If the Central Powers win WWI, does the Soviet Union still exist?

Does the Red Army still win the Russian Civil War?

  • No, White Army wins.

    Votes: 39 39.0%
  • Yes, the Red Army still manages to win.

    Votes: 61 61.0%

  • Total voters
    100

Deleted member 96212

The Whites were plagued by poor leadership, infighting, and poor coordination - unless they become a fully fledged German puppet the Reds are still going to win.

Whether they'll be able to stay in power for more than a decade is up in the air though.
 
Well i voted for the reds simply because they have better odds on paper(organization,supply,leadership) but the butterfly effect should also be here and perhaps that alone helps the white win( for example all soviet senior leadership dies and germany+remaining entente decide to help the whites just out of fear of communism ideology and succesfuly unite all white factions after an anti-red summit?
 
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Lenin was a Germanophile and might secure German backing, especially if the Whites continue to be sympathetic to the Allies.

The Russian Civil War could end up becoming a proxy war between the Central Powers and Allies.

However, if the Germans had won WWI and are occupying large parts of Russia and supporting the Bolsheviks, they would win. A weaker USSR dependent on Germany, at least in the early years would exist.
 
The RSFSR is killed within a few months of the end of the conflict. As @David T has noted:


An old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***



"I disagree with you that Germany would not intervene [against the Bolsheviks
in the event of a French surrender]. Even *with* the
war still raging in the West, she came very close [to] intervening, and the
difference between Ludendorff (who wanted to liquidate the Bolsheviks
immediately) and the Foreign Office (which wanted to tolerate them
for now) concerned only the short run. Nobody in the German government
wanted the Bolsheviks to stay in power for long.

"Richard Pipes (in *The Russian Revolution*) suggested that June 28, 1918
was one of the most historic days of modern times. The Kaiser had before
him two memoranda, one with the Foreign Office viewpoint, the other with
the military's. The Kaiser had a tendency to agree with the first arguments
an adviser presented to him, if they seemed at all plausible--
and in this case he happened to read the Foreign Office memo first. He
ordered that the Germans were to undertake no military operations in
Russia, that the Soviet government be informed that it could safely
withdraw troops from Petrograd and deploy them against the Czechs, and
finally 'without foreclosing future opportunities' that support be
extended to the Soviet government as the only party that suppported the
Brest Treaty. The immediate effect was to allow Trotsky to transfer
Latvian regiments--which at this time were virtually the *only* pro-
Bolshevik units capable of combat--from the western border to the Ural-
Volga front to fight the Czechs. (That a small army of Czechs had been
able to overthrow Soviet power in vast areas of Siberia is itself
indicative of the Bolsheviks' extreme military weakness at this time.)
Only this saved the Bolshevik regime in the East from total collapse.

"Even with the war going on in the West, it would have taken the Germans
no effort to seize Petrograd and only a bit more to occupy Moscow, both
cities being virtually undefended. Then they could have set up a puppet
government like Skoropadski's in Ukraine.

"Ah, you say, but what about popular resistance to the occupiers? Well,
in August 1918 a Bolshevik-organized revolt against the Germans in
Ukraine was a complete failure. In Poltava province, where the Bolsheviks
had counted on scores of thousands of peasants to take up arms, only one
hundred obeyed their call; in most other regions, there was no response
at all.

"In short, overthrowing the Bolsheviks would have been quite easy for the
Germans--and remember that even the Kaiser in deciding to temporarily
support the Bolsheviks added the significant qualification 'without
foreclosing future opportunities.' Surely the surrender of France would
present such an opportunity."
 
The Whites were a loose group with rather vague goals beyond "stop the Reds" and will probably require a significant commitment/reorganization to come out on top. Some people are convinced that Germany would ensure the Whites win, but I have little reason to see why they would have a better shot than the British and French did OTL. With Germany trying to digest it's B-L gains coupled with a war weary population, you can make a case for them deciding to secure their new gains and leaving Russia to its fate (whatever that may be).

If you are writing a TL I feel you can plausibly make it swing one way or the other but the result (in a German victory scenario) is probably going to be a smaller USSR/Russian Republic equivalent no matter the winner.
 
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But that would not be the Germans making the Whites win, that would be the Germans installing their own man in Russia who might or might not be affiliated with the Whites.

I was responding to the overall thread title. As for their plans, I seem to recall the intention, or at least vague idea to, place a member of the former Aristocracy to power.
 
I was responding to the overall thread title. As for their plans, I seem to recall the intention, or at least vague idea to, place a member of the former Aristocracy to power.

That they could do, and without competition over time they can probably "win the peace" as well as win the war. The question is though; what would be the nature of the Russian State in terms of level of centeralized control in the short-medium term (the next few decades)? The civil structure of the old regeime has all but broken down, and Germany has much more lucerative and immediate opportunities for its resources closer to home. I imagine there's going to be a pretty strong dependence on local power brokers by the Imperial regeime in the provinces for quite some time; perhaps analogous to the Porfiriato in Mexico?
 
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