is a time frame in which you are seeing a good deal of land in the northern plains being available, so there are definitely draw factors for East Slavic immigrants.
Well there was the whole thing about many of them being serfs. How can that change? Also some push factors would be better for East Slavic immigration.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Ukrainian immigration to the West began at an earlier date and took on a greater level than emigration from Russia, at least. Much of this may have to do with the fact that may of the Ukrainian emigrants came not from Russian Ukraine but from Austrian Galicia, an outlying province of an empire more globalized than Russia. Many Ukrainian emigrants OTL went not west but east, to Siberia.

One possibility, I suppose, is that more Ukrainians could have found themselves in a state outside of the Russian Empire. Surviving Poland-Lithuania?
My grandmother's family came from present day Poland, which was Austrian at the time. Her family was ethnically and linguistically Ukrainian.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easte...defection#Emigration_restrictions_in_the_USSR
Although the first program of the Bolshevik movement in Russia included a demand for the "abolition of passports",[23] just two months after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the new regime instituted passport controls and forbade the exit of belligerent nationals.[24] The reasoning was partly that emigration was conflated with opposition to the socialist state and also the fear that emigration would inflate opposition armies.[24] The 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk obligated Russia to allow emigration of non-Russians who wanted German citizenship, but the regime attempted to reduce this flow by allowing it during only one month.[24] Beginning in 1919, travel abroad required the approval of the NKVD, with the additional consent of the Special Department of the Cheka added in 1920.[24] In 1922, after the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, both the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration all but impossible.[25] However, the Soviet Union could not control its borders until a system of border guards was created through a special corps of the Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (GPU), such that by 1928, even illegal departure was all but impossible.[25]

In 1929, even more strict controls were introduced, decreeing that any Soviet official serving abroad who went over "to the camp of the enemies of the working class and the peasants" and refused to return would be executed within twenty-four hours of being apprehended.[26] In 1932, as Stalin's first Five Year Plan forced collectivization, to allocate scarce housing and weed out "nonproductive" elements, internal passport controls were introduced.[26] When combined with individual city Propiska ("place of residence") permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the 101st kilometre, these rules greatly restricted mobility within even small areas.[26] When the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was promulgated, virtually no legal emigration took place, except for very limited family reunification and some forced deportations.[26] Very small numbers snuck into Romania, Persia, and Manchuria, but the bulk of the population remained essentially captive.[27]Moskovskaya Pravda later described the decision to emigrate as "unnatural and like burying someone alive."[28] Those wishing to leave were viewed not just as deserters, but traitors.[28]

The mobilization of labor in the Soviet Union was not feasible if emigration remained an option with the relative low standard of living that existed at that time.[29]Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev later stated "We were scared, really scared. We were afraid the thaw might unleash a flood, which we wouldn't be able to control and which could drown us. How could it drown us? It could have overflowed the banks of the Soviet riverbed and formed a tidal wave that which would have washed away all the barriers and retaining walls of our society."[28]

In addition, emigration restrictions were used to keep secrecy about life in the Soviet Union.[30] Starting in 1935, Joseph Stalin had already effectively sealed off outside access to the Soviet Socialist Republics ( and until his death in 1953 ), effectively permitting no foreign travel inside the Soviet Union such that outsiders did not know of the political processes that had taken place therein.[31] During this period, and until the late 1970s, 25 years after Stalin's death, the few diplomats and foreign correspondents that were permitted inside the Soviet Union were usually restricted to within a few miles of Moscow, while their phones were tapped, their residences were restricted to foreigner-only locations, and they were constantly followed by Soviet authorities.[31] Dissenters who approached such foreigners were arrested.[30] For many years after World War II, even the best informed foreigners did not know the number of arrested or executed Soviet citizens, or how poorly the Soviet economy had performed.[30]

Some suggestions
Somehow the Soviets allow emigration. Perhaps they see it as way to get rid of opposition to their building of a communist society.

Maybe famine in the Soviet Union could spur emigration? Maybe the millions who starved to death could emigrate, many to the USA. Perhaps USA could offer economic assistance in exchange for the handover of refugees?

Following the Red victory in the Russian civil war, the Whites organise a mass flight from Soviet Union. Maybe they could rally some millions to emigrate?

Religious groups compromised of East Slavic members that are oppressed in Czarist Russia and/or Soviet Union emigrate to USA. Due to different factors their population increase. Factors could be positive net immigration rates, high birth rates, high retention rates and high life expectancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers

East Slavic Americans intermarry with other Americans, over time this leads to alot of Americans having some East Slavic ancestry. Is this cheating?
 
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easte...defection#Emigration_restrictions_in_the_USSR


Some suggestions
Somehow the Soviets allow emigration. Perhaps they see it as way to get rid of opposition to their building of a communist society.

Maybe famine in the Soviet Union could spur emigration? Maybe the millions who starved to death could emigrate, many to the USA. Perhaps USA could offer economic assistance in exchange for the handover of refugees?

Following the Red victory in the Russian civil war, the Whites organise a mass flight from Soviet Union. Maybe they could rally some millions to emigrate?

Religious groups compromised of East Slavic members that are oppressed in Czarist Russia and/or Soviet Union emigrate to USA. Due to different factors their population increase. Factors could be positive net immigration rates, high birth rates, high retention rates and high life expectancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers

East Slavic Americans intermarry with other Americans, over time this leads to alot of Americans having some East Slavic ancestry. Is this cheating?
No, but you gotta find a way to get the soviets to allow their citizens to leave when they wouldn’t even allow citizens of east Germany to leave. Diffrent leadership? I dunno. If you can tell me how, AND get East Slavic people to still immigrate to the us en mass to the modern day, you get a gold medal.
 
No, but you gotta find a way to get the soviets to allow their citizens to leave when they wouldn’t even allow citizens of east Germany to leave. Diffrent leadership? I dunno. If you can tell me how, AND get East Slavic people to still immigrate to the us en mass to the modern day, you get a gold medal.
Maybe the Soviets could allow emigration in the early years before the 1930s?

Perhaps if family planning and East Slavic culture in regards to family formation does not plummet following WW2, then there would alot more of East Slavs than in OTL. Some of this expanded ATL East Slavic population as compared to OTL East Slavic population following ww2 could emigrate to USA.

What do you think of the possibility of Russian Old Belivers emigrating to USA or what was to become USA? Some Old Beliver groups could migrate west towards Poland, Germany, etc and later over the Atlantic to the American colonies.
 
Perhaps Latin America does better economically, leading to cheap labor coming from east Europe rather than Latin america?
Well how do you develop Latin America to be this way before the fall of the Soviet Union to get the work visas be given to Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians?
 
And why would the eastern Europeans head preferentially to the United States?

The only way to get more immigration by Eastern Slavs to the United States is firstly to have their lands not governed by autarkic rivals to the United States and secondly to have the United States be open to immigration from eastern Europe, IMHO.
 
And why would the eastern Europeans head preferentially to the United States?

The only way to get more immigration by Eastern Slavs to the United States is firstly to have their lands not governed by autarkic rivals to the United States
Except for the fact that most wanted to move to the United States but weren’t allowed to. Life under communism was terrible, and most people knew life was better in the us. If people were allowed to move to the us while living in the ussr there would be more people spreading word of how life was like other than tourists and small amounts of western culture. The question now seems what is needed to have communism in Russia, but also free imigration.
 
The question now seems what is needed to have communism in Russia, but also free imigration.

How is this the case? The Russian Empire OTL was substantially poorer than the United States. Simply continuing this gap in living standards is enough to ensure a continued economic incentive for emigration.
 
How is this the case? The Russian Empire OTL was substantially poorer than the United States. Simply continuing this gap in living standards is enough to ensure a continued economic incentive for emigration.

The problem is that Russia had plenty of frontier territory themselves, and it would make little difference for a Russian peasant to settle there or in the prairie states of USA. Which was why the people leaving Russia was people who was persecuted by the Russian/Soviet government, not people seeking a farmstead.
 
Maybe the Ottomans win the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and many Balkan citizens decide to leave for fear of local Muslim vengeance for the war, and Ottoman governmental oppression, and flee to America?
 
And why would the eastern Europeans head preferentially to the United States?

The only way to get more immigration by Eastern Slavs to the United States is firstly to have their lands not governed by autarkic rivals to the United States and secondly to have the United States be open to immigration from eastern Europe, IMHO.
First, you need them to be able to afford tickets.
Surviving Poland-Lithuania?

They would be uniate rather than orthodox in such a case.

Maybe Russia does land reform in Prussian style. This would give them large amount of free workforce and possibly in the long run a modern, efficient agricultural sector, though chances are that it would rather end with revolution.
 
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