DBWI: The Bolshiviks mount a successful coup in 1917

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.


Stalin? There is no way such a light weight intellect is going to go far in that party! The party as run by out of touch intellectuals who would look down their nose at someone like Stalin. By all accounts he had no manners, no taste and no sophistication. For a "worker's party" they had very few workers at the very top.
 
Stalin? There is no way such a light weight intellect is going to go far in that party! The party as run by out of touch intellectuals who would look down their nose at someone like Stalin. By all accounts he had no manners, no taste and no sophistication. For a "worker's party" they had very few workers at the very top.

But he could have been the adhesive that could unite the Bolsheviks and keep them together. It's true, he had little throwing weight against more eminent intellectuals such as Trotsky and Kamenev, but he was an ambitious creator and a man of shrewd practicality, as evidenced by his large part in industrializing the nation. The investments he poured into coal mining and infrastrucutre were integral in pulling Russia out of the depression, the first country to do so, and insuring it as the strong global competitor it is today.

However Stalin was a well known supporter of Kerensky at the time, I don't know what the catalyst of him switching camps would be.
 
But he could have been the adhesive that could unite the Bolsheviks and keep them together. It's true, he had little throwing weight against more eminent intellectuals such as Trotsky and Kamenev, but he was an ambitious creator and a man of shrewd practicality, as evidenced by his large part in industrializing the nation. The investments he poured into coal mining and infrastrucutre were integral in pulling Russia out of the depression, the first country to do so, and insuring it as the strong global competitor it is today.

However Stalin was a well known supporter of Kerensky at the time, I don't know what the catalyst of him switching camps would be.

I guess he could be a bridge between the upper and upper middle class intellectuals running the party and the lower and lower middle class workers who they supposedly represent and work his way up that way. He would at least speak their language.
 
However Stalin was a well known supporter of Kerensky at the time, I don't know what the catalyst of him switching camps would be.

Stalin's motives would likely be opportunism. Remember--when Kerenski fell to Kornilov, Stalin supported Kornilov. When Kornilov fell to Wrangel, Stalin supported Wrangel. If Wrangel had fallen to anybody, Stalin probably would have supported them.

That said, count me with those who doubt the popular "Stalin sold out the Bolshies" myth. By most accounts, he was as startled by the decapitation of the Party as anyone else. He only wound up the leader of what would become the KPR because most of the people above him were either dead, in prison, or running around panicking, and much of his actions afterwards were based on what he saw as the need for the survival of a "revolutionary" Communist party in Russia.

I very much doubt there was any one informant who "ratted out" the Bolsheviks. Much of their planning was amateurish and obvious. In the end, it helped Kerenski very little. He'd have been better served to have stayed with Lvov's strategy of 'no enemies on the left', and thus avoided Kornilov's right wing coup. As for Russia leaving the war early--if it had, they might have avoided a lot of grief. Or do the Black and Green Armies not count because they were just peasants?
 
I very much doubt there was any one informant who "ratted out" the Bolsheviks. Much of their planning was amateurish and obvious. In the end, it helped Kerenski very little. He'd have been better served to have stayed with Lvov's strategy of 'no enemies on the left', and thus avoided Kornilov's right wing coup. As for Russia leaving the war early--if it had, they might have avoided a lot of grief. Or do the Black and Green Armies not count because they were just peasants?

Which Black Army?:rolleyes:

Because while the Ukrainian Black Army was able to set up its own government and won independence, the Black Guard of Russia was a joke. Kerensky managed to liquidate them.

As for the Green Army, they got far only in areas where there was a lot of nationalist sentiment, or where the central government was weak. There's a reason why most of the army dissolved when Wrangel took control.
 
Stalin's motives would likely be opportunism. Remember--when Kerenski fell to Kornilov, Stalin supported Kornilov. When Kornilov fell to Wrangel, Stalin supported Wrangel. If Wrangel had fallen to anybody, Stalin probably would have supported them.

That said, count me with those who doubt the popular "Stalin sold out the Bolshies" myth. By most accounts, he was as startled by the decapitation of the Party as anyone else. He only wound up the leader of what would become the KPR because most of the people above him were either dead, in prison, or running around panicking, and much of his actions afterwards were based on what he saw as the need for the survival of a "revolutionary" Communist party in Russia.

I very much doubt there was any one informant who "ratted out" the Bolsheviks. Much of their planning was amateurish and obvious. In the end, it helped Kerenski very little. He'd have been better served to have stayed with Lvov's strategy of 'no enemies on the left', and thus avoided Kornilov's right wing coup. As for Russia leaving the war early--if it had, they might have avoided a lot of grief. Or do the Black and Green Armies not count because they were just peasants?


I agree Stalin was an opportunistic backstabber who would sell his own grandmother to save his skin. His whole history shows that from what I looked up. "No enemies on the left" only works if it is a two way street. What was he supposed to do? Let Lenin overthrow him? It might have solved a lot of grief. It also could have cost them more by cutting Russia off from the more advanced West. Instead of the agricultural powerhouse it is today it could still be 50+ years behind and barely exporting food. Instead of making some of the best automobiles and electrical equipment in the world it might be trailing decades.
 
I very much doubt there was any one informant who "ratted out" the Bolsheviks. Much of their planning was amateurish and obvious. In the end, it helped Kerenski very little. He'd have been better served to have stayed with Lvov's strategy of 'no enemies on the left', and thus avoided Kornilov's right wing coup. As for Russia leaving the war early--if it had, they might have avoided a lot of grief. Or do the Black and Green Armies not count because they were just peasants?

The domestic situation which would preceed a Russia forced to leave the war effort early would leave the state no worse for the wear.

An independent Ukraine is inevitable at this point, moreso with a delicate Bolshevik coalition unable to decide upon a solid recovery startegy. St. Petersburg had no control over Crimea or the Ukranian plains at this point. Kornilov, with all his nationalist sentiment, did very little to prevent the Black Army from forcing the Ukranian Provisional Council to declare secession. Wrangel was adamntly in favour of a reconquest of course, but we all know how that came about.

Nope, Bunin and Stalin were the only two guys capable of properly re-integrating the suffering nation into the more prosperous looking Russian fold, and they weren't even able to coerce the Directorate into that until the late '30's.
 
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.

ooc: Where did you get that from? No records like that either in this alt or in otl? Their is no evidence that Lenin was a German agent. He was merely following a Marxist program of opposition to imperialist wars.
 
ooc: Where did you get that from? No records like that either in this alt or in otl? Their is no evidence that Lenin was a German agent. He was merely following a Marxist program of opposition to imperialist wars.


OOC: He was shipped from Switzerland to Russia on German trains and cut deals very favorable to Germany. If he wasn't in cahoots with the Germans he was doing a good imitation of it.
 
OOC: He was shipped from Switzerland to Russia on German trains and cut deals very favorable to Germany. If he wasn't in cahoots with the Germans he was doing a good imitation of it.

OOC: Not to mention that in this ATL, Kornilov and the other pseudo-dictators who followed him would have jumped at every chance to vilify the failed Bolsheviks in an effort to sway possible imitators away from their direction. Remember, this is a TL where Russia presumably stayed in the war up until the Treaty of Versailles, suffering heavier losses. Being a German agent would mean more in this TL than in our own post-war Soviet Russia.
 
OOC: He was shipped from Switzerland to Russia on German trains and cut deals very favorable to Germany. If he wasn't in cahoots with the Germans he was doing a good imitation of it.

Germany had a policy of giving all Russian political exiles safe passage to Germany, including members of several different factions, not just the Bolsheviks. Also, what favorable deal? The Russian people were tired of war and Lenin promised them peace. Russia had lost the war due to the policies of the Tsarist and Provisional government and Lenin had little choice but to make peace, especially since the Western Allies refused Lenin's request for military aid in return for remaining in the war.
 
Germany had a policy of giving all Russian political exiles safe passage to Germany, including members of several different factions, not just the Bolsheviks. Also, what favorable deal? The Russian people were tired of war and Lenin promised them peace. Russia had lost the war due to the policies of the Tsarist and Provisional government and Lenin had little choice but to make peace, especially since the Western Allies refused Lenin's request for military aid in return for remaining in the war.

OOC: That's true, Germany didn't flinch at harboring political and religious exiles from the Rus regardless of ideology. However, the Bolsheviks were in close contact with German agents through Norway as early as 1915, as Pipes writes in A Concise History of the Russian Revolution.

What you say holds true, but that doesn't mean Lenin didn't consider and to some extent, utilize offered German resources given to help to aid his revolution. It's not undocumented information, hell, the US Committe on Public Information was even aware of the whole matter but decided to stay hush-hush in keeping with their neutrality policy.

Let's not let this mire the TL though.
 
"No enemies on the left" only works if it is a two way street. What was he supposed to do? Let Lenin overthrow him? It might have solved a lot of grief.

The thing is it's debatable how much of a threat the Bolsheviks were--outside of Lenin and Trotsky, most of them seemed to think that their best bet was staying with the Provisional Government. There's a good chance that Lenin's "coup" attempt would have collapsed on its own if it even got started. Instead, Kerensky wound up giving power to the very man who would topple him.

And regarding Stalin--while I'm no fan, I think you're being a bit hard on him here. With Kerensky and Kornilov, his choices boiled down to 'be in front of the guns', or 'be behind the guns'. And it's tough NOT to agree with his decision to support Wrangel--Kornilov was a bloodthirsty, incompetent idiot, while Stalin and Wrangel actually got along.

Which Black Army?:rolleyes:

Because while the Ukrainian Black Army was able to set up its own government and won independence, the Black Guard of Russia was a joke. Kerensky managed to liquidate them.

As for the Green Army, they got far only in areas where there was a lot of nationalist sentiment, or where the central government was weak. There's a reason why most of the army dissolved when Wrangel took control.

Yes. Wrangel offered--and delivered--land reform. If he hadn't--well, it wouldn't have been pretty. As for Kerensky "liquidating" the Black Guard. Yeah, he managed to do that. Several times. And Kornilov did it twice!
 
Yes. Wrangel offered--and delivered--land reform. If he hadn't--well, it wouldn't have been pretty. As for Kerensky "liquidating" the Black Guard. Yeah, he managed to do that. Several times. And Kornilov did it twice!

The fact that the Black Guard was routinely disassembled still kind of proves my point that it was a joke.

I will agree that Wrangel's reforms was key to the Green Army's quick dissolution.
 
The fact that the Black Guard was routinely disassembled still kind of proves my point that it was a joke.

I will agree that Wrangel's reforms was key to the Green Army's quick dissolution.

Hmmm... I think you missed my point. Kerensky and Kornilov both were constantly claiming they'd "crushed" the Blacks, usually after some battle that was a win on paper, followed by the execution of a few "leaders". The Black Guard apparently never got the message they'd just been decisively been defeated, and would just keep at it. We're talking about a fairly widespread, popular movement here, much like the Greens. Again, Wrangel beat them the same way he beat the Greens and the Cossacks--with just enough military power to make it clear he wasn't going anywhere, coupled with political efforts to deal with their concerns.
 
Hang on, the VI Lenin from sub-altern studies is this Lenin? I thought he was just a grouch. Sure his Imperialism is superior to Kautsky's, but he didn't seem to be actually connected in any way to the effects of imperialism on the sub-altern in capitalism.
 
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Hmmm... I think you missed my point. Kerensky and Kornilov both were constantly claiming they'd "crushed" the Blacks, usually after some battle that was a win on paper, followed by the execution of a few "leaders". The Black Guard apparently never got the message they'd just been decisively been defeated, and would just keep at it.

With less and less support by the way. Their numbers dwindled pretty quickly after Kerensky's third operation when most of the surviving leaders joined the Ukrainians. By the time Kornilov was in power, they were de-clawed and reduced to using terrorist bombings to even make a point.

We're talking about a fairly widespread, popular movement here, much like the Greens.

If by popular, you mean about 1/20th of the Green's projected support and manpower. Even the Bolsheviks had more influence.

Again, Wrangel beat them the same way he beat the Greens and the Cossacks--with just enough military power to make it clear he wasn't going anywhere, coupled with political efforts to deal with their concerns.

Not exactly. It was the repeated operations that destroyed their supplies and liquidated of most of the serious leaders that lead to their destruction as a credible force. By the time Wrangel was in charge, most of them either already fled to other countries, were imprisoned, or dead.
 
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