Better Fate for Russia and China: The Romanovs or Bolsheviks, The Qing or Kuomintang?

[Rex Romanum]

Let's say there are four different AH scenarios with PODs no earlier than 1900:

1) The World War I ended up with a quick Entente victory in 1915, Tsarist Russian Empire reformed itself up, stalemated the World War II against Anglo-German alliance

2) The economic reforms of the Soviet Union is somewhat more successful than OTL

3) The Qing Dynasty successfully modernized itself and stalemated the First Sino-Japanese War. World War II ended up with joint Chinese-American occupation of Japanese Home Islands

4) The KMT forces won the post-WWII Chinese Civil War thanks to greater helps from the Western Allies

In all of the four scenarios above, Tsarist/Soviet Russia and Qing/Republican China survived to the present day and become one of the great powers.

The questions:

Would the lives of common Russian people be better off in scenario 1 or 2?

Would the lives of common Chinese people be better off in scenario 3 or 4?

PS: Bonus question:

Would Russia and China be better off in either one of the above scenarios compared to OTL?

 

[RousseauX]

3) The Qing Dynasty successfully modernized itself and stalemated the First Sino-Japanese War. World War II ended up with Qing occupation of Japanese Home Islands

Well, this isn't really a question, it's obviously this one

 

[mlp]

China would need a very strong constitutional monarchy to have great times under the Qing, but the OP states invasion of the Home Islands and that's an over-the-top wank.

 

[Rex Romanum]

Uh, okay, I edited that part so that it's a joint effort with the United States. Hope it sounds better now.

 

[Clandango]

Perhaps another Dynasty replaces the Qing? And there were loads calling themselves Republics of some stoire in China. Heck, didn't they have two Japanese sattelites alone, not to mention the PRC and ROC? Since we are speaking of the Qing and Romanovs, I see us using the term mainly for anti-monarchists. Also, why would the Germans and British ally against the Russians and lose?

 

[Thoresby]

Pretty much anything is better than the Bolsheviks not least because of the horror of them gave a shot in the arm for the radical right across the rest of Europe. Not that knowledgeable about China but the Qing seem pretty useless.

 

[Zireael]

Well, the Romanovs vs Bolsheviks is a given. I dislike KMT for the atrocities they and their successors have wrought, so anything else is better. I admit that the Qing may not be the best - I foresee a dynasty change ITTL

 

[Old Airman]

I'm not sure that Romanovs vs. Commies is so clear-cut. Bolsheviks did cost a lot in terms of concentrated human suffering, but Romanovs could've been a case of "suffering by 1000 cuts". Just look at today's Russia. It reached the Soviet life expectancy less than 5 years ago, so it took almost 2 decades for Russian Capitalism to reach benchmarks already achieved under Russian Communism. Besides, everything worth talking about in terms of modern Russian industry, extractive or otherwise, had been inherited from Commies and, at best, maintained. Including the absolutely crucial part - billions and billions of today's dollars spent on mapping the mineral deposits and discovering oil wealth of Western Siberia. I suspect that Russia without a revolution would have been following this path. Why improve when grain exports are so profitable, Russian elite would ask? So, Romanovs' Russia wouldn't have the Great Famine of 1932-1933 or Great Terror of 1937-1939, but it would have been a sleepy underdeveloped country, with folks quietly dying by tens of thousands per annum from malnutrition and lack of medical facilities. A country likely unaware that it floats on ocean of oil and gas...
I'd say that Februarist Russia has slightly better chances.

 

[Rex Romanum]

Also, why would the Germans and British ally against the Russians and lose?

The WWII ITTL started mainly because Britain and Germany were concerned about growing Russian expansionism in Europe and Middle East, since without carnage of OTL WWI and Russian Civil War, Russian economy and population continue to expand further.

And I never said they lose; I said it ended with a stalemate, between the Anglo-German-Japanese-Italian Axis and Russian-French-American-Chinese Alliance.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The problem is, the poll and the OP are describing different things -- of the described scenarios, it's pretty straightforward to say that Russia and China would be better if it could liberalize/modernize/better-ize without the massive suffering and death resulting from their civil wars, famines, and WWI and WWII respectively.

Now whether these scenarios are remotely plausible, well that's another matter...

 

[redlightning]

The communist regimes actually modernized both states and heavily industrialized them. Without communism this wouldn't have happened so quickly.

 

[Avrorrange]

The communist regimes actually modernized both states and heavily industrialized them. Without communism this wouldn't have happened so quickly.

But they did this at a great cost,not to mention provided a fairly unstable base.And let's not remember the f#$k that happened in China before they did a proper job of modernizing the country,which was done using non-communist means.