Ramifications of no WWI

Thanks
We are not discussing whether the Russian state had more vitality than the Austrian one or not, we are discussing whether the territories of the Russian empire was more "manageable". And as you pointed out, geography favoured the Russian empire.

Geography favored the Bolsheviks in the war, but the broad expanse of territory, and diversity of peoples, allegiances, and levels of development weighted against the Empire. Om the basis of infrastructure alone, Austria-Hungary was the most manageable of the three empires that collapsed as a result of the war.
 

Typo

Banned
One needs to be careful about Russian growth. AH had more real growth than Russia even prewar, but that was in the economy as a whole. Russian growth was focused on military related industries: metallurgy, infrastructure, ship building, weapons/equipment manufacturing, etc. Much if not most was funded by the French or foreign companies that operated subsidiaries in Russia. Much like China today Russia had little in the way of original R&D going on and had to import experts and modern machines to build anything modern. Even during the war the Russian industry was only able to expand as it did thanks to imports and the organization of industry by British and French experts brought in to correct the massive inefficiencies and waste going on. Pre-war the Germans were the largest group of foreign experts/foreign companies operating in Russia. It remains to be seen how Russia would have been able to operate in the world economy without the massive influx of foreign loans/experts that occurred during the war. If anything, as I've stated in other threads, Russia would be like Nationalist China-lots of uneducated peasants; a growing, beaten down, poorly paid industrial worker class; and the rich oligarchs that are intensely corrupt and have an incestious relationship with merchants/business.
Fair enough, but I'm not too sure why the import of foreign expertise is a point against Russia considering that there were massive foreign investments -before- the war. And of course during the war Russia was cut off from the world market to a large extent, so I'm not sure if the comparison would be valid.

Your point about class conflict in Russia...truth be told without the peasant part could be applied to any country. Yes peasantry is suffering horribly, but this is something that political reform such as getting the SR in power could help fix, the peasant class is not necessarily fatal the Russian state, hell they weren't really ended up being the fatal one OTL.
AH is going to change in 1917 with the death of Franz Josef and the rise of Franz Ferdinand, as well as the issue of the Ausgleich renewal. Basically FF intended to break the Hungarians through implementing universal suffrage after taking Budapest in a quick coup after dismissing Tisza. Massive changes thereafter will see large changes for the better in AH, but long term there will be major issues in the Austrian half of the empire, as the people there will demand universal suffrage as well, with proportional representation of ethnicities and economic classes. Still they will continue to industrialize and probably would do so even quicker without the Hungarian nobility opposing any change in the feudal empire they had built up in their half of the empire. AH will probably be able to push off real reform to the Dual Monarchy because of economic growth. It'd also be interesting to see what happens when the Hungarians aren't able to maintain a protectionist policy for their grains; I suspect that many peasants in Hungary will end up with their own plots, which will be more productive than the large estates amassed by the very few powerful families like the Esterhazys. We might even see a native middle class emerge in Hungary as a result (OTL the middle class was only 25% Hungarian; it was mostly Jews, Germans, and Czechs-those groups educated enough to participate in early industrialization/trade in Hungary).
I can't comment that much on AH, simply because my knowledge is limited.
Germany has already sort of peaked, but has some growth potential left in the colonies. Cotton production and rubber were just starting to come online in East Africa, so there was potential to turn those profitable. The big change is going to come with the introduction of universal suffrage and governmental reform that would see the Junkers' influence destroyed and the ending of agricultural tariffs. Much of the reason for Germany being locked out of international markets for their industrial goods was due to the policy of protective agri-tariffs to maintain Junkers' latifundas in East Prussia. Without that agriculture shifts to more productive means and makes Germany more self sufficient in agricultural goods as a byproduct of trying to stay competitive in international trade.
I'm extremely skeptical about how colonial enterprises are suppose to become and stay profitable by this point, especially in Africa.
 

Typo

Banned
Thanks


Geography favored the Bolsheviks in the war, but the broad expanse of territory, and diversity of peoples, allegiances, and levels of development weighted against the Empire. Om the basis of infrastructure alone, Austria-Hungary was the most manageable of the three empires that collapsed as a result of the war.
You can say the exact same thing about A/H or the Ottomans, and remember, again, Russia was hardly torn apart from the fringes by the different nations within the empire.
 
You can say the exact same thing about A/H or the Ottomans, and remember, again, Russia was hardly torn apart from the fringes by the different nations within the empire.

Except that you can't, and I'm sure things would have been different if there were the external pressures on the crumbling Russian Empire that there were both on the Ottomans and the Austrians.
 

Typo

Banned
Except that you can't, and I'm sure things would have been different if there were the external pressures on the crumbling Russian Empire that there were both on the Ottomans and the Austrians.
Losing WWI, B/L and allied interventions don't count?
 
Losing WWI, B/L and allied interventions don't count?

Nope. Those "interventions" were symbolic at best, and were dwarfed by Entente efforts in Central Europe and Western Asia. Furthermore, Prest Litovssk really only dealt with a small corner of the Empire. Consider also that many who fought on the side of the Bolsheviks directly or indirectly were not exhausted by years of frontline duty in what had been seemingly endless war, as opposed to White Forces who had been in it since 1914.
 

Typo

Banned
Nope. Those "interventions" were symbolic at best, and were dwarfed by Entente efforts in Central Europe and Western Asia. Furthermore, Prest Litovssk really only dealt with a small corner of the Empire. Consider also that many who fought on the side of the Bolsheviks directly or indirectly were not exhausted by years of frontline duty in what had been seemingly endless war, as opposed to White Forces who had been in it since 1914.
What the hell are you talking about, B/L removed 1/3 of its population, its economic breadbasket, and most of its coal and iron mines just to name a few. Yes, it looks like "a small corner of the Empire" if you look at Russia and Siberia, but those lands were far far more valuable than the Siberian wastes. And I'm not so sure why you think that those interventions are "symbolic" compare to the ones in Central Europe and the Middle-East, nor do I understand why you believe post-war interventions were decisive in preventing the Austrian and Ottoman Empires from reassembling.
 
What the hell are you talking about, B/L removed 1/3 of its population, its economic breadbasket, and most of its coal and iron mines just to name a few. Yes, it looks like "a small corner of the Empire" if you look at Russia and Siberia, but those lands were far far more valuable than the Siberian wastes. And I'm not so sure why you think that those interventions are "symbolic" compare to the ones in Central Europe and the Middle-East, nor do I understand why you believe post-war interventions were decisive in preventing the Austrian and Ottoman Empires from reassembling.

Well, for one thing, the "Siberian wastes" are sparsely populated and sparsely developed, making them potentially rathr likely to stay Russian. I will not dispute that the Brest Litovsk losses were significant in terms of people and materiel, but even then, if you are to be believed, there was still industry and infrastructure elsewhere in the Empire conducive to its cohesion and survivability, You cannot have this both ways.

Due to the vast expanse of the country and actual level of commitment to the war (minimal, really) it is clear why I say those interventions were symbolic. I forgot that there weren't Entente forces attacking Turkey from all sides long after the vast majority of its territory and much of its industrial and commercial assets were seized. If the French, Italians, and British had put the effort into defeating the Bolsheviks in Russia that they did to prop up contrived states in the middle of Europe and abortive spheres of influence in Anatolia, there may well have never been a Communist Russia.
 

BooNZ

Banned
I want the specific citation not a vague claim from memory.

I would like to make a vague claim from memory that the A-H growth rate (in %age and absolute terms) was greater than Imperial Russia prior to WW1. In any case, I understand the sustained growth rates of those empires was comparable at around 2% - not exactly 'middle kingdom' material.

Despite the ethnic tensions, the A-H Empire actually worked from an economic perspective due to natural synergies of its composite parts. Those composite parts fared significantly worse after A-H was dismantled after WW1 (supply chains, national borders etc)

Another consideration in determining the longevity of empires is the literacy rate - the literacy rate in Imperial Russia had been raised from 20% in 1896 to 40% in 1914. Prima facie this may appear a good thing, but higher literacy rates drive greater expectations for change (planned or otherwise). In 1914 A-H was attempting to navigate those expectations, while Russia was yet to prepare for the journey...
 
I'd also say scientific achievements would be comparable to OTL's, but oriented differently :

The war not does wipe out a full generation of engineers, who can live to build and invent many new things in their country

No war probably means less emphasis on chemical industry and pharmaceuticals. Nations don't have to worry about mass-treating millions of wounded citizens, and mass-killing millions of enemies.

Politically, I think nations would be less stable : the need for the civilian governments to better control their army and general headquarters won't arise as dramatically as it did in the Great War.

This might lead to future conflicts in the 1930s-1950s that would look incredibly futile to us. (like that incident in Siam where a French cruiser didn't raise its gun to peacefully salute a British cruiser in the early 1900s, which led some of the jingo partisans in Britain to demand war on France).
 
With no WWI, I would think that the 1918 Flu Pandemic is somewhat curtailed. My understanding has always been that one of the main reasons that the pandemic spread as miuch as it did, was all the troops leaving the European battlefields at the end of the war took the flu home with them.

So with a smaller spread of the flu in '18:

- a bunch of folks who died in OTL don't.
- any potential advances in immunization and epidemiology don't happen.
- probably some other stuff that doesn't come to mind right now.

I had just posted something like that before you, with no WW1 the flu is not only curtailed a little bit. Because the typical conditions in the trenches most likely shaped the way the flu behaved, so with no ww1 you just might end up with yet another more or less standard/slightly intense flu. The flu pandemic attacked especially the young so the survivors mostly have most of their lives still ahead of them. 50-100 Million people surviving is a massive butterfly.

don't think it will influence the development of immunization & epidemiology much though because it was already well underway. With some luck one of the survivors discovers new medical things early.
 
American politics would probably have developed a lot differently. The Great War broke the Socialist Party of America in a combination of state directed terror and their own strenuous opposition to the war, and avoiding that means that the Socialists are probably going to become much more influential on the federal level in the 20th Century.

Woodrow Wilson most likely will not win a second term as President. With many on the left giving their vote instead to whomever the Socialist Party nominates, and Wilson without a war to use to his electoral advantage, the ensuing vote split probably gives Charles Evans Hughes the Presidency come 1917. Assuming OTL's 1912 Socialist showing doubles to say, 12% in the 1916 Presidential Election, we also probably get a fair number of Socialists elected to the House of Representatives.

President Hughes probably has to deal with calls for social reform from a tripartisan progressive alliance in the House, and will most likely yield to a lot of these demands. The 1918 midterm elections yield another strong showing for the Socialist Party, which has gobbled up Northern Democratic seats and is beginning to break down the urban party machines. No Russian Revolution (perhaps thanks to the Czar modernizing Russia more quickly and avoiding reaction) means that the Socialists don't face the devastating right-left split they faced IOTL as well, so a synthesis of revolutionary and reformist ideas probably emerges as a result, with reformism eventually winning the day.

The 1920 Presidential Election between Hughes (R), Cox (D), and Debs (S) yields another doubling of the Socialist vote, to 24% of the popular vote and the capture of a few electoral votes for the first time. The Democrats in the North are in serious, perhaps irreversible, decline by this point, and President Hughes is again saddled with a reformist Congress.

A world-wide recession in 1921-1922 gives the Socialist Party more members in the House than the Democrats for the first time, though they are still outnumbered by the Republican Party. In the 1924 Presidential Election, a tripartisan alliance of progressives, lead by Robert M. La Follette, work out an electoral alliance to contest the Presidential election that year. La Follette (and his running mate, Burton K. Wheeler) will run on a 'progressive' ticket supported by and endorsed by the Socialist Party, in hopes of finally breaking through and getting into the White House. Facing down Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge and Democratic nominee John W. Davis, the Progressive/Socialist ticket manages to throw the election to the House of Representatives for the first time in a century, where an alliance of progressives from all three parties makes La Follette President.

La Follette's Presidency is short-lived (he will die in the summer of 1925), but he is able to enact a flurry of reforms, mostly equivalent to OTL's New Deal social legislation. Child labor is finally banned outright, a system of Social Security is established, minimum wage laws are put on the books, and a few progressives are put on the Supreme Court. La Follette's death puts Burton K. Wheeler in the White House, a man who is every bit as progressive as the man before him, but not so skilled at working with Congress. The 1926 midterm elections reduce the number of progressive non-Socialists significantly, and by the 1928 Presidential Election, the Republicans have mostly exiled remaining Republican progressives while Democrats have become a full-throated Southern party. Wheeler, without the same political prowess as his predecessor, is unable to win renomination from the Socialist Party, which nominates Norman Thomas instead. Thomas goes down in defeat to Calvin Coolidge, and the Democratic nominee, Al Smith, comes in a distant third.

President Coolidge deals with a minor recession in 1929-1930 that gives the Socialists control of the House, though they lose it once again when Coolidge is re-elected in 1932, defeating the Socialist and Democratic candidates by a good margin. Coolidge dies however in 1933, leaving the White House to Vice President Frank Lowden. Lowden promotes deficit reduction and fiscal conservatism, but is otherwise a rather boring President with not much going on in terms of real legislation. Lowden loses the House to the Socialists in 1934, and in 1936, the Republicans fail to renominate him, instead choosing Kansas Governor Alf Landon. The Democrats nominate popular former New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, and the Socialists nominate Norman Thomas, who campaigns on making America 'a shining city on a hill for the working class'. Thomas is swept into office with the first majority for a Socialist candidate, and further, the Socialists take control of the House and the Senate for the first time in their respective history...
 
I think we really need to look at the big picture of no WW1 and as a probable continuation of that; no WW2, no Russian Socialists, German National Socialists in power and a milder Spanish Flue.

And that is people, or the absent of deaths. The population of Europe will be much higher, and it will be so earlier. This will have fare reaching effects.
This could actually lead to more strife and chaos in Europe unless something is done. At he same time we also see the birth of the "back-to-nature" movement (this happened pr ww1 as an reaction to urbanisation and industrialise).

Immigration to the US is being curtailed, so what happens to the people?
 
Get sent to the colonies in Africa, Asia, Oceania?

And what would be the impact of much larger European populations of those places be? How many more immigrants could the "white" dominions take, or be willing to take? What happens to Africa if more colonies become settler colonies?

The economic impact of a Europe that does not need to speed as much on war is also big. I do not think that the rise of America would be as fast or strong sans war. The effect of no laps into protectionism that follow-on the depression are also interesting. And then we have the cultural trends that were destroyed or weakened as a result of the War(s).
 
Get sent to the colonies in Africa, Asia, Oceania?

Seems like the most likely place for them to wind up; OTL the French and Italians were hoping to send enough colonists to turn Algeria and Libya majority-European, and the British have a long history of filling up their colonies with immigrants. Having a decent number of entrenched Europeans in most colonies could make decolonization really complicated when/if it happens; odds are you wind up with a lot more Rhodesia/Zimbabwe-esque situations.
 

Deleted member 1487

Fair enough, but I'm not too sure why the import of foreign expertise is a point against Russia considering that there were massive foreign investments -before- the war. And of course during the war Russia was cut off from the world market to a large extent, so I'm not sure if the comparison would be valid.
Because Russia could not innovate. It couldn't produce its own wealth outside of supplying labor for foreign corporations and had to buy anything requiring high technology outside the nation. That meant that that money left the economy of Russia instead of building it up. The Russian economy profited dramatically from the war because it built up the nation's manufacturing base with high tech equipment that could later be turned to producing goods for internal consumption, which would create jobs and enhance the internal economy, rather than buy those goods abroad and weaken the economy by having that capital leave the internal economy. Had Russia 'won' the war by sticking it out to the bitter end and avoided the civil war, it would have had a much enhanced economy despite the destruction, much like Holland after its war for independence from Spain. Instead the Bolsheviks managed to benefit from having all this modern industry that the Czarist regime never before had access to.

As to the 'massive amounts of foreign investments prewar' that was nearly exclusively the French loans to build up their rail roads/army. If you look at sector growth where these loans were targeted it fell primarily on infrastructure, military industries, and related industries like metallurgy. It did not extend to consumer goods except indirectly, but there were few internal markets to REALLY profit from, so it didn't matter. Yes there was some exporting going on, but it was weak compared to the rest of Europe AH included. With such a massive portion of the nation's population in the lowest economic class and something like a 45% literacy rate, there was just not the internal markets to really spur a consumer economy. The Czarists regime had no interest in spending the nation's wealth on educating the population or building up internal markets outside of defense. It would have meant a population that would eventually challenge the corrupt/autocratic government, so the Czar and his cronies so no percentage in building up the internal economy

Your point about class conflict in Russia...truth be told without the peasant part could be applied to any country. Yes peasantry is suffering horribly, but this is something that political reform such as getting the SR in power could help fix, the peasant class is not necessarily fatal the Russian state, hell they weren't really ended up being the fatal one OTL.
Except that the peasant class was far larger in Russia than anywhere else, and the peasants were far less educated. No money was spent to produce R&D 'in house', as foreign experts were recruited abroad. The fatal flaw in the Russian system was that the people were largely unable to compete in the world economy, either as labor in factories or as inventors of technology. Instead most were utilized in subsistence farming that added nothing to the overall economy...other than to produce tough soldiers that didn't complain because army food was better than at home.

.I'm extremely skeptical about how colonial enterprises are suppose to become and stay profitable by this point, especially in Africa.
By producing natural resources that were unavailable in the mother country. The problem is that security and development was paid for by the government in that country, but private enterprise reaped the rewards. That is why everyone states the colonies were unprofitable, because the governments in the colonial country spent far more on infrastructure than they collected in taxes from the goods produced/sold, but the mother country profited from the cheaper resources produced 'in house' rather than buying resources produced in foreign colonies/nations.
 
Seems like the most likely place for them to wind up; OTL the French and Italians were hoping to send enough colonists to turn Algeria and Libya majority-European, and the British have a long history of filling up their colonies with immigrants. Having a decent number of entrenched Europeans in most colonies could make decolonization really complicated when/if it happens; odds are you wind up with a lot more Rhodesia/Zimbabwe-esque situations.

You won't end up with too many of them in Africa, since the places where it was possible for white settlers to live, and to farm in their own way, without either or both dying were limited.

IIRC the Germans could have made a go of it in Namibia, climate-wise, but need to attract way more emigration

The British tried to do this in Kenya but it was a problematic process, bedevilled with white-v-native issues. More whites push the issue to the point of probable civil conflict, requiring the raising of settler armies to enforce their control. Uganda was not suitable for white settlement - I remember reading Churchill visiting there after his contentious visit to Kenya and he was happy to get away from the problems

India, Malaya, these could have seen more settlement but its quite late now

The most likely is that extra emigration occurs to the dominions and to the S American countries

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Seems like the most likely place for them to wind up; OTL the French and Italians were hoping to send enough colonists to turn Algeria and Libya majority-European, and the British have a long history of filling up their colonies with immigrants. Having a decent number of entrenched Europeans in most colonies could make decolonization really complicated when/if it happens; odds are you wind up with a lot more Rhodesia/Zimbabwe-esque situations.

True. You might have most of the Algerian coast ending up having a European majority by the time that movements for independence and decolonization in Africa do occur. To my knowledge, the French had little chance of attaining control of Algeria with the numbers they had. The colonists were only around 10-15 percent of the population and most of the population was concentrated in Oran which could had been made into a French coastal enclave, much like how Spain was with those cities currently claimed by Morocco (I forget their names). As for Italy, it'll be easier to gain a European majority in the coasts of Tripoli and Cyrenaica (those two areas weren't united into Libya until the 1930s I think). The Fezzan, the interior area in Libya, will probably retain a native majority though they'll be dependent on whoever holds sway in the coast.


 
You won't end up with too many of them in Africa, since the places where it was possible for white settlers to live, and to farm in their own way, without either or both dying were limited.

IIRC the Germans could have made a go of it in Namibia, climate-wise, but need to attract way more emigration

The British tried to do this in Kenya but it was a problematic process, bedevilled with white-v-native issues. More whites push the issue to the point of probable civil conflict, requiring the raising of settler armies to enforce their control.

India, Malaya, these could have seen more settlement but its quite late now

The most likely is that extra emigration occurs to the dominions and to the S American countries

Best Regards
Grey Wolf


Off-course if we don't have any of the world wars, or the losses of human life that was interconnected too these events, larger emigration to Africa might become more plausible. If we for the sake of argument double the white settlers in Africa in the 1950`s vs otl...

I don`t think we need massive amounts of settlers to have a big impact, just look at what the relative few ones did in otl. At the same time the liberation movement would lack the sovjet backing of otl, and the west will not have the neo-humanism that came from the wars.
And the issue of how voters would look at it. More people might know settlers or have relatives who are settlers. Mix this whit a more 1900 th century attitude towards colonialism and potential overpopulation back home, and stronger back to nature type movements.

The story of a Biodynamic cooperative settler farm in the highlands of east Africa in the 1930`s would be interesting.
 
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