AHC Russian Civil War stalemate

I'd say you need to do multiple things:

1. A different and possibly earlier February Revolution in which the succesion is more securely defined (probably through Alexis as Tsar with Mikhail as Regent) helping to provide a figurehead.

2. A Duma that really starts reforming massively in 1917. Possibly peace with Germany, certainly better conditions for workers. This is undoubtedly going to be 'too little, too late' to stop the Bolsheviks uprising, but might well delay it and garner a bit more support from Menshevik factions and the like.

3. Bolshevik extremes coming out a bit earlier. Probably as a result of the Mensheviks cleaving more to the Tsarist forces (and so not in there as a group that needs listening to so much). Have Bolshevik anti-Church policies emerge during the Civil War, give them some poor breaks and some more failures, make the largely conservative and religious population wary and suspicious of them (though the industrial workers are likely to still support them).

4. More western intervention of some sort. Be it the Central Powers wanting to secure their protectorates, some sort of push to get St Petersburg back from the Bolsheviks, something like that. This is most likely a result of the Tsarist forces looking stronger from the earlier points.

I've used this in a TL I've got on the back burner and, when throwing in some stuff like stronger White presence in Siberia and Turkestan, a few more Red defeats and Mikhail pushing for a very reformist (as in leftist but not communist parties allowed) Duma to counter the Bolsheviks, I'm in a position where the Whites are essnetially Brest-Litovsk line plus Petrograd and the Cossack lands (and largely propped up by western support) and the Reds will be busy for a good 10 years taking the rest of the east before they'll turn to the tougher nut of the Tsarist forces in Kiev.

Even so, it's not the most plausible of situations, just one I particularly wanted to explore and try and give at least a half-way plausible lead up.
 

MSZ

Banned
Wars usually don't end in stalemates, especially civil ones. More likely a negotiated peace between the parties, though given the fact that both sides saw nothing less than claiming all of the territories of the former Russian Empire and more as their ultimate goal, this is very difficult. OTOH, Lenin was able to (temporarily) accept the independence of others as a tactical choice. Perhaps if he saw himself losing the civil war, he would be willing to sign a peace treaty with some of the other Russian parties, which don't see the chance of winning themselves, or reconquering all of Russia as their ultimate goal?

I'm tempted with saying that Ungern-Sternberg, or some other White general in Siberia could fill the role, provided his goal would be "all territories east of the Urals" or something like that. A scenario:

Denikin goes from his initial position in the Ukraine east, joining with Kolchak in the mouth of the Ural river. Miller does something similiar in the north. In the meantime, Sternberg goes to intercept the Czechoslovak legion in Siberia rather than invade Mongolia, capturing their equipment and letting them pass, in the meantime establishing himself as the warlord of Siberia. With the bolshevik offensives in the south and north pushing the whites out of Karelia, Kola and the Ukraine, the White forces retreat east. Kolchak dies, his troops rally befhind Sternberd who opportunistically forms an alliance with the independent Okrainas, also the Entente. He takes out the pockets of red forces in Siberia and manages to stall the bolsheviks advancing into the Ural. With the Poles and Finns having same much success as OTL and beginning negotiations, Sternberg realizes he won't hold out much longer once the soviets can throw everything they have at him and pleads to join the negotiations in Riga. He is accpeted, as the soviets are desperate for peace. The Ural is established as the temporary border, Sternberg founds the Republic of Siberia/Second Chanate of Mongolia/Sternberg Empire. USSR consists of only european Russia.

Very broad idea, very implausible, but with some detailed thought and enough PoDs, not yet in ASB area.
 
Thank you both for the input, I probably should have used a different wording.
By stalemate is a situation where both sides are realizing that a total victory is unlikely or that the the costs would be unbearable.
 
Thank you both for the input, I probably should have used a different wording.
By stalemate is a situation where both sides are realizing that a total victory is unlikely or that the the costs would be unbearable.

In that case use any of the above steps or combination to push the war into the mid to late 1920s without resolution. By that point there will probably be longer periods of ceasefire than open warfare.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
A stalemate would not be practical. The one that controls European Russia has all the means of victory, even if it means a slow campaign through Siberia, because the side stuck in Siberia really has nothing.
 
To have real fun we can have three Russia´s, the RSFSR, a Reactionary Far East Russia under Kolchak and a somewhat more liberal South Russia under Wrangel
 
Perhaps more breakaway Republics? Poland and Finland were able to break away from Russia so perhaps a breakaway Ukraine + some states in the Caucuses allied with Poland?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Perhaps more breakaway Republics? Poland and Finland were able to break away from Russia so perhaps a breakaway Ukraine + some states in the Caucuses allied with Poland?
There were loads of breakaway nations OTL, but only Finland, Poland and the Baltic States survived the Russian Civil War.
 
Suppose the Czech Legion seized control of a stretch of railway further west than the Trans-Siberian; maybe cutting off Moscow from St. Petersburg and linking up with both Denikin and the Komuch government. Perhaps, between the two, they can come up with a more effective white government than either managed on its own. The stalemate: the whites have most of the crop-producing area but the reds can create all manner of disturbances in the cities.
 
Maybe you could get White forces or a faction of them to realize they're doomed in the short run, and try to consolidate their position by moving as much men and material eastwards. Then they garner Japanese and Western support and hold on for years after the Reds are in firm control of everything west of Urals. From there it's a slow death as Siberia is eaten up.
 
There were loads of breakaway nations OTL, but only Finland, Poland and the Baltic States survived the Russian Civil War.

Ya, that's what I meant but I wasn't clear. Perhaps southern White armies just a bit stronger and send some butterflies at the Green Army and you might end up with an independence Ukraine allied tightly with Poland.
 
I'm not sure I agree with the assumption being made that any White state is going to end up moving to Siberia. If you have western powers intervening (even if it's just Germany and A-H in a succesfull Central Powers scenario), a far more likely situation is a rump White state in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Novorussia, Don Cossack Area, Baltic States or any combination of these, kept Russian by influx of clerics, aristocrats and others who don't fit into the Bolshevik state without change they don't want to undergo.

Not that this is any more stable in the long run than White Siberia, but it is an option, and it avoids the dichotomy of 'Red Russia with all the European bit is going to have total dominance', as we're breaking up European Russia somewhat here.
 

Asami

Banned
Sorry for the bump, but I just googled for an althistory scenario on the RCW, and I stumbled upon this.

Theoretically, the Allied intervention (let's say WW1 proceeded as standard) was strongest in the Far East. Provided there was a stalemate in Siberia and Mongolia, you could see by the time of the Interwar, a modest Primorsk Republic and Mongolia headed by either Japanese puppets, Sternberg, what have you.

Now, a western stalemate could only be achieved through a Central Powers victory, ala Darkest Hour's Kaiserreich, where the Germans intervene to protect their puppet states (Ukraine, White Ruthenia, Lithuania, UBD), and allow states like Alash Orda, Turkmenistan, Don-Kuban Union, etc. to break free of Soviet and White influence.

Worst case, Russia shatters like a piece of glass, and you have a very weak "Russian Confederation" with Kerensky at the head before his death in 1936, and after his death, radicalism or moderatism is the only path (Wrangel, Denikin, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks...)
 
Suppose Lenin and Trotsky both die in 1918. Without such determined leadership, you could get successors who don't believe the Red side is going to win and who will snatch at a deal leaving them with part of the country to conduct their socialist experiment in.

You also need White leaders who will agree to a split, which is tricky since the Whites' most consistent platform was Russia-one-and-undivided.

However Russia is split, it's going to be unstable; large populations are going to be under a government they don't want.
 
Top