Educate me: The Russian Civil War

So, another thread, to illustrate my lack of knowledge of 20th century history. Is a White victory in the Russian Civil War at all a possibility? When's the latest POD to achieve it? And what wider ramifications does it have on geopolitics?
 
It's certainly possible up to 1919. After that year everything fell apart.

The biggest weakness of the Whites is that they were a coalition of several different forces while the Bolsheviks had a central unity. So the Whites didn't really have true coordination of their efforts. Also, each faction of the Whites had their own ideas of what would happen, and many of the Czarist officers and nobles wanted to restore things as they were before the February 1917 revolution. That alienated potential supporters who wanted various reforms.

I think the best way for the Whites to win is to change some of the events that lead up to the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution that would lead to a stronger Kerensky government. When the Bolsheviks rebel, Kerensky would be able to lead an effective opposition to them and would help centralize the various White factions under the control of the Kerensky government. Perhaps if the Kornilov Affar was handled differently, or if he had a picked a different conservative to head the military than Kornilov.
 
My attempted TL hopes to explore the possibility of a homegrown post-tsarist national movement in Russia, which successfully appeals to traditionalist sentiment while recognizing the need for some kind of progression.
 
Blackfox5 summed it up perfectly.

It wasn't a civil war of Reds against Whites but Reds against those White factions, if any, actually willing to work together at any given time. That makes a White victory much harder to imagine. Also, as Blackfox5 noted, there were too many schools of thought among the Whites, from reactionaries who who felt the reforms of 1905 were too much to much more moderate figures to those who were likely out for themselves first.
 
Although I personally think that the Bolsheviks could lose but nobody else could so convincingly win and that the fall of Moscow would probably mean warlordism, Wolfpaw makes a convincing case for the Whites (in the classical officers-priests-landlords-and-assorted-bourgeois-hangers-on sense) being able to take the capitals and piece together a state if they'd put up a better show in mid-late 1919 and hadn't divided their efforts to take on Makhno.

Assuming such a state could be put together, and cribbing his ideas relentlessly, a committee of White generals (and a few suitable civilians like Milyukov) restore a powerless tsar (probably Grand Duke Nick) and some sort of constitution, and then the country is a bit like fascist Italy: economic uncertainty, a feeling of humiliation and malaise, poverty, inequality, stratification, bags of debt, ineffectual parliamentarians, friendly but uneasy relations with Britain and France, radical politics, armed forces and a church that play their own games...

Immediate geopolitical consequences of a White Russian state emerging around the start of 1920 with the recognition of the Entente? Well, Poland is no longer France's main man but is sitting in Minsk and Kamenets, so we get a negotiated border somewhere between the Riga and Curzon lines. Finland's gone, although Mannerheim and Yudenich being old chums Fenno-Russian relations may be rather cordial. The Entente are too heavily invested in the Baltics to hand them back to Russia, either.

The real mess will be in the Caucasus. Denikin had fought against the Shamilists in his spare moments, so the Circassians will be crushed as soon as the Whites have a free hand and their fate won't be pretty. The Whites carry on to Baku same as the Reds (they still need oil, the Azeris are still fighting the Armenians). Given that Russia is pro-Entente and hence anti-Kemal, and both it and Armenia are British-backed, we probably see an agreement there, to the detriment of Turkish hopes for Kars. After that, Georgia's doomed, although some soft hearts in the Entente may not approve.

Over the long term, Russia's going to be a brooding place, anxious at least for some time not to anger Britain and France but resenting most of its neighbours (like filthy ex-socialist-terrorist bastard Pilsudski, pilfering Romania, and the mad wicked attempts to set up states in the Estland, Livland, and Kurland governorates, as it appears from wherever the generals decide to put the capital). The Russo-Japanese rivalry was a fairly straight-foward clash of empires whose nature and stakes were in 1945 pretty much what they had been in 1895, so that still happens - although the consequences of the other European countries talking to Russia about what goes on in Asia will be far-reaching.

Russia is going to feel itself in the camp of the have-nots and court others in that boat, especially in the not-unlikely event of a Whacky Ideological Dictatorship (something like Francoist Spain or Iron Guard Romania adapted to Russian conditions).

Europe has still had its Year Ablaze, but the fear of radical leftism will be less exagerated and concentrated in the capitalist countries. And of course without Lenin dictating the True Word, radical leftism is a whole different kettle of fish.
 
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I recall reading a passage in Orlando Figes's book which suggests that had the Volunteer Army, then under Alexiev, marched north to Samara early in 1918 - a few weeks or months after Kornilov's death I imagine - and joined up with the Komuch (the SRs and other remnants of the Constituent Assembly), they might have combined to create a force which could have overcome the embryonic Red Army and retaken Moscow and Petrograd.
 
I haven't read Figes in forever, so this whole bizarre war is a little hazy in my mind.

Off the top of my head, maybe kill Trotsky during the Revolution. That's not sufficient in and of itself, but it's a start. The Reds were ideologically unified, and they occupied a central position in the Russian heartland. The POD needs to be fairly early.
 
Depends also on whether or not you'll settle for a two-Russia solution. It's very, very hard to imagine the Whites retaking Moscow and St. Petersburg, but if Deniken had dug in and fought defensively he could have held the Ukraine against the Bolshies indefinitely, and the Tsar (I would think Cyril) of All the Russias would rule from Kiev while Lenin would be in Moscow. The reason this didn't happen is because Deniken believed he had a duty to "the Tsar" (identity to be determined) to retake those cities, and threw away his men on ill-concieved offensives. It requires a Tsar to take an active but realistic interest in his Empire...
 
Although I personally think that the Bolsheviks could lose but nobody else could so convincingly win and that the fall of Moscow would probably mean warlordism, Wolfpaw makes a convincing case for the Whites (in the classical officers-priests-landlords-and-assorted-bourgeois-hangers-on sense) being able to take the capitals and piece together a state if they'd put up a better show in mid-late 1919 and hadn't divided their efforts to take on Makhno.

Assuming such a state could be put together, and cribbing his ideas relentlessly, a committee of White generals (and a few suitable civilians like Milyukov) restore a powerless tsar (probably Grand Duke Nick) and some sort of constitution, and then the country is a bit like fascist Italy: economic uncertainty, a feeling of humiliation and malaise, poverty, inequality, stratification, bags of debt, ineffectual parliamentarians, friendly but uneasy relations with Britain and France, radical politics, armed forces and a church that play their own games...

Immediate geopolitical consequences of a White Russian state emerging around the start of 1920 with the recognition of the Entente? Well, Poland is no longer France's main man but is sitting in Minsk and Kamenets, so we get a negotiated border somewhere between the Riga and Curzon lines. Finland's gone, although Mannerheim and Yudenich being old chums Fenno-Russian relations may be rather cordial. The Entente are too heavily invested in the Baltics to hand them back to Russia, either.

The real mess will be in the Caucasus. Denikin had fought against the Shamilists in his spare moments, so the Circassians will be crushed as soon as the Whites have a free hand and their fate won't be pretty. The Whites carry on to Baku same as the Reds (they still need oil, the Azeris are still fighting the Armenians). Given that Russia is pro-Entente and hence anti-Kemal, and both it and Armenia are British-backed, we probably see an agreement there, to the detriment of Turkish hopes for Kars. After that, Georgia's doomed, although some soft hearts in the Entente may not approve.

Over the long term, Russia's going to be a brooding place, anxious at least for some time not to anger Britain and France but resenting most of its neighbours (like filthy ex-socialist-terrorist bastard Pilsudski, pilfering Romania, and the mad wicked attempts to set up states in the Estland, Livland, and Kurland governorates, as it appears from wherever the generals decide to put the capital). The Russo-Japanese rivalry was a fairly straight-foward clash of empires whose nature and stakes were in 1945 pretty much what they had been in 1895, so that still happens - although the consequences of the other European countries talking to Russia about what goes on in Asia will be far-reaching.

Russia is going to feel itself in the camp of the have-nots and court others in that boat, especially in the not-unlikely event of a Whacky Ideological Dictatorship (something like Francoist Spain or Iron Guard Romania adapted to Russian conditions).

Europe has still had its Year Ablaze, but the fear of radical leftism will be less exagerated and concentrated in the capitalist countries. And of course with Lenin dictating the True Word, radical leftism is a whole different kettle of fish.

And Russia retains control over Central Asia then as well?
 
So, another thread, to illustrate my lack of knowledge of 20th century history. Is a White victory in the Russian Civil War at all a possibility? When's the latest POD to achieve it? And what wider ramifications does it have on geopolitics?

Some more possibilities:

1. When Kornilov led the army to St. Petersburg in 1917, Kerensky turned to the Reds for help. If he took Kornilov's side, maybe the revolution doesn't happen.

2. Control of the railways was crucial in the early months after the revolution. The Reds used the rail system to ferry the Latvian Riflemen -- their only really good troops at the time -- to put out the fires wherever they arose. For a short while, the railwaymen's union went on strike. Suppose the strike lasted much longer.

3. In real life, the Czech Legion seized command of the Trans Siberian Railway and this led to the Reds expulsion from Siberia (it turned out they could survive without it). What would happen if the Czech uprising was on the railways in Russia itself.

4. Lenin and Trotsky die.
 
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