I'd like to just add my voice to the notion that yes indeed, Russia was industrializing at very considerable rate for some 30 years before 1914. What communists did was re-industrialization along central planning lines, without any regard to market needs or cost-benefit analysis. It is absolutely wrong to assume that non-communist Russia, surviving or not experiencing WW1, would not have continued its significant industrialization process that it saw pre-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.
Hmm, well I am not sure that this is entirely true. It certainly is true that Soviet GDP for the period 1928-40 grew at 4.6%, greater than the quite respectable 1901-14 3.4% GDP growth. However, lets look at other factors.
1) It was not until 1928 that the Russian economy recovered to 1914 levels.
2) If he Russian Civil war is butterflied away this recovery period, would almost certainly not have taken 14 years
3) GDP x population = economic output. How many people may still have been in Russia in 1940 assuming not Communism and in particular no Stalin?
Civil War 2 million plus 4 million more émigrés
1921 Famine 5 million
Stalin's lovely purges 15-20 million
Baltic States stay part of Russia 4 million
With an extra 30 million people in Russia and no civil war, it's likely that Russian economic output in 1940 would have outstripped that of the Soviet Union.
on top of that if there's no civil war all eastern europe falls back under russian rule, together with its people and economy.
If Finland, the Baltics and most of Poland stays under Russian rule, then this post-WWI Tsarist Russia might have problems because of that as well as some benefits. A lot depends from what is the Tsarist policy towards the local ethnic majorities. If some sorts of autonomy schemes are tried to keep the locals pacified, giving them some rights and a possibility to govern themselves, these areas can stay as peaceful and loyal parts of the imperial domains.
But what if the pre-war policies of Russification and forced integration will continue? It will make the non-Russian areas restive and even rebellious. They would be a bleeding sore on Russia's side, and the situation might escalate into real violence in the 20s and 30s. In such a scenario, the Germans attacking Russia will find a lot of willing collaborators from these areas. After all, the Germans are coming to liberate these peoples from the loathed Tsarist rule. If these Germans are actual Nazis, the Finns, Baltics and Poles will quickly see that they are not any better than the Russians - but at that point the damage would have already been made.
And so when the war comes there are two extreme ends and different options in between - Russia has predominately loyal border areas, due to lenient and constructive treatment of the locals, or Russia has actually rebellious, secessionist border areas that are in arms against oppressive Russian policies. I am afraid that the expected trajectory of a surviving Tsarist Russia makes the latter, more negative option more likely, or at least something from that end of the range of options.
the usual method at that time to pacify restive colonized peoples was to shoot them until they're not restive any more - and it worked sufficiently fine to continue exploitation of people, land and economy, cynical people like myself say that it's still working.
besides a losing germany isnt going to attack anyone in the 20s, and if the russians dont cut their ties with france and go into international isolation like the soviets they're not going to try in the 30s either (barring some hilarous stupidity on the germans part which would end up putting the russians in the same situation the soviets were at the end of the war).
Yeah, that was somewhat IOTL. A large number of Soviet citizens (in particular Ukrainians and Balts) greeted the Germans as liberators, which makes sense considering Stalin's beyond horrific treatment of them. But the Nazis, being Nazis, promptly proved themselves to be as brutal as the Soviets and burned through much of that goodwill. The same thing would probably happen in Tsarist Russia.As this thread is looking towards Nazis attacking Russia, I am expecting the war to start roughly when it started IOTL, in the early 40s. By that point the smaller border nationalities might be well and truly fed up with Tsarist rule and would gladly join the foreign "liberation" ready to roll their way.
The "problem" with Tsarist Russia is that it is brutal enough to oppress these peoples politically and culturally, to make the people rebellious, but not brutal enough to exact Stalinist-style violence on them. Ordinary Tsarist state action, with limited okhrana measures, etc, will probably not put such separatism/insurgency down. Unless this Tsarist Russia turns actually totalitarian, and I don't believe that is the scenario most people have been considering here.
As this thread is looking towards Nazis attacking Russia, I am expecting the war to start roughly when it started IOTL, in the early 40s. By that point the smaller border nationalities might be well and truly fed up with Tsarist rule and would gladly join the foreign "liberation" ready to roll their way.
brutality is a tool, not its own purpose. if a certain level of violence is insufficient to put down rebellions the russians are going to step it up. authoritarians are just as eager to use extreme violence as totalitarians if it serves their needs and tsarist russia is very authoritarian.
OTL there were plenty of people who welcomed the nazis as liberators and even joined up with the wehrmacht and ss, look what happened to them, it wouldnt be any different here but imo there would probably be less of them - the tsar wouldnt have starved 20 millions of them to death, so there's less hate.
Yeah, that was somewhat IOTL. A large number of Soviet citizens (in particular Ukrainians and Balts) greeted the Germans as liberators, which makes sense considering Stalin's beyond horrific treatment of them. But the Nazis, being Nazis, promptly proved themselves to be as brutal as the Soviets and burned through much of that goodwill. The same thing would probably happen in Tsarist Russia.
If the stars align in a such a manner that there is a second German war (especially one where France has been taken down), there's a chance that Russia's performance is more like Nationalist China's performance. With less heavy industry (a reasonable default assumption) Russia can lose more cities to the Germans and never become able to oust the Germans from their own territory, until the industrial and scientific resources of the US and British Commonwealth combined come fully into play with large invasions of Europe and atomic bombings.
At the same time, this isn't quite a defeat, because Russia's large landmass, large population means they can keep back the Germans from a "Chungking" equivalent capital east of the Volga. If the Germans do anything like OTL's occupation policies, Russian resistance will be propped up by a popular nationalist reaction and a feeling that surrender is more deadly than fighting.