For Want of a Word – Stolypin endures

[alexmilman]

Thanks ! Very good observations.

1/ Turkey: there will be a TTL version of the National Turkish Movement and Kemal, pretty similar to OTL (only difference being their start position which is quite precarious). I mean, whatever the odds, Turkish nationalists have to try something. If only they can exploit growing dissensions between erstwhile Allies... Not to say that they can reverse all of Sevres, but they can at least try to reverse some of it. They have to be extremely cautious and wily, but they also have to act fast: once mass population exchanges (or deportations) start, the window to get back some of Anatolia will close.

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4/ Russian internal affairs: I am not sure of the particulars yet, but I reckon liberals will have their moment in the sun: sobered up liberals, working together with moderate conservative bureaucrats. But for that to happen, we need some change at the highest echelons.

On #1. Obviously, it would take more time than OTL but with the alliances falling apart and interests changing, they’ll get some backup and opportunity to get organized. Judging by OTL French, Italian and British. behavior, none of them had a serious intention to fight over the pieces of Turkey they controlled, which eventually will leave Greece as the only dedicated opponent.

On #4. It seems to be a prevailing view (within this thread) that under NII Russian government was a set of the arch-conservative self-destructive nincompoops and that the only policy he recognized was “reaction, reaction and more reaction”. How within that imaginable framework Witte and Stolypin got into the picture is rather difficult to imagine. Even A.F.Trepov, while being a conservative (as if this is something bad by definition) was neither inexperienced nor nincompoop. He was a member of the special commission to draft a plan for a State Duma, according to the rescript of February 18, 1905, and the Manifesto of October 17. As a minister of Transport (1915) he developed the Kirov Railway to improve the transport connections between the ice-free port of Murmanskwith the Eastern Front during World War I. He was a head of the special committee created to address food shortages in the big cities during WWI and as PM he was known as ‘modern day Stolypin’. OTOH, an assumption that the Russian liberals were by definition an useful and competent crowd is not based on any facts. I’d say that the record is quite contrary.
Neither was NII an absolute monarch with a complete freedom of actions and even if he does not call Duma after WWI (IMO, unlikely), he is still not an absolute monarch: contrary to a popular perception an absolute monarchy in Russia ceased to exist during the reign of Nicholas I who established principle that, while being a source of the law, a monarch is a subject to the existing laws. This was a problem with Alex: she never bothered to get familiar with the Russian legal system, stubbornly stuck to the opinion that an Emperor is above the law and kept pushing her husband this direction. BTW, she was not even truly conservative or reactionary, just stupid and ignorant: some of her initiatives were intended to benefit the poor but unconnected to the reality (government was not in charge of the city’s public transportation and could not dictate price of the tickets). Nicholas himself had been violating the law frequently but only on the minor issues (like awarding St.Vladimir with St.George ribbon) and neither State Council nor the Senate were the simple rubber stampers.
So the problem would be not conservatism vs. liberalism but lawfulness (existing system) vs. lawlessness (Alix & co). The easiest solution is to have Alix dead.

 

[dunHozzie]

The easiest solution is to have Alix dead.

NII dead, Alix in a monastery?

 

[Thoresby]

NII dead, Alix in a monastery?

But who do you have as regent for Alexei?

 

[Lemonfish]

But who do you have as regent for Alexei?

In that situation? Most likely Grand duke Mikhail.

 

[Stenkarazin]

In that situation? Most likely Grand duke Mikhail.

Grand duke Nikolay Nikolayevich could be a more likely choice.

There is also the fact that Alexey can die an early death. Then Nicholas's heir is Mikhail, whose own heir would be... Grand duke Kirill Vladimirovitch.

 

[dunHozzie]

But who do you have as regent for Alexei?

I want Stolypin, but anyone with a functioning brain will do. Mikhail is especially welcome, as he has no interest to rule as I understood it.

 

[alexmilman]

NII dead, Alix in a monastery?

If I understand terminology correctly, the right word would be “nunnery” but your proposal definitely has a clear potential for all parties involved.... 😂

Death of NII solves pretty much nothing because alternatives are not obviously better and because without Alix as a pushing factor he would be more manageable and less active.

 

[alexmilman]

In that situation? Most likely Grand duke Mikhail.

Who has zero qualifications and does not want to do anything. This may sound good in theory and was/is OK in a different environment but in this TL Russia for quite a while would not be able to rely exclusively upon the Western-style elective government: there is no, yet, competent “elective political class” and available popular demagogues (like Kerensky) simply have no clue about the ruling (irresponsibly printed huge numbers of “kerenki” resulted in hyper-inflation and other things are too well-known to repeat). 11 years of the Duma also were not too encouraging in the terms of producing capable statesmen so the transitional period has to take time.
So basically Michael can be considered a useful figure if we assume that he is making the right choice of PM and other ministers and after that remains a figurehead. But why do we have to expect that he is going to make the right choices?

 

[alexmilman]

I want Stolypin, but anyone with a functioning brain will do. Mikhail is especially welcome, as he has no interest to rule as I understood it.

A.F.Trepov was considered a ”modern” version of Stolypin. Anyway, Michail was not going to became a PM and Trepov (or whoever) is not going to be an emperor or a regent so you are talking about two different things.

 

[dunHozzie]

A.F.Trepov was considered a ”modern” version of Stolypin. Anyway, Michail was not going to became a PM and Trepov (or whoever) is not going to be an emperor or a regent so you are talking about two different things.

Correct I was way to inaccurate in making my point. I was referring to having Mikhail as regent that doesn't want to be hands on and opens the way for strong elected leader, preferably a highly skilled one.

So basically Michael can be considered a useful figure if we assume that he is making the right choice of PM and other ministers and after that remains a figurehead. But why do we have to expect that he is going to make the right choices?

we have zero guarantee he makes the right decisions, but he'd be hard pressed to make worse ones than Alix using NII als puppet

 

[alexmilman]

Correct I was way to inaccurate in making my point. I was referring to having Mikhail as regent that doesn't want to be hands on and opens the way for strong elected leader, preferably a highly skilled one.

we have zero guarantee he makes the right decisions, but he'd be hard pressed to make worse ones than Alix using NII als puppet

The problem with Russia of that period was that strong elected leader would not be available. The people with the administrative experience did not have demagoguery skills and those with these skills had little or nothing besides demagoguery. Provisional Government is an illustration. @Stenkarazin has many of them killed but the rest are there and they are useless.

BTW Nicky was not exactly a puppet even if Alix was trying to make him one: many of the important assignments (including Trepov, IIRC) had been made against her (and Rasputin’s) will.

 

[Stenkarazin]

Indeed, Alix was a bad influence but Nicky was perfectly capable of making bad decisions on his own.

Re Mikhail: the main perk of having Mikhail on the throne is that, contrary to his brother, he didn't seem to feel the need to uphold the Autocracy and the legacy of Alexander III at all costs. Of course we are venturing in the realm of hypothesis here, but it is entirely possible that Mikhail would be content playing a constitutional monarch à la Georges V... Of course the Russian system is not that of Britain, and this does not guarantee that he would appoint able, competent people at the helm.

About the liberals: I would not be so definitive as @alexmilman : I think that my TL establishes clearly that I don't hold the Russian liberal leadership in high esteem, but that doesn't mean that the liberal educated society cannot be helpful at some point. Stating that all Russian liberals were worthless windbags would be as extreme as stating that all Tsarist ministers were incompetent lackeys. Neither reflects the reality.

Maybe, in the aftermath of the February Uprising's failure and the victory in the war, there is a small window of opportunity to convince chastened, sobered up liberals to engage with the govt and work with them on many aspects.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Re Mikhail: the main perk of having Mikhail on the throne is that, contrary to his brother, he didn't seem to feel the need to uphold the Autocracy and the legacy of Alexander III at all costs. Of course we are venturing in the realm of hypothesis here, but it is entirely possible that Mikhail would be content playing a constitutional monarch à la Georges V... Of course the Russian system is not that of Britain, and this does not guarantee that he would appoint able, competent people at the helm.

That's my read of Mikhail as well, certainly a far more able man to take the throne than his brother. He was independent, look at his choice of wife. I think he would have been more politically astute than Nicky, but that's a low bar.

 

[Thoresby]

About the liberals: I would not be so definitive as @alexmilman : I think that my TL establishes clearly that I don't hold the Russian liberal leadership in high esteem, but that doesn't mean that the liberal educated society cannot be helpful at some point. Stating that all Russian liberals were worthless windbags would be as extreme as stating that all Tsarist ministers were incompetent lackeys. Neither reflects the reality.

Maybe, in the aftermath of the February Uprising's failure and the victory in the war, there is a small window of opportunity to convince chastened, sobered up liberals to engage with the govt and work with them on many aspects.

Long run if the regime is going to survive they need to expand their base of support, there simply aren't enough conservative upholders of the status quo, even the upper echelons of the army is full of people who are fair weather friends. Now obviously there are multiple directions you can expand your base of support you can move in a more "right populist" direction and essentially copy the path of Mussolini which you seem to be implying will be the future direction of Russia. Alternatively you could co-opt the liberals, or at least the sensible liberals who understand that Russia can't turn into Britain or France overnight, and gradually try and build a liberal constitutional monarchy, essentially follow the political evolution of Sweden or Denmark between 1815 and 1945 though you'd need to move considerably fast than that.

That's my read of Mikhail as well, certainly a far more able man to take the throne than his brother. He was independent, look at his choice of wife. I think he would have been more politically astute than Nicky, but that's a low bar.

My read of Mikhail is he was considerably lazier than his brother and that is not necessarily a good thing, on one hand it can result in him handing authority to an able cabinet of ministers and let them run things without interference, on the other hand it can result in him appointing a incompetent cabinet and let them run things into the ground without interference.

 

[McAuslan_in_the_Rough]

1/ Of course this is OTL speaking, but I cannot stomach those bolchevizan of Mayakovsky and A. Tolstoy. Gumilev fits the bill, though. As hinted in one earlier update, people like Pilnyak, Biely and Blok will go further the path of mysticism and "scythism",... towards "Muscovism". People like Bunin, Nabokov and Khodassievich are going to feel increasingly isolated in the artistic/cultural atmosphere taking hold in the 20's-30's.

2/ Greece-Italy: tensions are sure to re-surface before long.

On #1: The issue is not like or dislike (I detest both and “Aleshka” is used not as a compliment (*)) but usefulness for propaganda purposes: due to the fact that they absolutely lacked any convictions and moral integrity while being quite talented, for a relatively modest compensation each of them would write whatever is required (BTW, I was told that, to avoid the draft, Mayakovsky was writing the hurrah-patriotic verses during WWI) and in the form required, especially in a form suitable for the mass consumption (like “Windows of ROSTA”). Gumilev could not be bought and, besides not being “poet for the masses”, he was not into glorification of the war (from his diaries I could not figure out how he got his two St. George awards). The rest are even less useful for the mass propaganda.

_________
(*) In OTL one of the jokes of A.N. Tolstoy was to “modestly” accept congratulations during performance of “Death of Ivan the Terrible”. After commenting that at the end of performance that person would be shouting “Author, author!” he sighted and added, “yes, it took me a lot of effort to write “Prince Serebryanny””. For the benefit of the Anglophones, both mentioned titles belong to A.K.Tolstoy, a famous writer of the mid-XIX century.

I always thought that the end of the day Mayakovsky was much more unpleasant than A. Tolstoy. The "Red Count" just really enjoyed having a good time and didn't care too much who footed the bill, while Mayak was much more of a self-important egomaniac. It would be fun to see Tolstoy in Constantinople at the same time as in OTL (1919?) but in very different circumstances. If Nicholas II sticks around long enough, Tolstoy might just write "Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich" instead of "Peter I".

 

[alexmilman]

Indeed, Alix was a bad influence but Nicky was perfectly capable of making bad decisions on his own.

Re Mikhail: the main perk of having Mikhail on the throne is that, contrary to his brother, he didn't seem to feel the need to uphold the Autocracy and the legacy of Alexander III at all costs. Of course we are venturing in the realm of hypothesis here, but it is entirely possible that Mikhail would be content playing a constitutional monarch à la Georges V... Of course the Russian system is not that of Britain, and this does not guarantee that he would appoint able, competent people at the helm.

About the liberals: I would not be so definitive as @alexmilman : I think that my TL establishes clearly that I don't hold the Russian liberal leadership in high esteem, but that doesn't mean that the liberal educated society cannot be helpful at some point. Stating that all Russian liberals were worthless windbags would be as extreme as stating that all Tsarist ministers were incompetent lackeys. Neither reflects the reality.

Maybe, in the aftermath of the February Uprising's failure and the victory in the war, there is a small window of opportunity to convince chastened, sobered up liberals to engage with the govt and work with them on many aspects.

I did not say that the liberal educated society had been useless by definition. What I was saying was:
(a) that in OTL the “educated classes” were excessively dedicated to criticizing and opposing the government for a truly productive cooperation. This does not mean that they were not doing anything useful: more than once the lower level elective institutions proved to be useful, especially in the critical situations like famine during the reign of AIII. It would fair to balance their attitude with a general government’s suspicion toward them. In other words, it should take time and effort on both sides to began a productive cooperation.

(b) In OTL the Russian liberals did not produce any truly capable leadership. Part of the reason was an absence of practical experience in state level administration and generally negative attitude toward cooperation with anything that would not fit their vision. Obviously, with such an attitude an ability to get close to the decision makers and get some useful experience was minimal. Which leaves for a while the professional bureaucrats (like Witte, Stolypin or Trepov) as the only cadres suitable for the high position. Again, with the changed attitudes gradual change of the situation is quite possible: even quite a few professional bureaucrats had quite liberal views.

Now, as far as Nicky is involved, of course he was making tons of the bad decisions (getting Russia into 2 unnecessary wars is quite enough) but the point is that on the major issues he was trying to keep himself within the existing legal framework while Alix was pushing him into “owner of Russia” paradigm which implied a complete freedom from any restrictions. So as long as he is acting with the acceptable limits, he is just one more not too competent ruler out of many (as if the leadership on both sides were set of the geniuses). As OTL demonstrated from time to time he was choosing capable PMs capable of moving Russia forwar.

 

[alexmilman]

I always thought that the end of the day Mayakovsky was much more unpleasant than A. Tolstoy. The "Red Count" just really enjoyed having a good time and didn't care too much who footed the bill, while Mayak was much more of a self-important egomaniac. It would be fun to see Tolstoy in Constantinople at the same time as in OTL (1919?) but in very different circumstances. If Nicholas II sticks around long enough, Tolstoy might just write "Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich" instead of "Peter I".

Well, it seems that “Poet of Proletariat” possessed a very flexible backbone and readiness to use his tongue as a toilet paper. His final mistake was that he did not figure out that it is time to switch to the different posteriors. BTW, with all his demagoguery about needing only a clean shirt, he appreciated a good life and seemingly was not returning from his travels abroad empty-handed. Of course, in that area he was a far cry from Aleshka but competing with him was difficult: he was a superb master of squeeze managing to do this even to The Boss. Once he visited Exhibition of the Soviet achievements and in the Uzbek pavilion saw a beautiful rug (he was an acknowledged coonosier of the works of art) but administration refused to sell it (exposition was not for sale). So he took his time and waited until Stalin called him to ask how the work on “Defense of Tsaritsyn” (probably there is no need to explain the importance) is going. To which he answered that it was going just fine but could go even better if he had certain rug. “Keep working on your important book”. He got rug for free.

 

[alexmilman]

I wonder how the butterflies impact the both the interbellum and ww2. Russia needs further modernization, both to be able to fund ww2 and to have the industrial capacity to fight it. Alix needs to go and fast, preferably Nicky too. I'm hoping for a stroke and a regency from Stolypin to survive the great depression. Then hopefully we've got enough time to mine the crap out of the west of Poland so Barbarossa will be delayed. A second clash to me at this points seems to be unavoidable, though its still murky what political system and what the alliances will be.

I'm kinda hoping on an USA - Russian Empire alliance when the regency happens (if it does).

Anyway, very interesting, watched

But without the Red Scare would there be Hitler to start with? And with a potential realignment of the post-wwi alliances would there be WWII or at least WWII in its Germany-Soviet (Russia) part? Too many things can go differently.

 

[dunHozzie]

But without the Red Scare would there be Hitler to start with?

That sentiment that created the NSDAP needs to go somewhere. Perhaps a communist party, perhaps a more Mussolini like fascism, but imho something will happen. WW1 left to many wounds, made too many slights and left too many ripe grounds for fools. The communists were a convenient tool, to me France, Britain, or the perhaps the Jews could have served the same purpose. Obviously the Russian Revolution and Civil war had a big impact of the psyche of the ones bringing Hitler to power, so I'm definitely not arguing the answer would be 100% yes. I can't even argue a 75% score for some kind of dictator. But I lean towards a dictatorship, war and roughly similar alliances.

And with a potential realignment of the post-wwi alliances would there be WWII or at least WWII in its Germany-Soviet (Russia) part?

Even if we get communist Germany, or a different military dictatorship / fascism than OTL, I'm not seeing a sustainable alliance between them and Russia. Not even with both winding up fascist. But maybe that's a case - as we say in Dutch, don't know if it translates - the desire/wish fathering the (train of) thought.

 

[McAuslan_in_the_Rough]

That sentiment that created the NSDAP needs to go somewhere. Perhaps a communist party, perhaps a more Mussolini like fascism, but imho something will happen. WW1 left to many wounds, made too many slights and left too many ripe grounds for fools. The communists were a convenient tool, to me France, Britain, or the perhaps the Jews could have served the same purpose. Obviously the Russian Revolution and Civil war had a big impact of the psyche of the ones bringing Hitler to power, so I'm definitely not arguing the answer would be 100% yes. I can't even argue a 75% score for some kind of dictator. But I lean towards a dictatorship, war and roughly similar alliances.

I agree on the sentiment needing to somewhere, but Hitler himself may not end up being the man to use it. I am only basing this on Volker Ullrich's biography, but it seems to me that Hitler becoming actively involved in politics was very much an accident: discovering public speaking skills after being appointed as intelligence agent right after the war. ITTL (so far), the war ends in a more orderly fashion for Germany and Hitler might just end up getting demobilized after the armistice and remain in obscurity.