Far more Russians needed in this world

Incognito

Banned
1ans. Not to replace just be a dominant demographic , in OTL Russians were majority in Grozny even after return of the Chechens, when it started to be chechen city again and their culture survived but havent reached its potential heights because Russia couldnt always provide fair treatment and security But even after such challenging history Chechens survived .
Again, look at what happens to cultures of people that are "dominated demographically" (or as you said before, "making natives in all of its neighbouring countries of today that were part of Russian empire, minority in their own lands") by others (hint: it does not bode well for the survival of the culture being dominated).
2answr.I repeat stereotypicaly you know Serbs being haters of everything they encounter , Americans mindless consumer-bots and all those lies that started to show up in pop culture about groups of people , without a lot of fuss .
I still don't understand what you are trying to say :confused:. If you want, you can write in Russian for me as I am Russophone.
3answr. Russia had to expand because of EE plain and highway from Berlin to Moscow so it can have some breathing space beteen its vulnerable heartland and borders of western powers , threat of slave raiding horsemen of Crimea , Caucasus and Central Asia created the need for russian answer Cossacks and agressive policy toward those people to stop population loss in the steppes , toghether with need to stop Ottoman empire and its islamic brethren from enslaving Russia .So only way to stop bunch of unemployed young men from pillaging Russia was to control them somehow and the first thing Russians learned from dealing with peoples of the steppes is that their needs change from year to year so only way Russia could gurantee safety to its citizens was direct military control exercised through cossack stanizas .
You still haven't touched on why a small Russia surrounded by, say, an independent Cossack Hetmanate to the West, independent Caucasus Kingdoms to the south, maybe a Chinese-dominated Siberia to the East, etc. would be bad for Eurasian peace. ;)
 

katchen

Banned
Peter and Catherine Godunov?

My intention wasn't to create an over-populated Russia. But a Point of Divergence that I used in one of my ATLs is the following:

"Divergence Point
1605; Tsar Boris Godunov survives his stroke and dies four years later. His son Feodor II remains on the throne, defeats the would-be usurpers, and turns out to be an energetic leader. Instead of the "Times of Troubles", Russia does very well."

You can read more here:

Tsar

Comments welcome.
Just one thing, Michele. A Point of Divergence is a Point of Divergence. If Feodor Godunov remains on the throne and Russia avoids the Time of Troubles, you butterfly away Mikhail Romanov and therefore Pyotr Romanov (Peter the Great) and Yekaterina Romanov (Catherine the Great). You have a whole new line of Tsars and Tsarinas and your TL needs to reflect this. Having the Godunov tsars come up with exactly the same names as the Romanov tsars at exactly the same point in history is so coincidental that it's ASB!:p
 

katchen

Banned
Russians get to Hudson's Bay (or is it Dezhnev's Bay?)

When and how Russia needs to diverge from history so Russians can in long term really can use human wave and needles brutality doctrine as they are portrayed by western popular culture and propaganda of the past, of course if they want , enabled by natural increase in ethnic Russian population growth flooding its neighbours with enormous armies and excess population making natives in all of its neighbouring countries of today that were part of Russian empire, minority in their own lands ? One vodka for population bigger than that of todays US . Two vodkas for 500 milion . And you are going to make me an alcoholic if you make Russia have around 1bn strong population with at least 80% ethnic Russian . So , jokes aside, what do you think biggest possible Russia with ethnic Russian dominance achieved mostly through natural increase ? Is it just Russia with no red Revolution i am writing about ?P.S. I think Serbs would be easily assimilated if that helps somehow:p .
One POD that would not be hard at all would be for Semyon Dezhnev (remember him? He first rounded the Bering Strait but nobody in St. Petersburg noticed it so the discovery of Alaska had to waiit 150 years for Vitus Bering?) encounters either fog or contrary winds or bad ice at the Bering Strait and Dezhnev's koch is blown east past the north shore of Alaska's Seward Peninsula to the Kobuk River, where Dezhnev encounters friendly Innuit who will trade with him instead of trying to attack and eat his party like the Chukchi do. Dezhnev returns to Yakutsk with a profitable load of beaver pelts and ivory. He returns in 1656, explores further and portages to the Koyakuk and eventually the Yukon River. The Yukon River System takes Dezhnev to the Mackenzie River System, Lake Athaasca, Reindeer and Cochrane Lake and ultimately the Churchill River and Hudson's Bay --getting there 20 years before the British. Further explorations take the Russians to what is OTL the Fraser and Colombia and finally the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, reaching the Gulf of Mexico before La Salle. Trading outposts follow, and the Russians by getting there first control all of North America west of James Bay, the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, Lake Michigan and James Bay south to Spanish settlements in New Mexico. And yes, the Eastern shore of James Bay, the Arctic Islands and Labrador. Russia is finally motivated to build an open water naval fleet at Indigia Bay off the Pechora River, which is ice free but for ice flows all year. (What would be Murmansk OTL is also ice free but it has no navigable rivers leading to Russia nearby and it is too close to Danish Norway. And Archangel is iced up 7 months out of the year.
 

Autariates

Banned
One POD that would not be hard at all would be for Semyon Dezhnev (remember him? He first rounded the Bering Strait but nobody in St. Petersburg noticed it so the discovery of Alaska had to waiit 150 years for Vitus Bering?) encounters either fog or contrary winds or bad ice at the Bering Strait and Dezhnev's koch is blown east past the north shore of Alaska's Seward Peninsula to the Kobuk River, where Dezhnev encounters friendly Innuit who will trade with him instead of trying to attack and eat his party like the Chukchi do. Dezhnev returns to Yakutsk with a profitable load of beaver pelts and ivory. He returns in 1656, explores further and portages to the Koyakuk and eventually the Yukon River. The Yukon River System takes Dezhnev to the Mackenzie River System, Lake Athaasca, Reindeer and Cochrane Lake and ultimately the Churchill River and Hudson's Bay --getting there 20 years before the British. Further explorations take the Russians to what is OTL the Fraser and Colombia and finally the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, reaching the Gulf of Mexico before La Salle. Trading outposts follow, and the Russians by getting there first control all of North America west of James Bay, the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, Lake Michigan and James Bay south to Spanish settlements in New Mexico. And yes, the Eastern shore of James Bay, the Arctic Islands and Labrador. Russia is finally motivated to build an open water naval fleet at Indigia Bay off the Pechora River, which is ice free but for ice flows all year. (What would be Murmansk OTL is also ice free but it has no navigable rivers leading to Russia nearby and it is too close to Danish Norway. And Archangel is iced up 7 months out of the year.
Can Russian Navy match British Navy in that part of world to make it sustainable till machine guns and airplanes or would it be just a footnote in history like Fort Ross ?
 

Autariates

Banned
Again, look at what happens to cultures of people that are "dominated demographically" (or as you said before, "making natives in all of its neighbouring countries of today that were part of Russian empire, minority in their own lands") by others (hint: it does not bode well for the survival of the culture being dominated). I still don't understand what you are trying to say :confused:. If you want, you can write in Russian for me as I am Russophone. You still haven't touched on why a small Russia surrounded by, say, an independent Cossack Hetmanate to the West, independent Caucasus Kingdoms to the south, maybe a Chinese-dominated Siberia to the East, etc. would be bad for Eurasian peace. ;)
1st Yes it happens most of the time but it didnt happen to OTL georgians , ukrainians and the rest of formers emires minorities .
2nd Prejudice is the word i wanted , so people would then say for alternate Finns bookworm-sailors and so on for others .
3rd It would be extremely bad for Russian state at least , they would be in indefencible position strategicaly against major powers who would find that weakness too tempting . Theres no natural obstacle for geopolictical
great-power foes of Russia .Only if Russia grows too big in size to handle even for strong and united Germany , simply because it takes freaking long time to drive from Germanys new border to Moscow and theres a lot of square kilometers that needs to be effectively controled for invasion to succeed , would Russians be able to stop major powers military . Even that amount of teritory wasnt guarantee for independence . And you are proposing that Russia leaves it to other powers that will see Russia anyways as potential enemy and quite possibly ally with major power or in Chinas case be a majoe power itself and thus put Russia in cycle of invasions more often probably than OTL , because when country-like entities saw opportunity for easy kill throughout history they usually went in for it . Small Russia of yours would be punching bag of Eurasia .
 

Incognito

Banned
1st Yes it happens most of the time but it didnt happen to OTL georgians , ukrainians and the rest of formers emires minorities.
That's because there wasn't "Russian population growth flooding its neighbours with enormous armies and excess population making natives in all of its neighbouring countries of today that were part of Russian empire, minority in their own lands" (as you say in the opening post). Georgians, Armenians, etc. were still the majority in their lands OTL, not Russians.
2nd Prejudice is the word i wanted , so people would then say for alternate Finns bookworm-sailors and so on for others .
...i still don't understant what you are trying to say here.
3rd It would be extremely bad for Russian state at least , they would be in indefencible position strategicaly against major powers who would find that weakness too tempting . Theres no natural obstacle for geopolictical
great-power foes of Russia .Only if Russia grows too big in size to handle even for strong and united Germany , simply because it takes freaking long time to drive from Germanys new border to Moscow and theres a lot of square kilometers that needs to be effectively controled for invasion to succeed , would Russians be able to stop major powers military . Even that amount of teritory wasnt guarantee for independence . And you are proposing that Russia leaves it to other powers that will see Russia anyways as potential enemy and quite possibly ally with major power or in Chinas case be a majoe power itself and thus put Russia in cycle of invasions more often probably than OTL , because when country-like entities saw opportunity for easy kill throughout history they usually went in for it . Small Russia of yours would be punching bag of Eurasia .
But you said a large, heavily-populated Russia would be needed for a "stable Eurasia", rather than "it would be good for Russia". You still haven't backed up this assertion.
 

Autariates

Banned
That's because there wasn't "Russian population growth flooding its neighbours with enormous armies and excess population making natives in all of its neighbouring countries of today that were part of Russian empire, minority in their own lands" (as you say in the opening post). Georgians, Armenians, etc. were still the majority in their lands OTL, not Russians. ...i still don't understant what you are trying to say here. But you said a large, heavily-populated Russia would be needed for a "stable Eurasia", rather than "it would be good for Russia". You still haven't backed up this assertion.

1st Maybe powerfull Russia means more relaxed and freedom loving rulers that wont care much for opression .
2nd Try sending me personal messages cause it seems to my untrained eye that that all what i wright is easyly understood .
3rdSmall Russia that is able to stop hordes of enemy would itself be a threat to peace in Eurasia .
 

Autariates

Banned
Because without a big Russia, THE NAZIS WIN!!! :D

Bruce
Small Russia timelines Nazis could be easily sustained through history because they ,probably at least ,would be Russians conquering their way to Russian empire or some sort of united German nation slicing its way through EE and then after gaining stability in EE teritories turning on SE and WE . Or even angry reactionary France that fully encompasses Rhein valley .And imagine being conquered in such timeline by such powers .Or what is also likely overall politic climate in Europe would be so unchanged in its eurocentric megalomania what would be the best for timelines immigrant picky US .
 
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Just one thing, Michele. A Point of Divergence is a Point of Divergence. If Feodor Godunov remains on the throne and Russia avoids the Time of Troubles, you butterfly away Mikhail Romanov and therefore Pyotr Romanov (Peter the Great) and Yekaterina Romanov (Catherine the Great). You have a whole new line of Tsars and Tsarinas and your TL needs to reflect this. Having the Godunov tsars come up with exactly the same names as the Romanov tsars at exactly the same point in history is so coincidental that it's ASB!:p

Yes, you're very right. The thing is that timeline was written with a specific role-playing game setting in mind; it's no coincidence that it was not posted here but over there in the Steve Jackson Games forums. In that setting - GURPS Infinite Worlds - many timelines come with the handy concept of "time resiliency" or similar pseudo-scientific babble. Cliodynamics has a way to right itself and fall into certain patterns so that some aspects of history are unchanged even in spite of an ancient POD.

The practical point being exactly that certain key historical characters, or events, are different - but still easily identifiable by the players.

Imagine the average role-playing group being told, with regard to Tsar: "The Ochrana quietly murdered Johann Schmidt, a Hegelian intellectual who had worked for the Zeitschrift der Rheinland (closed down because of a scathing article against the Tsar). He then moved to France and Britain, and wrote other political pamphlets before dying in an 'accident'. He was becoming a top anti-imperialist thinker at the time, and not a nationalist but rather a proto-socialist. Your task is to find and retrieve his unpublished 'Manifesto of the Communalist Party', which he was working on when he died".

How many of the players would say, "Hey, this is Tsar's parallel of Karl Marx!"?
 

katchen

Banned
Do cossacks need a navy?

Can Russian Navy match British Navy in that part of world to make it sustainable till machine guns and airplanes or would it be just a footnote in history like Fort Ross ?
Well that depends on whether a fur empire over the Bering Strait initially even needs a navy. It already takes three years (because trade only moves on rivers in the summer in the far north) for goods and people to reach the Pacific IOTL--it would take a forth to reach Hudson's Bay and points in between, but once cured, pelts will keep for that length of time and it isn't as though a trade route through the Bering could easily be cut by the Royal Navy--not when the British aren't even sure there's a strait between North America and Asia. When Peter the Great builds a navy for Russia, instead of concentrating almost exclusively on the Baltic Sea, Peter ITTL will likely send shipwrights to the Pacific as well as to Indigya Bay off the Pechora River (but still ice free year round) to build ships. Indigya will be the home port of the Arctic Fleet and Ayan, most likely, the Pacific Fleet going back and forth to the North American West Coast. And don't forget that the Russians will still possess the knowledge of how to navigate the Arctic Ocean in koch boats if they can refrain from annihilating the Pomors ITTL. That is something the British cannot match at all.
Frankly, the British aren't even IN the Pacific Ocean in any strength until the very LATE 18th Century. The Russian's major competition will be firstly the Spanish and then the Dutch. If they bring Yakuts and Buryats across the Bering along with cossacks, the combination will be hard for the Cheyenne, the Blackfoot, the Shoshoni or even the Comanche to beat and the Russians might well sweep deep into Northern Mexico.
 
There could also be a huge Russian presence in the Asia-Pacific region though, with possibly reaching as far south as OTL Philippines if the Russians can limit their gains in North America.
 
The census of the Russian Empire in 1897 recorded 126 million inhabitants in the state. Comparatively, the USA census of 1900 determined that the USA is inhabited by 76 million people.

The population of the USA would grow rapidly in the following years...but the population of Russia would grow very rapidly as well - the estimated number of Russian citizens immediately prior to the revolution was around 180 million, while the USA census of 1920 records 106 million citizens.

At first glance it looks like without major disasters Russia's demographic supremacy over the USA is assured and we can all have a free vodka and go home...however. There are significant problems.
1. The USA is at this point in time, and for most of its history in fact, an immigration destination. It can count not only on its own fertility rates but on a constant trickle of immigrants to increase its' population.
2. Russia has worthy enemies it its neighborhood which are more than capable of launching a major war in which quite a lot of Russians would be killed. Well, okay it has one enemy, Germany, but it's more than enough.
The USA has Canada and Mexico. The worst that can happen is, what, Canada and Mexico teaming up?
3. Russia is a highly diverse Empire with many ethnic groups that might, in the right circumstances, rebel and try to create their own country. The numbers of these ethnic groups could, through "quiet", non-forced assimilation, be reduced in favor of the Russians, but that requires a century of almost constant peace and relative prosperity.
The worst internal conflict that could happen in the USA is some kind of a race war between white and black people, but it's not very likely to happen.

So, for one thing, the revolution of 1917. absolutely needs to not happen. The following civil war killed a million people and caused up to two million to immigrate. Hell, just in Serbia we had over 50,000 Russians (and a few Kalmyks, Ossetians...) who fled from the Reds when the fighting became hopeless. The famines, and rampant diseases during and after the war would kill dozens of millions more. The purges and gulags, yet more people. And WW2 would be just plain catastrophic. All of these events would be accompanied by economic devastation that would just by itself have far-reaching consequences.

If we avoid all that then Russia does have a chance.


P.S. I think Serbs would be easily assimilated if that helps somehow:p .

Huh? Aren't Serbs a bit too...far away from Russia? Disregarding how assimilation in general is rarely quick or easy.
 
All the people who died in the famines and who were killed in the purges. Oh, and I imagine the high gulag population didn't help either (not much reproduction going on in a labor camp, I suspect).

Are we talking about the same period in which the population growth was around 1mill per year?
 
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