The New Year Peace

On January 1, 1918, the Bolshevik representative Trotsky after only nine days of negotiations, signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty with the Central Powers. In accordance to the treaty Soviet Russia would cede Poland (including Western Belarus and Ukraine) and Lithuania, essentially the territories already controlled by the Germans. Trotsky would have preferred his no war, no peace-formula, but it was recognized by the Bolshevik leadership that such a move might risk renewed German invasion and even greater loss of land. It was thus rejected.

Armisticebrestlitovsk.jpg


The front line marks roughly the areas ceded to the CPs in this TL, the coloured area those ceded at a later date OTL.

How does this affect the world? The Bolsheviks should be in a stronger position both land-wise, politically and militarily, since their defeat towards Germany has not been as disastrous leaving them more land, more troops and probable more popularity. Not to mention more bread.

At the other hand, it frees up the Germans. They will have more time to destroy the French, and need less troops to occupy the east.
 

Hnau

Banned
To get this peace (which was probably the absolute best terms the Russians could get at this point... but only if they agreed to pay massive reparations), a lot needs to be done. First of all, almost the entirety of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Communists under Bukharin were against any peace with annexations or indemnities. Leon Trotsky was also a firebrand for 'international revolution' and advocated leading the Germans as deep as he could into Russia in order to extend their forces and cause revolutionary sentiment in Germany.

Vladimir Lenin was definitely for an immediate peace, but at this point when it came down to a vote in the Congress of Soviets, forty-eight out of sixty-three people voted for his plan. Almost all leading Bolsheviks were dead set against a peace at this time, and so to procure such a peace... you'd need to kill all of them, get them out of the situation. You need to dig for some deep PODs, man.

One, that I think is the easiest, is to remove the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. It might not have taken too much for Vladimir Lenin to realize he was at odds with the LSR leadership, such as Maria Spiridinova, and keep them out of the coalition. The problem is, you'll need to go back to the October Revolution and work at the PODs: a fraction more resistance, and by some of the best violent radicals, well-skilled in terrorism and assassination. If Lenin makes it to January, I could very well see an immediate peace as you've said, especially with the LSR creating more resistance in the countryside. But... might the LSR give enough support to the Whites to allow them to win the war? Might their infamous assassin-terrorist-insurgents take out Lenin or other leading Bolsheviks?

As for the Germans... expect 20 more divisions during the Spring Offensive, and a month or so earlier. Three times as many storm-troopers, too. Probably not enough to tip the scale, but it'll draw the war out and create more casualties on both sides.
 
I don't know, they did accept much harsher conditions just a few months later. Perhaps if Lenin threatened to resign? Anyway:

Vladimir Lenin was definitely for an immediate peace, but at this point when it came down to a vote in the Congress of Soviets, forty-eight out of sixty-three people voted for his plan. Almost all leading Bolsheviks were dead set against a peace at this time, and so to procure such a peace... you'd need to kill all of them, get them out of the situation. You need to dig for some deep PODs, man.

Do you mean they voted against his plan? Any information on this?

But I don't think this would weaken the Bolsheviks position. After all, the LR did turn against them OTL, and had good reasons to do so. Losing the Congress of Poland plus a a little bit more isn't that bad. After all Poland isn't even a part of Russia.

An alternative would be to have the Germans (Hindenburg) be more reasonable, which I really don't think you need any fancy PoD for, since they should have realized they were running out of time, and demand just the Congress. Could that be possible?
 
Those terms weren't demanded by the Germans until after February 8. Before then they didn't demand Ukraine as they'd occupied no part of it. Same for the Baltic shore north of Riga.
 

Hnau

Banned
I don't know, they did accept much harsher conditions just a few months later. Perhaps if Lenin threatened to resign? Anyway:

Well, Lenin did threaten to resign eventually. "These terms must be signed. If you do not sign them, you are signing the death warrant for Soviet power within three weeks!" he said. That is what got them to do sign the Treaty when they did. They accepted those conditions only after it became apparent the Germans weren't going to be stopped in going after Leningrad and Moscow. At this point, though, the opposition to his arguments had weakened. Had he done it earlier... the other Communists might have just called his bluff and allowed him to leave for the countryside to campaign independently. (All of this from page 77 of A History of Twentieth Century Russia by Robert Service)

Peter said:
Do you mean they voted against his plan? Any information on this?

Yes. January 8th, Levin offered his 'Theses on a Separate and Annexationist Peace'. It was voted down with the numbers I mentioned earlier.

Peter said:
But I don't think this would weaken the Bolsheviks position. After all, the LR did turn against them OTL, and had good reasons to do so. Losing the Congress of Poland plus a a little bit more isn't that bad. After all Poland isn't even a part of Russia.

That's definitely more than the Congress of Poland that they are losing, even with Brest-Litovsk Lite. And you can only say that in retrospect. The idea that Russia would sign a separate peace with the Central Powers was intolerable to both the Bolsheviks and all other Russian parties. The Bolshevik Central Committee had to be scared into signing it. The Left Communists under Bukharin, along with the Left SRs, would leave the government as soon as any peace was signed at all. It was a tough situation. Without changing the composition of the government, you might get a peace a few days earlier with the same terms, but nothing else. You really need to change the composition of the government to create a new result.

An alternative would be to have the Germans (Hindenburg) be more reasonable, which I really don't think you need any fancy PoD for, since they should have realized they were running out of time, and demand just the Congress. Could that be possible?

More reasonable as in offer the Courland to the Russians? It's plausible that they might... but the Communists still aren't going to buy it. It isn't about what lands they are going to lose, its about the fact they are going to lose territory at all, and surrender to the Germans.

You seem to be slightly resistant to what I'm saying, and I understand that, as I'm throwing your POD into the garbage, really. But I'm just giving you my honest opinion after reading all the books I have on the early revolutionary period of Soviet history. I don't have an agenda here.

Now, if you want a February 10 peace with Courland, Lithuania and Poland and all the repartitions the Bolsheviks agreed to pay in OTL... you could write it off that Vladimir Lenin threatened to resign earlier, and that this threat pushed Trotsky into his camp, and created a few other butterflies that helped him out. It isn't very plausible, but its not entirely implausible either. This isn't how I would do things... I don't really like 'forcing' PODs like that, but its just barely acceptable.
 
Slightly resistant, yes. Obviously you are more knowledgeable in the period then I am, but I thought the Bolshevik slogan was essentially, peace, land and bread. It seems very optimistic to expect peace with no concessions.

Anyway, in the scenario I'm imagining, the Bolshies do accept a peace treaty ceeding essentially most of the land already under German control. This gives them enough breathing space to finish off the Volunteer army when they hade the chance in the summer of 1918, while the Czech legion is butterflied away since the Russians would have less reason to piss them off by submitting to German demands of their disarming, in turn butterflying away Allied intervention. The Russian Civil War becomes a much more peripheral matter with Caucasian and Central Asian nationalists fighting it out against local Red Guards and the Red Army. By the time German revolution breaks out the Bolsheviks are in much better shape and can quickly retake the lost lands, and establishing more direct connections with German radicals. What happens then I'm not quite sure.
 

Hnau

Banned
Ah, so you're trying to give the Soviets an opportunity to take advantage of the revolutionary wave, then? Baltics, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Germany and beyond? I've tried to pull that off for years. :) It's a way difficult project, man. I've come to the conclusion that the reason the Soviet Union didn't work was because the Russian Civil War lasted so long and was so horrible that it militarized politics, culture, economy, society, a mark that lasts to this day. The reason the RCW was that bad was because the Bolsheviks, really only held the allegiance of twenty to thirty percent of the population, and they wanted to take power completely. Any time a minority group like that tries to take control of the majority, especially a vast land empire like Russia, it's going to get bloody. The Bolsheviks, by advocating a one-party state from the get-go, doomed themselves to failure.

That's the natural logic of the situation in the Soviet Union. What you are trying to do is cheat that logic, which has happened with others things in history, but you're going to need to do a lot of it, if you want to create a more successful USSR. Lots of lucky breaks.

The Czechoslovak Legion butterfly you've suggested... it could happen, but not really because Leon Trotsky is not being pressured by the Germans, but because the Chelyabinsk Soviet, which was largely self-governing, did not order their disarmament after they arrested some of the soldiers for fighting with Austro-Hungarian POWs going to the front themselves. That's a major butterfly and a lucky break for the Bolsheviks. The Legions, you see, had a very tough time getting to Vladivostok, not just because of Trotsky, and so avoiding all those problems is possible, but not too probable.

The Allied governments, however, didn't just intervene to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion, not by a long shot. That was just a useful PR move. You're still going to have landings in Archangelsk and Murmansk, Siberia and so forth. And those Legions that are still waiting for a ride to Europe by August 1918 are going to be instead enlisted by Allied governments to help take the Far East. Maybe only a quarter of them left by that point, maybe less, but still substantial. The Legion wanted to do whatever the Allies told them.

So, you've given the Bolsheviks a little more breathing room, including Ukraine, that's a big deal. You can butterfly away the worst of the Czechoslovak Legions, that'll help. But you're still going to have every Allied government from the Japanese to the Greeks trying to take out the nascent Red forces. You're still going to have to worry about the Tambov Rebellion, Ukrainian seperatism, famine, and Polish expansionism. With more German forces during the Spring Offensive, you've bought yourself about a month, as it'll take longer to take down Germany... there's a lot of problems to face.

Overall, things will definitely be better for the Soviets and the Red Army... but it won't be as rosy as you describe. No fighting outside of the peripheries? Ah, if only it was that simple and the Bolsheviks could extend their influence that quickly :).

Peter said:
It seems very optimistic to expect peace with no concessions.

Yeah, they were very optimistic. The Bolshevik foreign policy was... incredibly idealistic. They believed they were breaking new ground, that this was a time of destiny when fantastic things would occur, because socialism had never been really tried before and it would result in all kinds of wonders. Very little understanding of realpolitik at this point.
 

Hnau

Banned
You know, I've been doing some more research for my own timeline, and I'd like to take back some of my assertions.

The Allied powers largely launched their intervention because it was feared that war materiel would fall into the hands of the Germans. That materiel was located in Murmansk and Archangelsk. So when in OTL the Germans assisted the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, it was feared that the Germans would launch an attack from Finland to capture these supplies. Also, there was a lot of materiel in the ports of the Black Sea.

Now, I don't know what happens to the Finns in your timeline, but if the Germans don't intervene in their civil war, then you probably won't get any major Allied intervention outside of Siberia.
 
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