DBWI: The Bolshiviks mount a successful coup in 1917

Kerenski's supposedly stumbled on a secret plan to overthrow the government in Aug 1917 by the Bolshiviks. The plotters included Vladimir Lennin and Leon Trotsky and Kerenski had them both shot for treason. This was followed by hundreds of arrests. Assuming this wasn't something Kerenski cooked up to prop up his government up at a weak moment what would have happened if they mounted a successful coup? Would the government pulled out of the war at the same time the Americans were coming in? What would the Bolshiviks policies have been? Would Russia be the reasonably prosperous, social democratic country it is today?
 
Rather obscure group to be bringing up. I honestly had to do some research before I had any idea who you were talking about, these are historical footnotes of the highest order. From what I gathered, Lenin's group was somewhat popular in St. Petersburg, but they weren't really that popular elsewhere in Russia. So if they somehow seize power in the city, they won't be able to maintain a control over Russia. Even Kerenski didn't manage that. Once the elections were held, Russia's government fell into the hands of the peasant oriented Socialist Revolutionary Parties. Lenin's governing style is hard to fathom. From the very little I've been able to gleam, his ideology is a weird mix of socialism and a kind of modern absolutism. I'm not sure how that would work, exactly. Anyway, for the coup to work you're going to have to make the Bolshevik's even more united than they were. Lenin's seems to have made a lot of pronouncements that his party lacked any internal division, but the failure of the coup proves that wasn't the case. Two high ranking members of the party didn't support the idea of a coup, and actually published the party's plans in a local newspaper. It was that article that led to The PG's quick arrest of Lenin and Trotsky, and eventually countless others associated with the party in St. Petersburg. So basically prevent the dissent within the party, and they might stand a better chance. I can't see them lasting in power though.

OCC: I might be remembering things incorrectly here, but given the relative obscurity of Lenin here, if what I say sounds ignorant, I think there's some justification.
 
Rather obscure group to be bringing up. I honestly had to do some research before I had any idea who you were talking about, these are historical footnotes of the highest order. From what I gathered, Lenin's group was somewhat popular in St. Petersburg, but they weren't really that popular elsewhere in Russia. So if they somehow seize power in the city, they won't be able to maintain a control over Russia. Even Kerenski didn't manage that. Once the elections were held, Russia's government fell into the hands of the peasant oriented Socialist Revolutionary Parties. Lenin's governing style is hard to fathom. From the very little I've been able to gleam, his ideology is a weird mix of socialism and a kind of modern absolutism. I'm not sure how that would work, exactly. Anyway, for the coup to work you're going to have to make the Bolshevik's even more united than they were. Lenin's seems to have made a lot of pronouncements that his party lacked any internal division, but the failure of the coup proves that wasn't the case. Two high ranking members of the party didn't support the idea of a coup, and actually published the party's plans in a local newspaper. It was that article that led to The PG's quick arrest of Lenin and Trotsky, and eventually countless others associated with the party in St. Petersburg. So basically prevent the dissent within the party, and they might stand a better chance. I can't see them lasting in power though.

OCC: I might be remembering things incorrectly here, but given the relative obscurity of Lenin here, if what I say sounds ignorant, I think there's some justification.



Well a distant ancestor of a friend was a police officer that helped put down the plot. I don't think they would have succeeded either. After all they were most popular with St. Petersburg intellectuals and would have had to get some working class support. I think they would have gone into a lot of intellectual debates on what to do after they took over and by the time they actually DID anything it would be too late as someone who had his eye on the main prize and actually moved would take over.
 
Well for one thing, I'm pretty sure Joseph Stalin would've been offed by the Leninites considering that he was the one of the big shakers of the party that ratted the rest out. This might not be a good thing considering Stalin's term as Minister of Industry was a key factor in Russia's economic growth and recovery in the 20's and 30's.
 
Considering Kerensky's claims that Lenin was a German agent, bought and paid for, he definitely would have brought Russia out of the war immediately if their coup had been successful (there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Kerensky, while he may have exaggerated, was right about this). Probably would have started a full-on civil war.

If Russia had pulled out of the war, or stopped fighting, the Germans might have been able to force the Western Allies to a negotiated peace, if that pressure had been let off.
 
Considering Kerensky's claims that Lenin was a German agent, bought and paid for, he definitely would have brought Russia out of the war immediately if their coup had been successful (there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Kerensky, while he may have exaggerated, was right about this). Probably would have started a full-on civil war.

If Russia had pulled out of the war, or stopped fighting, the Germans might have been able to force the Western Allies to a negotiated peace, if that pressure had been let off.

German records siezed after the war show HE WAS a German agent. Of course he could have back stabbed them once in power. What are they going to do about it? If he pulls it off he has the Russian military protecting him.
 
If Russia had pulled out of the war, or stopped fighting, the Germans might have been able to force the Western Allies to a negotiated peace, if that pressure had been let off.

Germany was really starting to run out of steam by this point though, and the US was getting involved by this point. So I'm fairly sure the Allies would win due to the US shoring them up. It would only take a few more months most likely.
 
Germany was really starting to run out of steam by this point though, and the US was getting involved by this point. So I'm fairly sure the Allies would win due to the US shoring them up. It would only take a few more months most likely.


Another question is would they actually pull out and miss out on the spoils? They knew the US was coming in and pulling out right then and there would leave them off the table. Why not backstab the Germans and make sure you keep your seat at the table?
 
Another question is would they actually pull out and miss out on the spoils? They knew the US was coming in and pulling out right then and there would leave them off the table. Why not backstab the Germans and make sure you keep your seat at the table?

Likely because they'd face severe opposition internally. As you said, they didn't have a whole lot of support outside St. Petersburg. They'd likely be too busy facing numerous factions who'd be fighting either for Kerensky's government or the monarchists. They'd also have to deal with separatists, which led to OTL Russia's loss of Central Asia to von Sternberg for most of a decade. I'd love to see them try to take on the nationalist uprisings in the Baltics and Caucasian Mountains, plus Sternberg, as well as the rest of the Government that'd oppose the coup.
 
As others have said, the Bolsheviks sound to me like a peculiar, fringe group. I can see no viable way that an alliance of St. Petersburg intellectual elites can maintain any workable alliance with non-partisan soldiers, industrial workers, and the agrarian pseudo-serfs (who were apparently far more politically apathetic than this Lenin made them out to be). If they did happen to throw Kerensky out? The "proletariat" would be fed up with these self-titled, university educated intellectuals who clearly weren't looking out for the working man's best interest. I can only see such a delicate coalition breaking down like Kerensky's did, this time with far more disasterous consequences due to further demoralization and apathy from the armed forces. The St. Petersburg government would never possibly be able to hold the country together, and would likely be usurped those workers and soldiers they utilized. They in turn would probably work towards establishing more classical, Marxist communes (and we all saw how well that worked out in post-war Morocco).
 
Actually, the Bolsheviks were pretty popular. The day of the planned coup, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets - and don't let anyone tell you the Soviets weren't important to the development of the early post-Tsarist Russian state - was convened. It had 649 delegates, of whom 390 were Bolsheviks.

Of course, with their leaders killed and arrested, the Bolsheviks fell apart pretty quick, and lost their support in the Soviets, Spiridonova managed to pick up the pieces with her faction of the SRs, and lead the eventual government as a consequence.

I really think you guys are underestimating the Bolshevik's chances. I'd imagine some kind of Bolshevik/Spiridonovite Socialist-Revolutionary (which I'll just call Left-SRs for simplicity's sake) parliamentary alliance. Lenin was also pretty well-known for his support of the Soviets, so maybe you wind up with a more Soviet-dominated government, rather than the more classical parliament Russia wound up with. Combined with the Left-SR's support in the countryside, and their powerful urban base, the Bolsheviks could've lead the country as equal partners in an eventual Soviet government.
 
I really think you guys are underestimating the Bolshevik's chances. I'd imagine some kind of Bolshevik/Spiridonovite Socialist-Revolutionary (which I'll just call Left-SRs for simplicity's sake) parliamentary alliance. Lenin was also pretty well-known for his support of the Soviets, so maybe you wind up with a more Soviet-dominated government, rather than the more classical parliament Russia wound up with. Combined with the Left-SR's support in the countryside, and their powerful urban base, the Bolsheviks could've lead the country as equal partners in an eventual Soviet government.
I'm not sure. I did a study on anarchist tendencies once, and Lenin's friend Trotsky came up as someone who talked about anarchism but only after a transitional absolutist government. Trostky wasn't alone in this - remember how Stalin got thrown out of office in '41 for destroying dozens of villages to build factories. I don't see a democratic government coming about without another revolution.

OOC: The study's real, and Trotsky really did say that.
 
As others have said, the Bolsheviks sound to me like a peculiar, fringe group. I can see no viable way that an alliance of St. Petersburg intellectual elites can maintain any workable alliance with non-partisan soldiers, industrial workers, and the agrarian pseudo-serfs (who were apparently far more politically apathetic than this Lenin made them out to be). If they did happen to throw Kerensky out? The "proletariat" would be fed up with these self-titled, university educated intellectuals who clearly weren't looking out for the working man's best interest. I can only see such a delicate coalition breaking down like Kerensky's did, this time with far more disasterous consequences due to further demoralization and apathy from the armed forces. The St. Petersburg government would never possibly be able to hold the country together, and would likely be usurped those workers and soldiers they utilized. They in turn would probably work towards establishing more classical, Marxist communes (and we all saw how well that worked out in post-war Morocco).


You have a point. Well they aren't going to be to happy after the war. They will have lost all those men at the begining of the war and get nothing for it.
 
As others have said, the Bolsheviks sound to me like a peculiar, fringe group. I can see no viable way that an alliance of St. Petersburg intellectual elites can maintain any workable alliance with non-partisan soldiers, industrial workers, and the agrarian pseudo-serfs (who were apparently far more politically apathetic than this Lenin made them out to be). If they did happen to throw Kerensky out? The "proletariat" would be fed up with these self-titled, university educated intellectuals who clearly weren't looking out for the working man's best interest. I can only see such a delicate coalition breaking down like Kerensky's did, this time with far more disasterous consequences due to further demoralization and apathy from the armed forces. The St. Petersburg government would never possibly be able to hold the country together, and would likely be usurped those workers and soldiers they utilized. They in turn would probably work towards establishing more classical, Marxist communes (and we all saw how well that worked out in post-war Morocco).



Agreed, how could a bunch of upper middle and upper class intellectuals even pretend to know what is in the lower and lower middle class interest? None of these people worked in a farm or factory. They never sullied their hands with actual manual labor. How on Earth could they know what the people they claimed to represent wanted or needed?
 
Actually what I remember from reading some Marxist oriented historians is that the Bolsheviks were a major group, they had a sizable faction in the Duma and for a time dominated the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets (Soviets were the worker's councils that contested with Kerensky in a sort of dual power system before being banned). They had influence in other cities as well. On the eve of one of their several coup attempts, if I remember, two Bolshie leaders, Zinoviev and Kamenev actually leaked the plans to the press.Trotsky himself (while a Menshevik) was elected leader of the St. Petersburg Soviet in the 1905 revolution.

After the Bolsheviks were "decapitated" by Kerensky and Kornilov ,anarchist groups, radical SR splinter groups, took their place for a time and led the doomed but bloody 1919 uprisings when the Soviets were banned. It wasn't until 1921 or so with massive aid from Europe and America and a successful harvest that Russia found some stability.

If the Bolsheviks had succeeded in toppling Kerensky? My guess is that Russia would have gone though a bloody civil war (as Ukraine did in OTL) perhaps resulting in a period of "communist" dictatorship. The whole Marxist theory pre-supposed a socialist revolution as a world wide event.An isolated Soviet Russia would have been forced to reintroduce capitalism in a sort of "new economic program" by the early 1920s.
 
Actually what I remember from reading some Marxist oriented historians is that the Bolsheviks were a major group, they had a sizable faction in the Duma and for a time dominated the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets (Soviets were the worker's councils that contested with Kerensky in a sort of dual power system before being banned). They had influence in other cities as well. On the eve of one of their several coup attempts, if I remember, two Bolshie leaders, Zinoviev and Kamenev actually leaked the plans to the press.Trotsky himself (while a Menshevik) was elected leader of the St. Petersburg Soviet in the 1905 revolution.

After the Bolsheviks were "decapitated" by Kerensky and Kornilov ,anarchist groups, radical SR splinter groups, took their place for a time and led the doomed but bloody 1919 uprisings when the Soviets were banned. It wasn't until 1921 or so with massive aid from Europe and America and a successful harvest that Russia found some stability.

If the Bolsheviks had succeeded in toppling Kerensky? My guess is that Russia would have gone though a bloody civil war (as Ukraine did in OTL) perhaps resulting in a period of "communist" dictatorship. The whole Marxist theory pre-supposed a socialist revolution as a world wide event.An isolated Soviet Russia would have been forced to reintroduce capitalism in a sort of "new economic program" by the early 1920s.



They might have been a major group but how long would they have lasted? The squabbling intellectuals who made up the bulk of the leadership wouldn't be done debating on what color to make the flags before they were overthrown.
 
That is true. Trotsky had fierce polemics with Lenin while in exile in Europe, calling him a "Red Robespierre". Than he actually joined the Bolsheviks and led the Soviet Military Commission during their coup attempt, if I remember. If they had succeed he would not have lasted long. In a counter-factual timeline I could easily see him either being pushed out or (more likely) leading some libertarian "left opposition" movement against the Bolsheviks.The guy was popular for a time but seems to have been arrogant as hell.

On the other hand one of the few Bolsheviks who was both in touch with the common worker and had some practical sense was Djugashvili, "Stalin". I could see him going far.Of course we know what happened in OTL

Bukharin, Zinoviev , Kollantai, and Radek were mostly good for picking their noses.Bukharin went much further with his radical faction in the US Socialist Party then he ever could have in Russia.
 
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