Could a Tsarist Russia defeat the Nazis?

Angrybird

Banned
Can a tsarist Russia generate Stalins brutality which forced millions of soldiers to throw themselves against the Germans and which held the USSR together by sheer force?

I think not
 
On industrialization

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.

However, one thing is true: non-totalitarian regimes answer more to their societies and thus might experience more difficulties while dealing with the same level of deaths that Soviet Union had in WW2.
 
I think a good starting point is to determine how much of Tsarist Russia is intact post WWI. They still had to abide by Brest-Litovsk or was it torn up after Allied victory?
 
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 realize this (in bold) undermines your argument, right? Before WWI, growth was overwhelmingly in heavy industry, creating an imbalanced economy. The Soviets continued this trend by force and accomplished decades of regrowth and growth in a little over ten years. One of the changes that post war Russia will see is a change in focus to intermediate industry and the consumer oriented sector. This means a growing middle class with its attendant problems for a conservative regime at the expense of the kind of material capability to prosecute the war that the USSR had. Then there is the issue of the depression or similar crises that had little effect on the USSR in OTL.
 
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It could go two way:

PODs make Russian Tsarism survive, but at the cost of the Tsar being a figurehead like the British royalty. If this is the case, they could very well take over most of Europe and to this day be a legitimate foe for the US.

Or, the Tsars cling on for dear life, but there are revolutions all over the place. The Tsar, paranoid, essentially runs the country like Stalin, not trusting his army or anyone. If this be the case, they can be in equal or worse shape.
 
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 the 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 no 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.
 
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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.

admiring stalins industrialisation is a textbook example of the "great man" fallacy - highlight the little he did, ignore all the things destroyed during the past 20 years, ignore lost growth.
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.

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.


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).

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.
 
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.
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.
 
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.

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.

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.

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.
 
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.

That will depend many things, say on the position and composition of the Tsarist government. As opposed to Stalinist rule, there will be different political cliques among the leadership, and they will favour different, at turns more brutal and more lenient policies. How opposition and rebellion is punished will come down to politics, and what ever we can say about a continued Tsarist rule, we can probably say that it will be necessarily inconsistent and erratic. We can not expect a continued, consistent policy on the smaller nationalities all through the 20s and 30s, I think. A lot of things will slip through the cracks. Also, if in the 20s and 30s the nation is breaking at its seems anyway, due to growing industry and militant working class and maybe even with vocal domestic Russian opposition much in evidence, the state might not have the strenght to punish the smaller nationalities very heavily. We have to remember that for the apparent growing strength of Russia in general, the Tsarist government will be in reality in many ways quite weak, especially if no real political modernization is allowed in the 20s and 30s.


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.

Or more of them, simply because more are alive. Nobody would know what horrors Stalinism would have visited the former empire in another TL, and well, the feeling of being oppressed and politically sidelined is a subjective, not an objective feeling. To many people, especially among the smaller ethnicities, the Tsarist state would be quite oppressive enough to warrant siding with a foreign "liberator".


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.

Quite so. My point is that even if Tsarist Russia would retain Finland, the Baltics and the Polish areas between 1917 - c. 1940, the general benefits and potential costs of holding on to these areas is not as simple a calculation as we might expect, but will depend on Russian policies in this period. This applies to both peacetime and times of war.
 
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Given that the enemy is Nazis any Russian regime will be able to get folk to fight and Russia is too large to conquer if it keeps fighting
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
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.
 

Deleted member 1487

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.


LL can work like it did for the Soviets: heavily industrialize it with foreign expertise and the latest technology. Except if/when they survive the war they will get all the rebuilding money they want.
 
Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War was by no means a given. Assume the Whites do better and are more reasonable, but there was a Brest-Litovsk, a civil war but the Whites win, Nicholas and family executed as OTL but Michael is now Tsar as symbol of the nation - a constitutional monarch but with more power than the British monarchy in the 1920s. This means Russia is as trashed more or less as OTL, Finland and the Baltic states are now independent.

It is not total handwavium to see the Nazis come to power - communists were strong in Germany, and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were not dependent on a "USSR". The presence or absence of a USSR did not contribute to the hyperinflation, problems with reparations, and the general fecklessness of the Weimar government. The NSDAP still has all these issues, local communists and Jews to blame. Polish Slavs were not communist, yet were also untermenschen. So let's have the Nazi's come to power, and lebensraum is still an issue.

While a non-communist Russia will have access to western capital for industrialization/reconstruction, it will also be hit by the depression more so than the USSR with a relatively isolated economy was. It is not clear that the 1939 Russian military will be better lad than the 1939 Soviet military - if nobility is the pathway to military advancement, the record of the Russian officer corps in WWI is dismal indeed and even Stalin was smart enough to let political reliability slip in favor of competence after the Germans attacked.

OTOH a "white" Russia will be more cooperative with the western Allies - shuttle bombing, more transparency in many ways which will be a plus. If the Germans make the same sort of errors they made OTL I expect the end result will be similar. Of course details greatly different, and a "white" Russia won't end up subjugating Eastern Europe as Stalin did OTL.
 
people seem to really underestimate tsarist russia.

I mean if we look back to the Russo Japanese war Japan did not win a "smashing" victory as claimed it was a close run victory one which pushed Japan to its limits and Japan nearly lost. Their was a reason the Japanese government was relieved when Roosevelt offered to negotiate the peace terms. From an economic standpoint due to influx of vast amounts of foreign capital from France and UK Russia was well on its way towards industrialization and modernization. The issue russia faced in wwi was that ti was caught with its pants down and unfortunately had a string of inept commanders one of them being the tsar himself.

For a surviving tsarist russia what you need is essentially no WWI or a POD before 1900. If either of those two POD's are their well then nazis as we know would have never arisen though a right wing government may take shape in Germany. Who knows maybe due to butterflies by 1916-17 neither the central powers or the entente decide going to war would be possible given by that point due to armaments all 5 great powers of Europe being evened out in terms of military capabilities means Germany may not decide to go to war. heck if the bosnian crises goes the other way than Russia may not need to even save face in supporting Serbia. Butterfly away archdukes assassination, have Russia continue to modernize like otl and you could see a European cold war situations develop by which point war would be unfeasible.

If such a scenario happens than nazis rising to power is impossible and so one must conclude that nazi Germany arose because of WWI and without such a war which is a must for the Russian Empire to survive means this premise is asb.
 
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