What if the Bolsheviks proved unable to subdue the secessionist states during the Russian Civil War, and they all remained independent? (And if not all of them, how about just the Ukrainian People's Republic?)
Would Hitler try to get an independent Ukraine on his side? And what effect would that have on Barbarossa or the invasion of Poland (out of order, I know)?
Given that the POD is during the RCW, the likelihood of any of these events happening exactly as they did OTL (Barbarossa, Invasion of Poland, etc.) is very little. Also, without the Ukraine would Russia even be able to expand much westwards?
Would Hitler still have come to power?![]()
This is vanishingly unlikely. Any Russian government of the time worth its salt will reconquer Ukraine, and the limited popular appeal of Ukrainian nationalism in a new state would make it rather easy pickings for said state. Poland might also try to conquer Ukraine ITTL, too. Hmm....Polish-Soviet partition of Ukraine?
Would Hitler try to get an independent Ukraine on his side? And what effect would that have on Barbarossa or the invasion of Poland (out of order, I know)?
And if the Poles "accidentally" invade Slovakia and get them all worked up as well...
But the fact is, even IOTL the Bolsheviks came close to losing. ITTL they do defeat the White Russians, but suffer extremely heavy losses doing so. This gives Ukraine a respite, allowing it to fortify its border with Russia. The Russian advance is channelled through a couple of narrow gaps, allowing a somewhat smaller Ukrainian force to hold them back. The conflict bogs down in intense fighting, but this results only in a futile bloodbath, and Russia soon is forced to ask for peace to prevent the exhaustion of the adult male population in a futile war.
The best way to achieve Ukrainian independence would be to butterfly away the bolshevik offensive against Poland in June 1920, allownnig Petlura to get more time preparing and recruting his army, and establishing an actual ukrainian civilian administration on the lands between Poland and Dnepr. If, say, the whites last longer in Siberia, so that Tuchachevsky can't invade in 1920, then Petlura has over half a year to prepare to liberate the rest of Ukraine - get international recognition, foreign support, etc.
Uh, geography doesn't allow that, Ukraine is plains, plains, plains... No serious natural borders except for rivers there. Not to mention the Ukrainians hardly had an army. I came up with this scenario some time ago:
Well, that was because they needed support from the Ukrainians at the time. A independent Ukraine would always be a threat to Poland, due to Poland's annexation of Ukrainian speaking territories.Poland actually aimed at establishing allied/puppet Ukraine, not conquering it.