Fascist Russia Terrifying?

A fascist Russia is possible but you need a pre-1900 POD that leads to a Russian state with a powerful modern army and enough quasi-democracy to enable paramilitaries to show up. A US victory in the Vietnam War is much easier to do than a White victory in the Russian Civil War, so while the Whites were fascists and self-avowed ones at that they aren't ever going to win the war, so....

I do have a Fascist Russia in Up With the Star but the PODs that create it in the alternate Russian history start in 1877 and include a fully modern Russian military machine whose logistics are rather stronger than IOTL, a push in this stronger army for a military dictatorship, and a Dolchstosslegende meaning veterans of the war who get discharged are a ready constituency for this Fascist Movement, which I call Narodnaya Volnya. Of course the movement winds up more like a much more successful version of Mussolini's fascism, with the dictator Lavr Kornilov far more Stalin-like than Hitler like.

But again the PODs go back to the reign of Alexander II, not in a post-1900 setting.
 
Stalinism built essentially from scratch some of the largest heavy industrial capacity on the face of the Earth, there's a difference between various inefficiencies, which all governments have and an uber-centralized system like Stalin's USSR definitely had, and then there's just the sheer power it had going behind it, inefficiency or not, that system worked, it was the single most terrifyingly all-powerful state in human history and oh sweet mother of God it actually kind of worked.

I concur with Plumber about the Whites though, there isn' going to be much in the way of cooperation and nation-building between mutually-incompatible ideologies like republicans and monarchists, add in groups with their own agenda like the Cossack hosts and the Russian Jews who in all honesty are probably going to be fleeing en masse if the Whites win and you have a recipe for a pretty ugly aftermath, fascism of the exterminate all inferiors brand will not work in an empire where half or more of the population is not Russian, there has to be a clear majority and a clear minority.

Oh, I'm not denying the power Stalinism possessed. And you're right in saying Russian Fascists probably wouldn't be as successful in modernization, however, wouldn't it still perhaps have success in expansion? Or is that because of internal problems it would have?
 
Oh, I'm not denying the power Stalinism possessed. And you're right in saying Russian Fascists probably wouldn't be as successful in modernization, however, wouldn't it still perhaps have success in expansion? Or is that because of internal problems it would have?

I mean theoretically it could expand, Nazi Germany expanded a ton... and then proceeded to lose all of its conquests plus half of the country of Germany itself to the Allies.

I'm just saying that the possibility of a racial supremacist regime coming to power in Russia is slim to begin with because of the composition of the Russian Empire and its territories, but one that attempts to either forcibly remove or otherwise oppress peoples encompassing half the empire's population just isn't going to work.
 
If we're going by Robert Paxton's definition of Fascism, they don't have to emphasize racial superiority. It will probably involve Slavic Nationalism, but aren't most groups within Russia at least related to Slavs? Anti-seminitsm too probably, but that's hardly unique to it.
 

Inhato

Banned
A Fascist Russia would probably tolerate pan-slavic movements in other areas. While some say Poland would be screwed, it would probably be reduced to Curzon border, and some sort of supportive government established, since there were influential factions within Poland with similar worldviews.In exchange Russia would probably support their claims against Germany.
I can see a following bloc:
Russia-Czechoslovakia-Yugoslavia,Bulgaria,Poland, possibly France

Versus

Germany, Britain, Japan-allies Hungary, Austria.

The three above countries have direct interests against Russia. Britain additionally would be furious at Russian meddling in Middle East and its Jewish policies which would further disrupt situation in Palestine. Possible additions to Russo block could be China, Italy, to the German-British one Turkey, Finland.
 
A Fascist Russia would probably tolerate pan-slavic movements in other areas. While some say Poland would be screwed, it would probably be reduced to Curzon border, and some sort of supportive government established, since there were influential factions within Poland with similar worldviews.In exchange Russia would probably support their claims against Germany.
I can see a following bloc:
Russia-Czechoslovakia-Yugoslavia,Bulgaria,Poland, possibly France

Versus

Germany, Britain, Japan-allies Hungary, Austria.

The three above countries have direct interests against Russia. Britain additionally would be furious at Russian meddling in Middle East and its Jewish policies which would further disrupt situation in Palestine. Possible additions to Russo block could be China, Italy, to the German-British one Turkey, Finland.

This is actually quite interesting, to say the least. Russia would have a revanchist attitude about Germany and Japan, while probably not exactly having great relations with Britain. Additionally, this pan-slavic nationalism would result in a very interesting alliance. Question is, would the US get pulled into such a conflict?
 

Inhato

Banned
Question is, would the US get pulled into such a conflict?
I don't think so. Both Germany and Japan are going to be pretty authoritarian, and Japan comes across USA's interests in Asia. I think USA would stay rather strongly isolationist.
 
I don't think so. Both Germany and Japan are going to be pretty authoritarian, and Japan comes across USA's interests in Asia. I think USA would stay rather strongly isolationist.

This probably means Russia wins. It has far more resources and manpower than its two enemies. If it has industrialized properly, then the new Empire of Russia has a massive curbstomp of its old enemies. As for England, while they may not be able to directly attack it, it will quickly run out of funds to deal with Russia. Unless it can somehow pull the US into this conflict, its screwed.
 
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