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?
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.
Of course, though the Whites will probably have a more hands-off approach to it than the Bolshies did.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?