PC:Nicholas II industrializes Russia like Stalin

[brooklyn99]

As others have pointed out. Crash industrialization as Stalin had enacted is a recipe for critical instability. So one thing beforehand, Nicholas would need to ramp up Tsarist authoritarianism to similair levels as the Soviet Union. OTL Okrahana and Katorga camps, as instruments of oppression, were almost nothing compared to the Cheka/NKVD or the Gulag in terms of it's victims and reach.

 

[Avalon]

This is another one of those Nicholas changes that require him to effectively be a different person. Nicky was an autocrat sure but was nothing in that regards compared to his father or to Stalin. To do this Nicky would have to exceed them both as he'd lack a revolution clearing way for him before hand like Stalin did.

 

[jackanderson]

OTL Okrahana and Katorga camps, as instruments of oppression, were almost nothing compared to the Cheka/NKVD or the Gulag in terms of it's victims and reach.

But Okrahana and Katorga can be expanded after all Cheka/NKVD or the Gulag didn't come out thin air
They were created rather quickly during the revolution

 

[marathag]

Which is why this could work, but not in 9 years.

It would have softened the blow of conscription on the Farms, fewer animals(and men) still could have kept up crop yields close to prewar levels, and far above OTL.
That takes some of the hunger out of the picture mid war. As in 1916, output had dropped 22% and 39% in 1918. That output is masked, while Peasant Farm output didn't drop much, the larger Estates whom mostly used hired hands each season, was responsible for most of the drop. What made that so devastating, is that the Peasants were growing for personal use, with little surplus to sell to Cities, the Private Farms sold mostly to Cities and to the Army

 

[Kalvan]

Not possible unless the Japanese Pearl Harbor Vladivostok.

Even the old nobility would side with the Social Democrats in that sort of scenario.

 

[jackanderson]

Even the old nobility would side with the Social Democrats in that sort of scenario.

But Their leaders can be assassinated by secret police

 

[brooklyn99]

But Okrahana and Katorga can be expanded after all Cheka/NKVD or the Gulag didn't come out thin air
They were created rather quickly during the revolution

That's the point. The Bolsheviks took these frameworks and made them much more monstrous than they had ever been during the Tsardom. Here, Nicholas would need to go that way himself.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Everyone is telling you no, it's not plausible with a 1905 POD, but you are unhappy with that answer, so here, whatever:

Yes! Tsar Nicholas can definitely grow a Stalin mustache and pull 200,000 Cheka-equivalent Okhrana officers out of thin air and force everyone to implement a Great Leap Forward by 1915, because magic. Anyone who dares oppose him will be executed; fear will make the local councils fall in line. Everyone will be fed amphetamines and work 22-hour days until Russian agriculture is fully mechanized, the Russian military is the envy of the world, and the manned Russian space program is on track for a 1929 Moon landing.

>;k

 

[Blyatnik]

If you want to do a TL based around Nicholas industrializing earlier and more, you can, but 1905 is too late.

I think the POD would have to be Nicholas II coming into power in 1894 with a heavy focus on modernization of Russia. And he would be preparing for it too, before he unexpectedly gets crowned, and continues on after.

 

[prani]

Everyone will be fed amphetamines and work 22-hour days

Omg! Dam you my stomach is hurting from laughing too much; just imagining Lenin and other Bolsheviks (although some were exiled) being high on it. Hey on the bright side we might just have events in revolution play out in the manner shown by oversimplified.

 

[Catsmate]

Sure, but that doesn't guarantee it becomes any more capable.

Ok, where does the industry for this railroad come from? Where are the tools to build the tools? How do you prevent that railroad from being paralyzed when the war kicks off and even the most optimistic mobilization tables lead to backups and issues with the rail-lines? If you are just buying your railway infrastructure from the French, you'll burn through all the cheap credit that France could offer before you even have a single meaningful factory up, and France will not have infinite patience, not without extensive concessions which will serve to piss of the nationalists within Russia.

Which comes first? Agriculture or the Railroad? How do you reform the land issues without either the peasantry or the nobility rising up against Nicholas?

And that ^, very much that.

Again, you can't pull this off in the 9 years before WW1 kicks off.

Plus there was, historically, vast industrial unrest in the run-up to the Great War. In this scenario, assuming it can be funded, it would be much, much, worse.

 

[Catsmate]

Sure, but that doesn't guarantee it becomes any more capable.

Ok, where does the industry for this railroad come from? Where are the tools to build the tools? How do you prevent that railroad from being paralyzed when the war kicks off and even the most optimistic mobilization tables lead to backups and issues with the rail-lines? If you are just buying your railway infrastructure from the French, you'll burn through all the cheap credit that France could offer before you even have a single meaningful factory up, and France will not have infinite patience, not without extensive concessions which will serve to piss of the nationalists within Russia.

Which comes first? Agriculture or the Railroad? How do you reform the land issues without either the peasantry or the nobility rising up against Nicholas?

And that ^, very much that.

Again, you can't pull this off in the 9 years before WW1 kicks off.

Plus there was, historically, vast industrial unrest in the run-up to the Great War. In this scenario, assuming it can be funded, it would be much, much, worse.

Why not have Nicholas impose a land value tax?

The landowners have him killed or deposed.