Soviet Alaska?

I am working on a map/TL and I cant decide what to do with Alaska. In the TL, Russia hangs on to alaska and doesn't have to sell it. The two options that I cant decide on are:

1. Russia keeps Alaska as a territory and it eventually becomes independent but still a close ally.

2. The russians use it as a penal colony ala australia and send Lenin and any communists to gulags in Alaska. After a prison break, Lenin overthrows the territorial government and we basically end up with a soviet union in alaska.

Is option 2 even plausibly possible? Or is russia more likely to try to incorperate it directly if oil is discovered soon enough?
 
. . . gulags in Alaska. After a prison break, Lenin overthrows the territorial government and we basically end up with a soviet union in alaska. . .
I think one reason the Bolsheviks were able to take over OTL was that the Czar didn’t give them much competition. He was both corrupt and incompetent, thoroughly unmodern, not much hope for the future.

I think Bolsheviks did need to use cells to work on getting military divisions to side with them when the time came. Now, nearby geography isn’t essential but it is an advantage.
 
2. The russians use it as a penal colony ala australia and send Lenin and any communists to gulags in Alaska. After a prison break, Lenin overthrows the territorial government and we basically end up with a soviet union in alaska.
Canada would come in and destroy them
 
I think the British or Americans take the territory. The only obstacle really being the size of the area in question.
 
Are there a lot of historical precedents for escaped political prisoners overthrowing the government of the jurisdiction housing their jail? Don't they usually try to get back to where the real action is, rather than just foment action in their immediate post-break surroundings?
 
I think one reason the Bolsheviks were able to take over OTL was that the Czar didn’t give them much competition. He was both corrupt and incompetent, thoroughly unmodern, not much hope for the future.

I think Bolsheviks did need to use cells to work on getting military divisions to side with them when the time came. Now, nearby geography isn’t essential but it is an advantage.

The Czar is essentially deposed and a prisoner of the Provisional Government in a palace in the middle of nowhere by the time the Bolsheviks were making much of a move. Not that Kerensky's government was much more effective, but you can't blame Nicky for that. Rather, blame Kerensky for releasing and arming the radical Leftist militias and calling them into Petrograd to protect him from a military coup.

Canada would come in and destroy them
I think the British or Americans take the territory. The only obstacle really being the size of the area in question.

This. Alaska is a poor place from which to build a self sufficient, populace state. How are the former prisoners going to eat, keep warm, build a a large organized military or government, ect?
 
ATL Circa 1917, Mother Russia is far too busy fighting Germany to worry about a few escaped political criminals.
Those escaped prisoners are too busy establishing fishing and forestry collectives. Russian dissidents - sanely - stay near the Pacific Coast and it’s mild climate.
The Royal Yukon Regiment adds 3 1/2 battalions and is soon backed by the newly-formed Royal Yukon Artillery Regiment. Canadian Rangers patrol the arctic coast and interior.
The Royal Canadian Air Force receives hundreds of WW1-surplus airplanes and is tasked with supporting increased RCMP, Forestry, Fish and Game, etc. patrols inland. Dozens of airstrips and seaplane ramps are built in Northern BC and the Yukon.

The Royal Canadian Navy receives another dozen WW1-surplus corvettes and schooners. Escquimalt Dockyards are modernized along with new shore facilities along the Pacific Coast.
The Canadian Coast Guard heavily patrol the coast.

By 1930, Canadian military patrolling is reduced because Alaskan communists are far too busy ekeing out a living to have any energy remaining for political agitation amongst Canadian loggers, fishers or miners. A few Soviet communists do organize unions in logging camps, but discretely limit their agitation to improving working conditions and improving medical care. RCAF planes evacuate many wounded loggers and fishers to big city hospitals. Those clumsy RCAF pilots frequently forget to check nationality of patients until after they deliver wounded to major surgical hospitals. Tsk! Tsk!
IOW Alaskan communists develop a mellow, cooperative form of communism and regularly trade with Canadian neighbours.
 
Top