Europe's Political Evolution without World War I

kernals12

Banned
Very few experts on Russian history would agree with this. Russia was actually quite stable with the moderate opposition bought off and the radicals isolated. There is no revolutionary movement to speak off The possibility of the Duma wrenching power from anyone is zero as it had no popular support at all. Nicky could probably have easily gotten away with dissolving it once and for all in a few years
What about the 1905 uprising that forced Nicky to create the Duma in the first place? Why wouldn't the Great Depression cause another one?
 
What about the 1905 uprising that forced Nicky to create the Duma in the first place? Why wouldn't the Great Depression cause another one?

What about all the reforms since 1905? Why do you assume a great depression?

The 1905 'revolution' was mostly modest disturbances that lacked cohesion. They were particularly strong in the outlying regions among ethnic minorities especially the Jewish population. About 40% of those arrested were Jews, the violence was particularly strong in areas of high Jewish population (the Baltics, Poland and Odessa for example)

At no point was the regime seriously threatened and once the troops were brought back from the Japanese War and winter arrived the disturbances quickly died down. Theree is no revolutionary movement to speak off in Russia from 1905 onward. The moderates were content with the reforms offered, the people thought the Duma a joke and the radicals had been isolated.

After 1905, Russia had made many reforms both large and technical that had totally transformed the country. There really is no reason to think that a revolution was likely at all. even the 1917 Revolution is a total fluke (Mackus would be the best source on that around herre) and that is after two years of brutal war and an unrelenting blockade
 

kernals12

Banned
What about all the reforms since 1905? Why do you assume a great depression?

The 1905 'revolution' was mostly modest disturbances that lacked cohesion. They were particularly strong in the outlying regions among ethnic minorities especially the Jewish population. About 40% of those arrested were Jews, the violence was particularly strong in areas of high Jewish population (the Baltics, Poland and Odessa for example)

At no point was the regime seriously threatened and once the troops were brought back from the Japanese War and winter arrived the disturbances quickly died down. Theree is no revolutionary movement to speak off in Russia from 1905 onward. The moderates were content with the reforms offered, the people thought the Duma a joke and the radicals had been isolated.

After 1905, Russia had made many reforms both large and technical that had totally transformed the country. There really is no reason to think that a revolution was likely at all. even the 1917 Revolution is a total fluke (Mackus would be the best source on that around herre) and that is after two years of brutal war and an unrelenting blockade
I don't see a reason it wouldn't happen ITTL
 
I don't see a reason it wouldn't happen ITTL

There are fifteen years of butterflies. For starters:

No World War One,
no rise of communism,
no destruction of a generation of European youth,
the billions spent on the war, the destruction of the old economic order,
no reparations,
no massive indebtedness to the US,
a totally different international situation


The Great depression is really severe only in Germany and the US, the Soviet Union pretty much skips the event
 

kernals12

Banned
There are fifteen years of butterflies. For starters:

No World War One,
no rise of communism,
no destruction of a generation of European youth,
the billions spent on the war, the destruction of the old economic order,
no reparations,
no massive indebtedness to the US,
a totally different international situation


The Great depression is really severe only in Germany and the US, the Soviet Union pretty much skips the event
All of the things you listed would've caused a great depression in the 1920s, not the 1930s. And as you said, the depression was most severe in the United States, a country that suffered minimal damage from the war. The Depression was ultimately a more severe version of the panics that used to occur every decade or so until we learned how to tame the business cycle.
 
All of the things you listed would've caused a great depression in the 1920s, not the 1930s. And as you said, the depression was most severe in the United States, a country that suffered minimal damage from the war. The Depression was ultimately a more severe version of the panics that used to occur every decade or so until we learned how to tame the business cycle.

How? You have to back your statements up. How does the Russian Empire surviving into the 1920s cause an earlier Great Depression? How does avoiding WWi cause an earlier great Depression

Good alternate history starts at the POD and looks first to the immediate changes and then progresses. There is simply no reason to assume that a world that doesn't suffer WWI would look anything like the world we experienced in 1930

BTW, America suffered the greatest wealth destruction of any of the participants as the European debts were forgiven.

In any event, the Great depression is caused by the rapid collapse of the money supply. In a country like Russia which had little international trade and was still largely an agrarian and most people lived off their own farms, a great depression is just not likely
 

kernals12

Banned
How? You have to back your statements up. How does the Russian Empire surviving into the 1920s cause an earlier Great Depression? How does avoiding WWi cause an earlier great Depression

Good alternate history starts at the POD and looks first to the immediate changes and then progresses. There is simply no reason to assume that a world that doesn't suffer WWI would look anything like the world we experienced in 1930

BTW, America suffered the greatest wealth destruction of any of the participants as the European debts were forgiven.

In any event, the Great depression is caused by the rapid collapse of the money supply. In a country like Russia which had little international trade and was still largely an agrarian and most people lived off their own farms, a great depression is just not likely
All the things you listed were tied to World War I, why would the devestating effects not manifest themselves for an entire decade?

The world would be very different without WWI, but still some things stay the same. One of them is the normal behavior of the economy.
 
All the things you listed were tied to World War I, why would the devestating effects not manifest themselves for an entire decade?

The world would be very different without WWI, but still some things stay the same. One of them is the normal behavior of the economy.
No there was a fundamental misconception in economics before the Great Depression. It was that industrial output could keep growing forever. That manufacturers could keep growing and producing more products and never meet a "demand" because there would always be increased consumption. That new markets will always open up to meet production so production had to keep growing to meet them. The Great Depression was that point where everyone realized we had hit a plateau. That production if not regulated would always exceed demand.

If you want a example think of Farmers. They had one model. If demand for food was low, they would produce more. If demand was high they would produce more. So they bought lots of new tractors, windmills, and machinery at great cost because they thought they could pay it all back. And they were shocked when they finally reached the point that nobody was going to buy anymore surplus food. So it rotted in the fields without being sold as the farmers went bankrupt as well as the banks who loaned to the farmers as well as the manufacturers who made the equipment for the farmers.

Without the shock of a depression economists will keep chasing markets in Russia and Asia instead of addressing the fundamental issues with their theories and develop better ones, such as Keynesianism.
 
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kernals12

Banned
No there was a fundamental misconception in economics before the Great Depression. It was that industrial output could keep growing forever. That manufacturers could keep growing and producing more products and never meet a "demand" because there would always be increased consumption. That new markets will always open up to meet production so production had to keep growing to meet them. The Great Depression was that point where everyone realized we had hit a plateau. That production if not regulated would always exceed demand.

If you want a example think of Farmers. They had one model. If demand for food was low, they would produce more. If demand was high they would produce more. So they bought lots of new tractors, windmills, and machinery at great cost because they thought they could pay it all back. And they were shocked when they finally reached the point that nobody was going to buy anymore surplus food. So it rotted in the fields without being sold as the farmers went bankrupt as well as the banks who loaned to the farmers as well as the manufacturers who made the equipment for the farmers.
Our problem is always that we have too little, not too much. Ask any person whether they want more cars, computers, clothes, vacations etc. Our demand for goods and services is unlimited, it's the scarcity of labor and capital that's the limiting factor on what we can consume. Overproduction can occur in a few industries, but it's not possible in all industries.
 
. Overproduction can occur in a few industries, but it's not possible in all industries.
You only need one structural problem with a automobile engine for a car to not start or become dangerous to drive. You get overproduction in one in one part of an economy, things freeze up, and without intervention everything goes into a free-fall.
 
The problems were economic rather than purely production based. The Stock Market Crash, Banking Crisis and the Great Depression were all children of WW1's economic consequences. 'The Lords of Finance, The Bankers Who Broke the World', by Liaquat Ahamed is a great work on the efforts at economic recovery in the 1920's and 1930's. WW1 resulted in massive borrowings and quantitative easing that dwarfed the GFC. In Britain, prices doubled, France they tripled and in Germany they quadrupled. In Turkey they had an 18 fold increase before collapse in 1918. Britain tried to trade out, France used debt abrogation and trading while Germany resorted to hyperinflation to eliminate internal debt and everyones life savings.

There is a 1913 estimate (free of hindsight) on the economic cost of a general European War and that the ruin and hate aroused following such a war would take half a century to repair.

URL if link not working: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/...llery&searchLimits=l-decade=191|||l-year=1913
 

kernals12

Banned
The problems were economic rather than purely production based. The Stock Market Crash, Banking Crisis and the Great Depression were all children of WW1's economic consequences. 'The Lords of Finance, The Bankers Who Broke the World', by Liaquat Ahamed is a great work on the efforts at economic recovery in the 1920's and 1930's. WW1 resulted in massive borrowings and quantitative easing that dwarfed the GFC. In Britain, prices doubled, France they tripled and in Germany they quadrupled. In Turkey they had an 18 fold increase before collapse in 1918. Britain tried to trade out, France used debt abrogation and trading while Germany resorted to hyperinflation to eliminate internal debt and everyones life savings.

There is a 1913 estimate (free of hindsight) on the economic cost of a general European War and that the ruin and hate aroused following such a war would take half a century to repair.

URL if link not working: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/81133067?searchTerm=cost of artillery&searchLimits=l-decade=191|||l-year=1913
The big hole in the theory that WW1 caused the depression is that it started and had the most severe impacts in the United States, a country whose only war damage was a relatively small number of dead young men and some lost ships.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The big hole in the theory that WW1 caused the depression is that it started and had the most severe impacts in the United States, a country whose only war damage was a relatively small number of dead young men and some lost ships.
Well, the war led to the discredit of Progressivism, which led to the rise of laissez-faire policies with Calvin Coolidge. In other words, speculators of all kinds had a free ride. This was exacerbated by Fed's easy money policy to support Britain and other European countries' return to prewar Gold Standard following ww1, especially Britain, which returned to an overvalued rate. All these things led to roaring twenties and the depression.

There was also overproduction both nationally and internationally. The US also pursued protectionism, so European countries could not export more to repay their debts. Meanwhile, a war-torn, debt-ridden European market cannot afford to import US goods. Nationally, the industrialists tried to produce as much as possible, but the consumers, consisting of a very large and poor working class, could not afford to meet the supply. Oh, not to mention that IOTL, Russia was basically kicked out of international market.
 
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The big hole in the theory that WW1 caused the depression is that it started and had the most severe impacts in the United States, a country whose only war damage was a relatively small number of dead young men and some lost ships.
The trigger for the Stock Market Crash was the US Fed dropping interest rates to help the Europeans pay their US debts. While helping the Europeans, it sent the wrong message and fueled the stock market bubble.

While the war largely spared the US as you say, the war had destroyed the global economy. For example, Britain went from a government taking 7% of GDP and spending 40% of Govt revenue on defence (2% GDP) and 1% servicing debt. This went into a post war world where Britain's gov took 16% of GDP, spent 7% of revenue on defence and 40% on servicing debt, that was about £300,000,000 in interest payments per annum - dead money. GB's share of German Reparations were about £60,000,000 per annum - when it came in.
 
World War I was highly avoidable, so it's realistic to look at what could've been. Let's assume the Archduke doesn't get shot so no border changes at all. I assume we'll still see the rise of democracy particularly in the face of the great depression, which will probably bring a few revolutions. I also assume the power of the United States will leave its mark by the 40s and 50s even with no wars. What are your thoughts?
The US was already making its mark and throwing it's weight in 1914. President Wilson chose to sell weapons to one side in a geopolitical hotspot in the Dardanelles/Aegean Sea region. This region was widely regarded to be the next war (3rd Balkan or Greco-Turkish war) and way outside the US's interests but they still chose to intervene by supplying Greece with 2 battleships.
 
I think it's often pointed out that, in the absence of WWI, the Russian Revolution/Civil War, the famines, Soviet repression, and WWII, the ethnic Russian population would be much higher today, which would have a huge impact on Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
 
I think it's often pointed out that, in the absence of WWI, the Russian Revolution/Civil War, the famines, Soviet repression, and WWII, the ethnic Russian population would be much higher today, which would have a huge impact on Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Yes, I've seen a figure of 80 million less Russians today than without the wars.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
...

After 1905, Russia had made many reforms both large and technical that had totally transformed the country. There really is no reason to think that a revolution was likely at all. even the 1917 Revolution is a total fluke (Mackus would be the best source on that around herre) and that is after two years of brutal war and an unrelenting blockade
:closedeyesmile::closedeyesmile::closedeyesmile:
That's really a good one ... and almost completly opposite to almost everything I've read so far on the domestic situation pre-WW-1 (i.e "towards the flame", Dominic Lieven, just finished).

You may be reminded, that in 1914 the war (somewhat happily for the Tsar) brought a series of strikes and workers unrests to an end in the same sense as did the "union sacre" in France and the "reichstags-truce" in Germany.


However. I agree with you, that Nikky might have been able to dissolve the Duma once again, to even tighten the autocratic (almost dictaorial) rule of the okhrana over the empire ... but not for very much longer, some years maybe with ever increasing brutalities on bothe sides, the okhrana as well as the already in 1914 well established terrorists/anarchists/socialists with their fighting arms.
Somewhere around (very ?) early 1920ies Nikkys regime would fall to be replaced with ... whatever, but only after a damn costly civil war, esp. with a dissolution of the empires peripheries north (Finland, Baltics), west (Polans, Ukraine [?]), south (Caucasus, central asia, Far East ? ... maybe comming under japanese "protection" ?).
 
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(Mackus would be the best source on that around herre)
Well, since you mentioned...
Events leading to revolution go roughly like this:
- War starts. After initial patriotic wave subsides, socialists begin to encourage strikes. No Russian equivalent of Burgfriedenspolitik / Union sacree.
- Tsar is away at front, leaving country in hands of the only person less capable than him: tsarina.
- Germans send money and logistic support to revolutionaries to destabilize Russian regime.
- Clique forms around Guchkov (a "moderate conservative"!), who wants to force tsar to abdicate in a "palace coup". If by 1917 Allied armed forces achieved any serious victory (Ottomans defeated for example), it'll be difficult to pull anyone into conspiracy, since a plan to overthrow a ruler who's winning a war would be very poorly regarded.
- Tsar's own generals and officials ambush him on a train on a way to Petrograd, and persuade him to abdicate. If tsar takes earlier train, they don't get to ambush him, and he reaches capital and gets in touch with his subordinates willing to suppress/appease the rioters.
- Germans are encouraged that Russia is collapsing, and stop Austrians (who were close to collapse themselves) from pursuing peace negotiations.
- Provisional government governs even more ineptly than tsar, while being even more devoted to stay in war. Terrified of right-wing coup, it dismisses some competent right-wing generals and officials, like Grand Duke Nicholas for example. Gives people free speech and suffrage, but doesn't give them bread. This causes collapse of Octobrist-Kadet government, which is replaced with more radical Trudovik-Socialist one, which keeps doing exactly the same. Kerensky formally abolishes monarchy by decree (for several months after abdication, Russia formally remined a monarchy).
- Kerensky's government alienates both right and left by the way Kornilov affair was handled. Right was angered by arrest of Kornilov and many officers, and by release and arming of Bolshevik prisoners. Left was angered by the fact that members of government were involved in conspiracy themselves, and resisted the coup only after becoming paranoid Kornilov will remove them from power.
- when Bolshevik combat squads attack government offices in Petrograd, Kerensky's government which spend last 6 months trying to appease them folds like house of cards.

Compare that with how German moderate socialist Friedrich Ebert handled German revolution: he allied with remnants of imperial establishment to suppress everyone who was more left wing than him. Russian liberals and socialist were feeding communist beast, German socialist strangled it.
 
:closedeyesmile::closedeyesmile::closedeyesmile:
That's really a good one ... and almost completly opposite to almost everything I've read so far on the domestic situation pre-WW-1 (i.e "towards the flame", Dominic Lieven, just finished).

You may be reminded, that in 1914 the war (somewhat happily for the Tsar) brought a series of strikes and workers unrests to an end in the same sense as did the "union sacre" in France and the "reichstags-truce" in Germany.


However. I agree with you, that Nikky might have been able to dissolve the Duma once again, to even tighten the autocratic (almost dictaorial) rule of the okhrana over the empire ... but not for very much longer, some years maybe with ever increasing brutalities on bothe sides, the okhrana as well as the already in 1914 well established terrorists/anarchists/socialists with their fighting arms.
Somewhere around (very ?) early 1920ies Nikkys regime would fall to be replaced with ... whatever, but only after a damn costly civil war, esp. with a dissolution of the empires peripheries north (Finland, Baltics), west (Polans, Ukraine [?]), south (Caucasus, central asia, Far East ? ... maybe comming under japanese "protection" ?).


This merely shows a superficial understanding of Russian history.

First, strikes are a normal part of inzustrial life. They do not mean revolutionary situation.

Second, the St Petersburg strikes were weak and short lived. The real problem was when the transit workers went on strike- to de.and police protection from rioters. The Cossacks quickly restored order

A good source would be st Petersburg between the revolutions by McKean

There was no revolutionary movement left a d certainly no violence in the countryside where the Stolypin reforms had releaved the pressures


There is no reason to believe that the Empire would dissolve. Certainly far less than the remote possibility that austris-Hungary would
 
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