Okay, so what if the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War, but the Red Guard lost the Finnish Civil War?

Finland and Russia's histories would both be very different if the other side won their respective civil war, but how would they be different? Would there be a much larger Red Scare in Europe if the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War? Would white Finland be a monarchy or a republic? What would happen to the Tsar (I know it's one of history's funny moments, when after the military coup, Finland, a virulently anti-monarchist socialist state, gave the former Tsar Nicholas II and his family refuge just because it would piss off Russia)? What else would happen?

OOC: Yes, the Tsar and his family survive TTL. I just thought that, even though it isn't very realistic, the "Finland giving the former Tsar refuge" thing would be kind of fun and add a bit more situational irony to the scenario.
 
I'd say it would be unlikely for White Finland to become a monarchy, as the Whites IOTL were mostly a pretty republican-minded bunch. True, many of the Whites were pro-German, and there was a plan of inviting a German royal to become the King of Finland. But then if Germany loses the war also ITTL, no major power would stand for a German king on the Finnish throne postwar.

The most realistic prospect for a White Finland would be to become an authoritarian quasi-republic (like Poland), maybe under one of the leaders of the OTL Whites, say Senator Svinhufvud (who died in an airplane crash IOTL early in the civil war) or the White military leader, General Kivekäs. The problem IOTL of course was the Whites' inability to form a functional government during the civil war. That also hamstrung the Finnish White Guards' efforts to fight the Reds.

Most likely this weak White Finland, militarist, divided and under constant threat from a renewed Red rebellion, would fall into another civil war in the 20s, and then be taken over by Bolshevik Russia.
 

Dolan

Banned
Well, there might be something bigger compared to the ill-fated 1972 Finnish invasion of Sweden and Norway, that ends up with Communist Republic of Finland basically forcibly dissolved split in three and controlled by Sweden, Norway, and Russia... Because face it, the Communist Finns are insane, self-deluded utopianists who thought their "liberation" of Scandinavia would be met with proletariat immediately joins them to topple the Nordic monarchies, thanks to fifty years of "education".

Sure, there were talks to just let Finland being independent again, but everybody did agree that the "Nutcase of Europe" must be rehabilitated.
 
Well, there might be something bigger compared to the ill-fated 1972 Finnish invasion of Sweden and Norway, that ends up with Communist Republic of Finland basically forcibly dissolved split in three and controlled by Sweden, Norway, and Russia... Because face it, the Communist Finns are insane, self-deluded utopianists who thought their "liberation" of Scandinavia would be met with proletariat immediately joins them to topple the Nordic monarchies, thanks to fifty years of "education".

Sure, there were talks to just let Finland being independent again, but everybody did agree that the "Nutcase of Europe" must be rehabilitated.

That decision ended badly for pretty much everyone involved, if I remember correctly. I mean, the Finnish reds were deluded utopians, but their regime was pretty stable and had a decent human rights record compared to the governments that followed it (at least until the current moderate Market Socialist Republic, which only gained power in 2003, and everyone but the most dedicated nationalist or communist can agree was better than both the various military governments and crypto-fascist "republics" that preceded it following Finnish independence and the Red Guard's rather more authoritarian (though still democratic) socialist state). The decision to occupy Finland was pretty fucking stupid, though, and, ironically enough, only the Russians, weakened as they were from two world wars, a civil war, and a lot of political instability from the transition to a democratic government, were able to maintain control of and relative stability in their occupation zone. All the occupation did for Norway and Sweden was take the lives of many young men who would have survived if they'd just left the "Nutcase of Europe" alone after teaching it a well-needed and rather brutal lesson.
 

Dolan

Banned
All the occupation did for Norway and Sweden was take the lives of many young men who would have survived if they'd just left the "Nutcase of Europe" alone after teaching it a well-needed and rather brutal lesson.
Doesn't help that with all the de-facto low intensity war in Scandinavia during 1980-2000s, that sometimes spilled into Kaiserreich, Poland, and Russia proper ends up fueling current stereotypes that the Scandinavians never outgrown their war-loving Viking roots.

Imagine if that happened on Russia, what kind of Historical parallelism we will drawn from that? Another rise of Mongol Empire? Hun hordes invading Europe?
 
Doesn't help that with all the de-facto low intensity war in Scandinavia during 1980-2000s, that sometimes spilled into Kaiserreich, Poland, and Russia proper ends up fueling current stereotypes that the Scandinavians never outgrown their war-loving Viking roots.

Imagine if that happened on Russia, what kind of Historical parallelism we will drawn from that? Another rise of Mongol Empire? Hun hordes invading Europe?

I mean, nowadays, Scandinavia's pretty peaceful, but you can still see surprisingly small traces of resentment between Finland and the other Nordic countries. Some people even say that Finland sometimes feels more Eastern European than Nordic.

As for parallelism, I don't put much stock in it, but maybe Russia gets split between a reformed Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Qing Empire, and a surviving Japanese Empire that, for whatever reason, never falls to syndicalism?

OOC: I know syndicalist Japan is another "out there" idea, but I'm having a lot of fun with this scenario.
 
I for once would like to see a country as large as Russia go Communist.

... Just to see how they'd fare.

I mean, you probably all heard the arguments: yes, Communism worked well in a small, monocultural, relatively equal, well-educated mostly agrarian country like Finland, but will never work in anything larger, especially anything multi-ethnic or anything that has a large cultural divide between megacities and heartland. Communism does work well... For small communes but there is a reason it has never been tried in any country bigger then Finland. And that's because everybody knows it wouldn't work.... At least that's how the reasoning goes.

There have been a number of timelines on this site fantasizing about how different European or American countries went Communist nationwide. Several more imagined the Paris Commune spreading out to all of France or the Chiappas Commonwealth taking over all Mexico or all of LA and most of the US in the prospect. However most of the timelines were clearly utopian wishfull thinking that within hours got moved from the 'After 1900' forum to the 'ASB and other magic' one. The others just used a version of 'An ASB made the nation of X, yes the WHOLE nation of X embrace Communism' as a starting point for a civil war or an Invasion USA' timeline. Mostly with battles and an outcome just as ASB as the premise.

So yes, I would like to live in an alternate history where Finland went Republican and Russia went Communist.... Just so I could publish all those timelines as alternative fiction and have a good laugh.
 
I mean, you probably all heard the arguments: yes, Communism worked well in a small, monocultural, relatively equal, well-educated mostly agrarian country like Finland, but will never work in anything larger, especially anything multi-ethnic or anything that has a large cultural divide between megacities and heartland. Communism does work well... For small communes but there is a reason it has never been tried in any country bigger then Finland. And that's because everybody knows it wouldn't work.... At least that's how the reasoning goes.

I mean, this would actually be a pretty interesting argument, if it weren't so often used as some sort of dog-whistle by neo-fascists (especially the "monocultural" thing). Not saying you're one, just pointing out that the kind of people who bring up this argument often aren't arguing in good faith.

I personally think the actual reason communism has a tendency to fail spectacularly (and no, Finland wasn't and Japan isn't communist, Finland was a vanguard socialist republic under the rule of a communist party and Japan is a syndicalist workers' confederation) has more to do with the fact that a lot of these socialist experiments have an unfortunate tendency to skip the whole "socialist republic" phase and go straight to full communism, which either is impossible or cannot coexist with capitalism.

That's why more moderate socialist republics like Czechoslovakia, Modern-Day Finland, Japan, and, to a much lesser extent, Red Finland, are so successful when compared to socialist experiments that tried to go straight from some form of capitalism to a communist utopia.
 
For a Red Russia you need to butterfly the assassination of Lenin. A large part of why the Bolsheviks lost to begin with was because of infighting among the leadership over who would succeed Lenin. I also think you just need a more organised Red Army, and one strong enough to stand up to the White Army's allies too.
 
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There simply isn't enough people in Finland.

Even if all white move.. The red tide is going to follow and crush it, really Noone wanted the whites except the rich and those with a vested interest. Everyone else was on the other side. Plus bonus fact, the redd were fairly brutal in their convincing tactics.

Finland falls and the whites disband.

Only hope would be intervention to hold a line
 
There simply isn't enough people in Finland.

Even if all white move.. The red tide is going to follow and crush it, really Noone wanted the whites except the rich and those with a vested interest. Everyone else was on the other side. Plus bonus fact, the redd were fairly brutal in their convincing tactics.

Finland falls and the whites disband.

Only hope would be intervention to hold a line

Finland stood pretty strong against Russia in the Second World War, and left it with a very nice metaphorical bloody nose while German, Polish, and various other allied soldiers pushed their way to Moscow. Hell, Finland even briefly took Petrograd (though this was near the end of the war, and the peace treaty made them give it back)!

Then again, maybe they could only accomplish this because Russia was distracted in the south and the Finnish government had the popular support of the people. The general consensus seems to be that White Finland would be a lot less stable than Red Finland...
 
I wonder how Germany will be affected in this scenario?

They'd still probably lose the First World War, and it might even be worse for them, with the Red Russian behemoth looming above them and obviously posing an immediate threat (as opposed to Russia IOTL, which at the time was a fractured mess under the unsteady hand of the restored Tsardom nursing its wounds and obviously not in any sort of shape to fight; we've gotta give some credit to the psuedo-fascist military dictatorship for whipping it into shape). Hell, the monarchy might even collapse entirely instead of Germany taking a leaf out of the UK's book and becoming a more democratic parliamentary monarchy...
 
I've read about this weird far-right political party in Germany called the "National Socialist Party" that existed after the First World War. If I recall correctly, some Whites were advocates for this movement. Given the possibility of the aftermath of the war going even worse for them in this scenario and their opposition to communism, could they possibly rise to power? It's a real long shot, I know, but is it possible?
 
I've read about this weird far-right political party in Germany called the "National Socialist Party" that existed after the First World War. If I recall correctly, some Whites were advocates for this movement. Given the possibility of the aftermath of the war going even worse for them in this scenario and their opposition to communism, could they possibly rise to power? It's a real long shot, I know, but is it possible?
Those lunatics? The Junkers and industrialists who control the rightwing German factions aren't going to let any sort of volkisch lunatics anywhere near the levers of power.
 
Would a Communist Russia still ally with Imperial Japan against the Qing Empire? The Asian theatre in the Second Great War was as bad as it was because Russia and Japan worked together against the Qing (Japan's defeat sparking the Revolution).

Then again, a Communist Russia probably means the war with the KMT lasts until after 1925, meaning the Qing are significantly weaker when Japan does come knocking...
 
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