Challenge: A non-communist (Stalin) Russia

Surprisingly, there seems to be little on this.

I found an old thread about if the Whites win the civil war. I say take it back even further; Could the provisional government have succeeded? What if Lenin had died and Trotsky had lead the "Reds" and made them far more 'free' and 'democratic' without all the Stalinist gobbledegouk that was to come. What if the Tzar had managed to cling to power - is this even possible? (I doubt it)

And more importantly, what would Post WW1 eastern europe have looked like?
 
Bump, no thoughts :( ?


I'll throw in my 2 cents in that case.

I think that the Provisional government could have worked if they did not restart the war, and if they held early elections. My guess is that government would have turned very left wing, and moderate Bolsheviks would have joined in even. By the end, I could see enough of a centre-left mass supporting this new government that the biggest problem would not be left-wing agitators, but right-wing ones. I could see the government surviving the turbulence with help from the west and a "Democratic" but Socialist Russia lasting until WW2.

As for the map, I feel it would look a lot like the current map, with the chance that Poland would have been able to gobble up almost all their 1772 lands (Belarus, Lithuania, half of Ukraine) Russia would have likely been able to hold on to the central Asian possessions, and Ukraine might include some Rostov areas, as well Finland might be double the size, but in general, the Russia of today would have become the Russia of the interwar.

I do not, however, have good feeling that such a Russia would have been able to withstand the NAZIs, and without an eastern front, I am not so certain the war would have ended the same as it did IOTL
 
Surprisingly, there seems to be little on this.

I found an old thread about if the Whites win the civil war. I say take it back even further; Could the provisional government have succeeded? What if Lenin had died and Trotsky had lead the "Reds" and made them far more 'free' and 'democratic' without all the Stalinist gobbledegouk that was to come. What if the Tzar had managed to cling to power - is this even possible? (I doubt it)

And more importantly, what would Post WW1 eastern europe have looked like?

trotsky and Lenin were close collaborators throughout the civil war and their visions for future states were closely intertwined, Trotsky would not have made russia 'more free'. really democracy within russia and the bolshevik party crumbled under the weight of the civil war, the destructions of the proleteriat and the failure of the German revolution.

and look at germany, a workers revolution that lead to a centre-left democracy - that led to a weak, contradictory state and finally fascism.
its revolution or nothing (btw Stalinist russia was nothing)
 
Trotskiy was no democrat as has been pointed out. The pre-Stalin USSR in general had more open debate within the party and was rather less prone to casual brutality (although of course the RCW was a differant matter when it came to ruthlessness), but it was still a dictatorship.

I think that if you go back before WW1 and start fiddling with Russian leftism (ie kill Lenin, kill Lenin, and for good measure kill Lenin while you're at it), the *Bolsheviks can be made less determined to make use of their capacity to seize all power and make no compromises. This could, with luck, lead to a largely democratic, heavily left-leaning Russian regime. This is what Hnau's "A Leninless World" was (is?) all about.

So that's the provisional government working out, pretty much. As for the Tsar, there's no saving him at any point after the peace attempt in 1916 failed, I think.

Interwar effects; hum. As I explain below, I'm inclined to think Russia will if anything be bigger. This has a whole variety of effects. A dramatically left-shifted Germany (which does not necessarily mean Stalinism: remember that while elections and expression in Weimar were free and spanned the spectrum, the apparatus of the state (the army, obviously, and then civil servants, courts, proffesionals, policemen...) remained of Imperial pedigree and rather comfortable with the idea of right-wing authoritarianism, which explains the uneven responses to threats to the republic from right and left in the early 20s, and the ease with which the Nazis established a totalitarian state bit-by-bit) just changes the game too much for me to think about casually, so I'm saying Weimar is still Weimar, Great Depression is still Great Depression, and so on.

To be pessimistic and assume we still have Nazis, I think that while it's certainly true that Russia will be much less ready for an industrial total war, the situation of 1941 is most unlikely to arise, for a whole variety of reasons.

- Less hysterical Russophobia in British leadership: a more moderate, open regime, and the Entente's small allies afraid of the Bolshie menace not existing (Finland, Baltics) or not having territory coveted by Russia to the same extent (Poland, Romania) hopefully means a more sane policy towards Nazi boatrocking from our end.

- Hence no "two-front war" delusions on the part of Stalin. And, indeed, no Stalin.

- Differant military circumstances: the lack of the same industrialisation will work very much against the Russians, but on the other hand the organisational chaos of the Red Army may be vastly less severe when the moment comes; and that moment may come, if at all, when Germany is much weaker (greener, less advanced in re-armament, perhaps facing the Czechs as well without the benefit of stolen Czech weapons).

- Speaking of which, there is in very simple terms the possibility of a Russo-Czech border, which helps anti-Nazist forces enormously.

As for the map, I feel it would look a lot like the current map, with the chance that Poland would have been able to gobble up almost all their 1772 lands (Belarus, Lithuania, half of Ukraine) Russia would have likely been able to hold on to the central Asian possessions, and Ukraine might include some Rostov areas, as well Finland might be double the size, but in general, the Russia of today would have become the Russia of the interwar.

A whah-whah-whuh? Why are we assuming Russia gets severely maimed by comparison to OTL? The Bolshevik's insistence on total power alienated a lot of people and drove them into the arms of the White movement and various local nationalists factions, and the general mess this caused allowed a lot of places to spin off on their own or be gobbled up.

Let's assume that the moderate-socialist Russian regime takes Germany up on the initial B-L offer and is left to its own devices, and Germany subsequently loses broadly as it did OTL. Well...

For one thing, no Bolshie Russia = no independent Ukraine. Autonomous Ukraine, absolutely, but the Directorate was itself a moderate-leftist government and only proclaimed seperation from Russia and union with West Ukraine after it was already basically a-goner. More moderate Russia, and the Ukrainian nationalists have no reason to jump ship. Any gaggle of radicals who try are most unlikely to amount to anything.

While we're in that part of the world, the Besserabians wanted a) cultural and political autonomy and B) land reform. The new Russia was offering both (even the Bolsheviks were initially favourable to the Besserabian provisional leadership), so union with Romania looked a lot less appealing. The Romanians only pulled off unification (and there was quite a bit of a fait-accompli about it) after Ukraine was a mess and the authorities of Moscow in no position to do anything about it. Pink Russia can keep Besserabia if it has any luck at all.

Estonians, too, and especially Latvians (who were just thrilled at the idea of being ruled by barely-reformed crusader knights who refused to join Imperial Germany ca 1916 because it was just too pinko for them), will probably stay aboard, as will the Finns: look at the Finnish Civil War, and imagine it with no Germans and some rather more explicitly friendly, hands-untied Russians: practically a foregone conclusion.

Poland, if anything, went further east than was good for it OTL. Getting back the borders of 1772 would be logistically pretty much impossible without a ker-ayzy degree of support from the exhausted nations of the Entente.

In fact, if we assume that the moderate Russia still goes west after Germany keels over, it's not entirely impossible that they conquer Poland and/or establish a friendly regime there.
 
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Old Airman

Banned
I have to admit that I agree with a lot of what I Blame Communism said, especially as far as border issues are concerned, but my general outlook of the country and it's performance is much more grim. I should also say that I drew a lot from comparison between OTL post-communist Russia and "Keresnkyist Russia". After all, there's very close similarity between ways peoples thought and acted in those periods. Kerensky strikes me as Yeltsin 70 years earlier.

I'd like to emphasize that following is written for Kerenskyst Russia. Not "Whites Won Civil War" one, not "Kornilov ended Civil War earlier". It is a TL where Bolshevist autumn uprising remained a tragic and violent but not regime-changing accident. After all, Russia survived similar accident in Summer 1917 IOTL (July "demonstrations" in Petrograd). Constituent Assembly had been successfully elected and assembled, it adopted constitution of the Russian Republic and life went on. I have to admit, I am pretty skeptical about this Russia in general. And my views of the country's performance during alt-WWII are just dim. But, let's start from very beginning.
1. Borders. I completely agree with IBC here. Bolshevik uprising (not necessary their policies) is responsible for independence of everyone but Poland and Lithuania (they owe Germans, not Lenin, for that) IOTL. Mounted statues of V. I. Lenin should gratify capital squares of Finland, Latvia, Estonia (and one in Cisinau should be "to the great stateman who allowed us to join Greater Romania"), if those nations were honest. Kerenskyist Russia would surely keep Finland. Germans didn't even think about landing there even in darkest days of Summer 1917 and hypothetic civil war would pitch all OTL Reds and good chunk of OTL Whites (Mannerheim was a loyal Russian subject up to November 1917) against radical pro-German fraction, who's doomed ITTL. Shape and form of Finnish membership in Russian federative republic is a matter of discussion, but not the membership itself. Same goes for Bessarabia, Estonia and Latvia, except that even their autonomous status is not assured (some form of autonomy might be granted to Balts, but Bessarabia is likely to remain a governorate). So, we have Russia in borders of OTL USSR of 1945-1991 plus Finland, sans Lithuania and Western Belarus and Ukraine (even that isn't a given, there would be a complex chess game about who would have what; Poland has huge sympathy from France, but French can't reward their Polish buddies ITTL at expense of their ally Russia, so Curzon-based border still possible; Lithuania is another complicated issue, Poles are as likely to alienate them ITTL as they did IOTL).
2. Political system.
Pre-February Russia was many things in one, but a harmonious society it was not (anyone viewing Russian Revolution as successfull Masonic/Communist/Jewish plot is in heavy denial). Most of all, the country had a very deep divide between noble landowning class and peasant majority. One of 3 main slogans Bolsheviks used to lure masses ("Land to peasants", other two being "Bread to hungry ones" and "Peace to nations") was actually introduced by SRs and SRs were MAJORITY fraction in what arguably was 1st and last free and equal elections in Russia before 1991, Russian Constituent Assembly. By the way, it helps to know that left and center-left parties controlled 90%+ of the Assembly, with extreme left (Bolsheviks and left SR) having very respectable 30%+ of the chamber. I suspect that it didn't represent a true picture of the society (SR late division IOTL doesn't let us gauge their electorate properly, but Bolshies, at least, are likely to keep their iron grip on electorate of industrial centers), but it gives you an idea how radicalized the country was. Now, taking into account that majority of army's officer corps and high-level bureaucrats weren't exactly supportive of the whole land redistribution thingy, I don't see "February Russia" being able to resolve the agrarian issue (a violent overthrow of Februarist regime by non-communist uprising, likely by Left SRs, isn't impossible, but this is whole other TL of "Peasant Socialst Russia"). So, it would likely be something similar to another victorious Entente power, Italy. Very bitter, divided and disappointed country, which has all the trappings of democracy, like elections, parliament, free press etc. Government, if country doesn't slip into outright dictatorship, is likely formed by different fractions of SR (which are very likely to become "a natural governing party" in this TL), but it's control over army and security forces is weak even in comparison with Weimar Germany. Which, in turn, is likely to lead to proliferation of left-wing militias, initially as a form of protection of leftist organizations, and then as a mean to keep righitst militias (black hundreds) and right-leaning security forces at bay. Employing Yeltsin-Kerensky analogy, by mid- or late-1920s (depending on constitution, two six-years presidencies or three foru-year ones give Kerensky up to 1930 to rule) the country could fall under some "Putin" (i.e. authoritarian figure declaring his desire to restore order and former glory), but this is pure speculation.
3. Economy.
So, how would this country go about industrial development. Methink, with the same degree of success as other democratic but weak regime of Russia did seven decades later (I refer to Yeltsin's decade). I.e. doing nothing at all. Just like Russia of 1990s completely missed the boat of development, so would Februarist Russia (FR) of 1920s. Why? For numerous reasons. To begin with, to industrialize a country you need a source of capital. It can be either internal market or foreign trade. Internal market is weak in Russia and, by any economic estimates I read (which are many) service of wartime foreign debt would eat up all proceedings from exports (which, by the way, would be much less then what Commies had at their disposal, as much of Soviet exports consisted of grain expropriated from peasants, as well as bulk goods produced by forced labour, like ores and timber, and FR would have neither). Industrialization can be also driven by governmental procurement policies (as it was largely the case in Czarist Russia). This wouldn't happen in FR too, as weak government is unable to implement sane procurement policy. Besides, there are numerous examples of other post-WWI countries of the region who could not do a thing about it's economic development in interwar years. Even Czech were only able to maintain their formidable industries, but didn't grow significantly. All projections of 1908-1913 development being repeated in interwar years is ASB (as it was for OTL Poland). on the top of that, whatever industrialization would happen (and some would, no "buts" about it) would concentrate on consumer industry. No OTL accelerated development of heavy industry for you. And ALL development would overwhelmingly be in Western regions of the country (as in OTL, despite questionnable loyalty of Poles, it had been turned into the Empire's industrial powerhouse by invisible hand of market). Forget about OTL Siberian and Uralic (to a lesser extent) industrial monsters of Magnitogorsk, Komsomolsk etc. It wouldn't happen. And one more factor to take into account. IOTL Soviet industrialization happened in the same time as Great Depression crippled the rest of the world for a reason. Stalin was bying technologies where he could at deeply discounted prices, and everyone was willing to sell. FR wouldn't be able to exploit this advantage.
4. Foreign relations and international situation.
Czarist Russia was promised Bosporus by British and French. However, this promise had been made in desperate situation of war, to a relatively powerful country. Now, would Powers keep it's world in postwar world, when they don't need the Russia anymore? Well, I might be cynical, but OTL American promise to Gorby not to militarize Eastern Germany and not to extend NATO East of Germany springs to mind almost immediately. IOTL British were having kittens about Russians sitting just short sail from Suez, so the promise isn't too likely to be kept. This turn of fate would automatically send Russia to "cheated and robbed nations" camp of Italy and Germany (I fear to even speculate about possible WWII of resurgent imperialistic Russia and Germany versus OTL Western allies; "Eagles of Imperial Glory" would just wipe the floor with French and British). However, keeping Anglo-French promises to Russia is likely to produce not much nicer consequences, as it would keep Russia firmly in Entente camp, i.e. in position of dependent and heavily indebted ally of France, unable to conduct foreign policy distinct from French interests.
Now, where does it all leave Nazis? Unfortunately, very likely pretty much where they were, in charge of Germany by early- to mid-1930s. They were pretty much product of two factors: (1) Versailles and (2) Fear of internal Commie takeover (chances of Red Army invading Germany circa 1930 are as good as chances of Taliban to defeat US army today and march to D.C. victoriously, i.e. less than ASBish). Now, no USSR doesn't change the first reason one red cent. Germans are still humiliated and pining for rematch. Second reason is somewhat changed, but not much (and I'm not even sure, is it increasing or decreasing ITTL). You see, FR is still country governed by dangerously left government, who implemented such outrageous ideas as universal suffrage, legislative ban on ethnic discrimination (which was alive and well in all Western countries at this point), universal education and healthcare and, possibly, even land reform (a.k.a. "stealing lands from lawful owners"). Such a country is bound to produce crippling fears of red subversion among ruling elite of Germany, so Hitler is very likely to become Germany's chancellor ITTL.
5. WWII
It is bound to happen in any TL where Versailles did happen. ITTL it might be along the lines of OTL (Germany versus Russia+WAllies) or along the lines of Russo-German alliance versus "Western plutocrats". Actually, 2nd scenario is likely to produce pretty interesting bipolar world where "other" side does control enough industrial capacity to be a credibe alternative for the Anglo-Saxon giant (OTL 2nd world never was more than third of their opponents in terms of industrial capacity, so Soviet attempts to reach parity were punching far above their true weight; an effort which likely killed OTL USSR). Russo-German alliance is bound to control Europe (except Great Britain, Eagles are unlikely to unleash unmentionnable sea mammal before nukes make any inter-block war a suicidal affair), Northern Africa, Turkey, Iran (at least Northern part of it), most of China and Korea. However, 1st scenario is clear and pure disaster for Russia. Imagine weak and underfunded army of today's Russia, hobbled by outdated French tactic doctrines, trying to resist Blitzkrieg machine, even if Russian Amry has somewhat (just barely, methink) more sane officers... IOTL we had Vichy France. What would we see ITTL? Yakutsk Russia?
 
Certainly my scenario is a very optimistic one in all respects. I was aiming for a best-of-all-possible worlds approach, which seemed to be what the OP was thinking about. A lot of your predictions (Russia missing the industrial boat, divided society analogous to Italy) are a lot more likely than my sketch.

I do think the Nazis can be avoided more easily than you suggest, though. The factors you point out (the stigma of Versailles, and the conservative-through-reactionary imperial attitude permeating the "establishment" from Hindenberg to the village constabularies that made them hysterical about the communist threat and willing to hand power to the Nazis on a silver platter) were the institutional rot, but they were inflamed by the Great Depression; Germans hated Versailles and had a backward-looking state structure in the mid-20s, yet the Nazi movement proper went nowhere.

And by the time they got handed power by the imperial-vintage set represented by Hindenburg, Papen and the gang, the Nazi party had major problems with election-fatigue, money, and the factional split that would be resolved by the Night of the Long Knives once the Hitler-Nazis had secured the state power. Their polls were worsening. Fiddle with things (sorry, Hindenburg, but your falling down the stairs can only help matters) so as to keep the non-Nazi right bickering with itself for a little longer, and Hitler's party should start to rapidly lose steam.

Nasty, fascist-flavoured Germany is still altogether possible (even likely), but a regime lacking Hitler, his ideas and even moreso the absurd "working towards the Fuhrer" business that encourages every kind of excess from his gang and from every level of the state apparatus, and the "Gleichschaltung" process whereby the Nazi regime progressively divested itself of its breaks, is unlikely to create a carnival of horrors on the same scale.

And of course, if there are still Nazis, then even a more plausible, pessimistic outcome for Russia has reshuffled diplomacy to the extent that the Nazis might be stopped in their tracks somewhere else (probably Czechoslovakia).

Britain's delusional foreign policy, I think, did have an ideological dimension (the establishment represented by the Mail was basically pro-fascist when anybody mentioned the word "commie": look at our almost completely transparent support for Franco's putschists) beyond any incorrect assesment of German and Russian power and intentions. Change that, and we might find spines somewhere. Of course, as you point out, the Entente establishments may not be very favourable to Russia in any case, but diplomacy is enormously mutable and we came close enough to war in 1938 as it was.
 
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Old Airman

Banned
I do think the Nazis can be avoided more easily than you suggest, though. The factors you point out (the stigma of Versailles, and the conservative-through-reactionary imperial attitude permeating the "establishment" from Hindenberg to the village constabularies that made them hysterical about the communist threat and willing to hand power to the Nazis on a silver platter) were the institutional rot, but they were inflamed by the Great Depression; Germans hated Versailles and had a backward-looking state structure in the mid-20s, yet the Nazi movement proper went nowhere.
All valid point worthy of discussion, but I was just driving home the idea that non-Commie Russia POD doesn't automatically drive Nazi away. You need extra intra-German PODs for that.

And of course, if there are still Nazis, then even a more plausible, pessimistic outcome for Russia has reshuffled diplomacy to the extent that the Nazis might be stopped in their tracks somewhere else (probably Czechoslovakia).
I'm not sure about shared Russo-Czech border (OTL Soviet-Czech border was a bridge bit too far, IMHO), but non-Communist Russia's alliance with Czech is very promising thing. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced it's enough to stop the war, may be to delay it...

Britain's delusional foreign policy, I think, did have an ideological dimension (the establishment represented by the Mail was basically pro-fascist when anybody mentioned the word "commie": look at our almost completely transparent support for Franco's putschists) beyond any incorrect assesment of German and Russian power and intentions. Change that, and we might find spines somewhere. Of course, as you point out, the Entente establishments may not be very favourable to Russia in any case, but diplomacy is enormously mutable and we came close enough to war in 1938 as it was.
Count on Britons to be as paranoid about Russia owning Black Sea straits as they were about Red Russia. After all, for British decision-makers of the day Russia had been a natural adversary and recent WWI alliance just a blip, brought about by Russo-French alliance (an oddity in itself, brought by Germans themselves, but this is yeat another topic)
 
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