Which USSR borders? The pre-1939. or the 1941. border?
1941 borders.
Which USSR borders? The pre-1939. or the 1941. border?
Because industrialization leads to the creation of a proletariat which can be targeted by the radical left for radicalization.
If that's the case, then why exactly did the rest of Europe industrialize? For Tsarist Russia to survive I would argue it would have to go through a period of constitutionalism and industrialization.
Significant consitutional reform just won't happen in tsarist Russia. If you want proof look at what happened OTL. Nicholas II agreed to have a Duma to appease his people after defeat to Japan but once the threat of revolution had passed he severely limited its power. One can very clearly see the lasting influence of Pobedonostsev in all of this.
It is probably true that constitutional reform doesn't happen with Nicholas at the helm. Then again, for Tsarism to survive reform is pretty essential. The premise itself demands that Tsarist Russia be constitutional to exist, whatever the reason for said constitution (Cyril as Tsar maybe?)
Perhaps not having Alexander II assasinated by People's Will might do the trick. He was due to announce a new constitution a few days after his death.
Huh? That map shows a major drop off as a result of the Russian Civil War, Stalin improving things in the 1920s-30s and WW2 destroying their economy.
Yeah, it was a bad example since it compares the data to the GDP/c of the US.
Meliantsev summarizes the difference of imperian Russian and Soviet economic policies like this:
"Due to enormous sacrifices, initiated by the command system, which was ruthlessly ‘devouring’ its human, natural and capital resources and set up uncompetitive economic mechanism, average annual growth rates of per capita GDP hardly increased more than by one and a half times: from 1.5% per year in tsarist Russia in 1885–1913 to some 2.2–2.4% in 1913–1990.
Soviet ‘record’ of economic growth was really far from the best.
The USSR was surpassed by Japan and Taiwan (3.3–3.5%), South Korea, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, Sweden and Greece (2.4–2.9%; calculated on Maddison 1995: 194–206). It is useful to remember that their economic growth, in contrast to the Soviet growth, was full of much value as it was primarily determined by the outplay of market forces."
Even by assuming that imperial Russia continues to develop her economy at the less-than-stellar pre-WW1 rates, I'd argue that she'd still have larger population base with comparable-sized economy by 1941 compared to OTL USSR, without the disturbances and catastrophes of the OTL early Soviet era - Stalin had to whip the country to frenzied industrialization because of the decades lost due the Civil War and the destruction it caused.
I also find it rather plausible to think that despite the horrid track record of the czarist administration, the hypothetical economic growth of the Russian economy could still easily improve from the 1,X% annual rates of the pre-WW1 levels and reach the rates of such economic powerhouses as Turkey or Iran (2.4-2.9%) in the 1920s. The net result would be an economy and state that could easily be more than a match for the Nazis.
The problem is that Russia was never a good grower. WW1, the civil war, and WW2 all caused collectively tens of millions of deaths, wrecked the country repeatedly from 1914-1945 (never recovering from WW2 in growth rates), was already backwards, had little outside help, etc. It had to recover and do all it did on its own after 1917 so achieving greater growth than the Czar is highly admirable, even if in the end the USSR was not a particularly efficient system once the stagnation of the 1970s hit (also hitting the West BTW).
Also you're assuming that the Czar would have achieved those growth rates why? Just because they weren't Soviet? pre-WW1 they couldn't do that and were badly messed up and in debt without means to pay it back by 1918. Also you're assuming the Germans aren't growing in the meantime either. I guess if the whole Russian Empire remained intact, including Poland, the Baltics, and Finland (BTW remember the Soviets lost those territories) they'd have a better starting point, but that also leaves out the horrible class struggles and political issues a post-WW1 Russia would have with the Czar in charge; there is going to be a lot of purges and uprisings even if the Czar wins the civil war.
You haven't proven that though, rather just the opposite. The Czars achieved a far lower growth rate than the Soviets did, despite the Soviet inheriting a looted and war-torn land that they had to build up without access to foreign capital markets. So they ended up proving to be far better administrators than the Czars ever were. The growth rates achieved after 1870 were a function of French investments in Russia to help them become a counterbalance to the Germans, not because they were particularly good at what they did; meanwhile the Germans also invested in Russia to take advantage of cheap labor and provide a market for their industrial goods within Russia while taking advantage of their very cheap raw materials.My main point is that the Bolsheviks were actually worse at administering the Russian economy in the long run than the czarist authorities, and that in order to exist in the 1940s in the first place the czarist Russia would have had to modernize.
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You haven't proven that though, rather just the opposite. The Czars achieved a far lower growth rate than the Soviets did, despite the Soviet inheriting a looted and war-torn land that they had to build up without access to foreign capital markets. So they ended up proving to be far better administrators than the Czars ever were. The growth rates achieved after 1870 were a function of French investments in Russia to help them become a counterbalance to the Germans, not because they were particularly good at what they did; meanwhile the Germans also invested in Russia to take advantage of cheap labor and provide a market for their industrial goods within Russia while taking advantage of their very cheap raw materials.
Who do you think invented the Siberian prison system? There was a Czarist secret police, a massive crackdown after the 1905 revolution (why were they revolting you think, in fact why were the Bolsheviks able to rally support?), and they regularly executed dissenters like Lenin's brother and friends.Czarist administration never worked a minimum of ~1 million political prisoners to death either, and still had the country in a determined course towards industrialization by 1913.
I just don't buy it; perhaps if they survived WW1 they would have heavily reformed, but even then economically they were a basketcase due to destruction and debt issues.The Bolsheviks were able to whip up some truly impressive results in some areas (literacy rates, war materials industry), but for me their success is more of a testament to the huge economic potential of the Russian heartland and the continuation of trends that were already emerging in 1913 anyway. The Bolshevik economy only started to thrive and recover during the NEP years, and that was achieved by returning to the economic policies and methods that the czarist system had adopted first during WW1.
(I'm mainly following the arguments J. Sandborn presents in Imperial Apocalypse here.)
Who do you think invented the Siberian prison system? There was a Czarist secret police, a massive crackdown after the 1905 revolution (why were they revolting you think, in fact why were the Bolsheviks able to rally support?), and they regularly executed dissenters like Lenin's brother and friends.
I just don't buy it; perhaps if they survived WW1 they would have heavily reformed, but even then economically they were a basketcase due to destruction and debt issues.
Who do you think invented the Siberian prison system? There was a Czarist secret police, a massive crackdown after the 1905 revolution (why were they revolting you think, in fact why were the Bolsheviks able to rally support?), and they regularly executed dissenters like Lenin's brother and friends.
I just don't buy it; perhaps if they survived WW1 they would have heavily reformed, but even then economically they were a basketcase due to destruction and debt issues.
Between 1929-1953 the Gulags housed about 14 million people, and at any one time there were over half a million gulag prisoners. Meanwhile in 1916 there were only 28,600 Katorga prisoners, or about 5% of the total in 1934 (which was fairly low compared to later years).First of all, to compare Tsarist Russia to Stalinism is a major fallacy. None of the Tsars ever killed as many people as Stalin, and the Gulags killed far more than the Siberian prison camps. Also IIRC Lenins brother tried to kill the Tsar. Those tyrants! Think of the poor murderers and assassins!
One of the reasons the Soviets were so far behind is because of the RCW. The RCW destroyed huge portions of the Russian Empire and created massive problems. Just avoiding that already leaves Russia far better off.Second, No matter how bad Tsarist Russia has it after WWI chances are they won't be worse off than the Soviet Union. Brest Litovsk did a number on the Russian economy, and assuming they win WWI less of their country has probably come under occupation. This isn't counting no RCW.
One of the reasons the Soviets were so far behind is because of the RCW. The RCW destroyed huge portions of the Russian Empire and created massive problems. Just avoiding that already leaves Russia far better off.
The Whites didn't want a Tsar at all and there was no popular will for one. It doesn't make sense for them to reinstate the Tsar (and this ignores how implausible a White victory, especially a total victory, is).Why assume that the RCW doesn't happen? Pretty much the only remotely plausible scenario for a Tzarist Russia vs. Nazi Germany showdown happens is if the Whites win the RCW and install a new Tzar.
The Whites didn't want a Tsar at all and there was no popular will for one. It doesn't make sense for them to reinstate the Tsar (and this ignores how implausible a White victory, especially a total victory, is).