Best case scenario for White Russia

MSZ

Banned
Re-introduce the monarchy (with no power given to the monarch of course), get rid of all non-Russian territories (including the okrainas, caucassus, central Asia), introduce a federal government (allowing the various federal subjects to trade and develop according to their own profits, and not that of Moscow - let Primorski Krai freely trade with Japan, Leningrad and Karelia with Finland, the coastal cities of the Black Sea with the world, etc.). Introduce a land reform which would create a minimum size of a homestead (to make them profitable),give unused land in european russia for the peasants, terminate the old latifundia of the nobility. Free the market, introduce religous tolerance, free press, universal education - anything to prevent dutch disease without having to resort to state sponsored industralization. Diminish the army and drop the "enemy at the gate, besieged castle, bad non-russians are bad mentality" to prevent ethnic strife being used for an excuse for terror and lack of reforms. Terminate the Ochrana/NKVD/other secret police and introduce rule of law. Seperate the church(es) from the state.

None of the above are particularly revolutionary. The idea would be to increase food production to prevent famine, while allowing those who want to prosper to do so without state ideologies and corruption getting in the way. Early XXth century Russia was still an agrarian state, albeit a very large one - it should be treated as such and given adequate treatment.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The best case scenario would be the installment of a democratic republic, and a willingness from the generals to take orders from a Civilian Government, even if it had left wing members in high positions. Also recognition of splinters in the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
 
Any best case scenario would have to come to terms with the large amounts of debts owed, industries owed by foreign companies, as well as the vast illiteracy of the population.
 

MSZ

Banned
Any best case scenario would have to come to terms with the large amounts of debts owed, industries owed by foreign companies, as well as the vast illiteracy of the population.

Debts can be repaid over time; why would industries by foreign owned?; illiteracy can be combated through the introduction of general education.
 
Best case scenario is that Russia limps along as a debt-crushed satellite of the western European powers, and manages to put down periodic worker and peasant uprisings without resorting to outright fascism. The forces of a democratic republic were extremely weak and had essentially discredited themselves in 1917. I'm not optimistic that it wouldn't wind up in something like fascism within a decade or so, unless there was another revolution in a socialist or narodnik direction.
 

MSZ

Banned
Because quite a significant portion of them were? It's a bit hard to look up reliable numbers, but by 1914 it's in the 33%-50% range.

That's not even a majority. And how many of them even existed by the end of the war.

Not saying this isn't a problem - it would be, but one every country in the world deals with, nothing really special. If this would be what Russian leadership would have to deal with rather than famine or war, it isn't bad.
 
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