Kaiserreich DBWI: Russian Nationalism without Savinkov

Would Russian Nationalism have been viewed positively without National Populism?


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As we all know, Boris Savinkov's legacy made a permanent black mark on Russian Nationalism once knowledge of the various death camps in Siberia have been discovered in the wake of the Russian National State's collapse in 1985. However what would have happened if Kornilov didn't appoint him prime minister but went with Denikin instead? Or what if the moderate general Wrangel seized control after Kerensky's assassination instead of Kornliov? Or hell, as ASB as it sounds, even Kolchak returning to Russia. Could the various genocides that happened OTL or some massive destructive Russification program be averted under moderate leadership? If so, how would Russian nationalism be viewed today, and would Russia have collapsed in 1985 had more moderate leadership taken control?

I personally think Wrangel would have been the best bet for Russia to not be wrecked with "eternal shame". He was the most liberal out of the White Russians and the most conciliatory torwards minorities, and he would not have the desire to expand into the Middle East.

OOC: This is set in Kaiserreich, for those that played the latest version they basically replaced Wrangel with a even bigger Hitler analogy. Also geopolitical situation is that the world is in a three way liberalism vs syndicalism vs national populism Cold War until 1985
 
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If they'd had someone with sense, they probably wouldn't have tried to bluster on with Germany and Ukraine, the Germans were having none of it. In fact, there was a little known plot of some Russian Army officers to overthrow him if he actually went to war with Germany. Of course, as we know he backed down when he realized the threat that the Reds posed, of course we got the Third Russian Civil War out of those fears, so they weren't really unfounded.
 
I wonder how a leadership willing to go to war with Mitteleuropa would have affected the Second Weltkrieg. On the one hand, a two front war would lead to an earlier victory for the Syndintern in Europe, and we wouldn't be nearly as exhausted. At the same time though, Russia would likely control a vast chunk of Eastern Europe, and the various reactionaries would likely see them as the lesser evil and would be willing to side with them against us. OTL we were too exhausted to push on into Russia, having painstakingly fought our way across most of Europe, and the leadership, perhaps a little too optimistic after seemingly pulling off the impossible, assumed that Russia would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions within a few years. We all know how that went.
 
I wonder how a leadership willing to go to war with Mitteleuropa would have affected the Second Weltkrieg. On the one hand, a two front war would lead to an earlier victory for the Syndintern in Europe, and we wouldn't be nearly as exhausted. At the same time though, Russia would likely control a vast chunk of Eastern Europe, and the various reactionaries would likely see them as the lesser evil and would be willing to side with them against us. OTL we were too exhausted to push on into Russia, having painstakingly fought our way across most of Europe, and the leadership, perhaps a little too optimistic after seemingly pulling off the impossible, assumed that Russia would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions within a few years. We all know how that went.

And they all got pushed back to the Baltics leading to a peace treaty that saw Russia take control of the Ukraine and White Ruthenia and the Baltics being made into a neutral buffer zone. The Entente used that distraction to knock out the Union of Britain and proclaim the Edwardian restoration....

I wonder why the Internationale didn't try to rally the minorities in the region against the Russians, considering what horrors the Russians had in store for them. I guess they themselves were seen as untrustworthy or reactionary elements for accepting the rule of Germans and in the Ukraine actually participating in the coup that overthrew Khrushchev...
 
I wonder why the Internationale didn't try to rally the minorities in the region against the Russians, considering what horrors the Russians had in store for them. I guess they themselves were seen as untrustworthy or reactionary elements for accepting the rule of Germans and in the Ukraine actually participating in the coup that overthrew Khrushchev...

Well they initially did, but when Britain fell the priority became liberating Britain and they didn't want Russia rejoining the Entente and starting a two front war. So we ended up signing a shameful non-aggression treaty with them and wound down support for our comrades in the East, which basically gave Russia free reign to pacify its new conquests and focus on expanding into Finland and Asia. In hindsight it would have been better if we had left Britain to the tender mercies of the Royalists and tried to take the White Bear down when we had the chance, and I say that as a good Southern Republican.
 
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