The White Russians Win The Civil War, What Effect On WW2?

That's an interesting question. As much as I hate commmunism, I can't deny the anti-Semitism and rabid nationalism of the White Guards- cruel pogroms and campaigns of reunification to force newly-independent, non-Russian nations back into subjugation are a certainty, as the Whites opposed the ethnic nationalism of the non-Russians just as much as the Bolsheviks did. Hitler would find White Russia willing to join him in an invasion and partition of Poland, but I suppose a Russo-German conflict will happen eventually anyway, with some of its worst features from OTL drearily repeated in this, including the uprisings by downtrodden peoples, mistakenly believing their liberation was at hand, gruesome battles waged across empty steppes, with nearly as many perishing from starvation or hypothermia as falling to enemy bombs and bullets, deliberate and needless cruelty towards civilians and POWs, and forested territories becoming no man's land or held by criminal gangs, deserters, or guerrilla fighters opposed to both sides.
 
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Depends a lot on how they win. For example, do we see a central powers victory in which the Germans crush the Bolsheviks for them?
 

MSZ

Banned
That is a major change, one which might even butterfly away WW2 completly, or make it much more worse. Without a Red Russia, communism doesn't have its own bastion to prove how horrible it is in practise (apart from Civil War red terror) meaning opposition to it could be weaker than OTL, possibly enough for the Nazis never to come to power. Or communism would become a much stronger ideology worldwide, leading to WW2 started by a communist-overtaken Germany after the Great Depression.

A lot depends as well on who exactly wins the RCW and how. Russia could end up being a Fascist dictatorship looking for revenge after losing the Great War and seeking to regain its okrainas in partnership with a non-nazi revanchist Germany. Or it could end up a bankrupt, debt ridden state, looking sinister but being effectively toothless along with a democratic Weimar Republic. Could go many ways.
 
I've personally been thinking about the possibility that this leads the Muslims who had been willing to tolerate Red rule on account of it's revolutionary promise fighting against the Whites and establishing a Muslim Socialist Republic in Central Asia.
 
Russia will be crippled for decades. The death toll would probably be less than under the Soviets, 5-7 million maximum, but economically and socially Russia would be very backwards. Remember that the Soviets did a lot to improve women's rights, medical care, and education in Russia. The Whites were simply too disorganized and unstable to attempt those kinds of programs. The Whites will also constantly be under the threat of civil war and violence will be common, restricting Russia's economic growth.

Essentially less people die overall, but Russia will never become the superpower that it did IOTL.
 
How does White Russia pull off a victory, first and foremost? This is the military equivalent of asking a blind-deaf-mute to perform Swan Lake. Equally important, *which* White Russia? Are we talking just the warlords of OTL, who deliberately screwed the short-lived attempts to create White Civil and Military authorities, an actually workable General-SR coalition, or simply an SR that winds up actually able to tap into its potential and thus buggers the Reds and Whites both with impunity? Or do the Bolsheviks fuck it up big time at just the wrong time and thus propel Denikin to Moscow and thus it's less Whites win and Reds lose?
 
Good point. Besides being pretty incompetent militarily, despite having the benefit of professional leadership, the Whites did their best to prove to any doubters that much of what the Reds accused them of was true. They were too inflexible and reactionary, unable to see that the world had changed. Many of them really thought the restive peasants and workers and non-Russian nationalities could be forced back into the box without offering them any concessions. They never understood that the old empire was gone forever, and without the assistance provided by international expeditionary forces, they wouldn't have lasted even as long as they did. Still, I give props to the OP, for giving us something interesting to think about.
 
How does White Russia pull off a victory, first and foremost?

Could a possible POD be that the Whites prevent the assasination of the Romanovs? My knowledge of Russian history is a bit hazy, but I am given to understand that the Whites were in Yekaterinburg looking for the Imperial Family and were only a few blocks away from the Ipatiev House when they died.
 
Good point. Besides being pretty incompetent militarily, despite having the benefit of professional leadership, the Whites did their best to prove to any doubters that much of what the Reds accused them of was true. They were too inflexible and reactionary, unable to see that the world had changed. Many of them really thought the restive peasants and workers and non-Russian nationalities could be forced back into the box without offering them any concessions. They never understood that the old empire was gone forever, and without the assistance provided by international expeditionary forces, they wouldn't have lasted even as long as they did. Still, I give props to the OP, for giving us something interesting to think about.


I'd disagree with that. The Whites were plenty competent militarily. The problem is that they sabotaged any political appeal in that most political of all wars, a Civil War.

Could a possible POD be that the Whites prevent the assasination of the Romanovs? My knowledge of Russian history is a bit hazy, but I am given to understand that the Whites were in Yekaterinburg looking for the Imperial Family and were only a few blocks away from the Ipatiev House when they died.

No.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
CROSS-POST, HOOOOOOOOO! :D

Wolfpaw said:
In October of 1919, Denikin was launching his offensive on Moscow. While the Whites were not what one would necessarily call "unified," they were far from the splintered warlords they would become in 1920 and for the remainder of the war.

Wrangel had fairly solid control over the majority of White forces in Southern Russia/the Ukraine since his spat with Denikin hadn't yet flared up (it was by and large caused by the decisive failure of the Moscow campaign), and the same goes for Yudenich in the Baltics and Kolchak in Siberia. In fact, up until 1920, Kolchak was still officially regarded by Denikin, Wrangel, and Yudenich as the legitimate Commander-in-Chief of all White forces.


If Denikin is not betrayed by Makhno while he's en route to Moscow, or if he just decides not to send six regiments back to fight Makhno (which they never wound up doing, the anarchists basically having just pulled an ineffectual hit-and-run on Denikin's supply lines before the reinforcements could do anything about it), Denikin would most likely have defeated the Bolsheviks at the Battle of Oryol.


A White victory at Oryol means that the Bolsheviks are going to reconsider the forces they sent to beef-up Petrograd (which they had previously thought of abandoning and were only dissuaded by Trotsky ignoring their opinions and sending them anyways) and call them back to the capital. This means that Petrograd will fall to Yudenich and, even if the Red forces make it back in time, Moscow will probably fall to Denikin.


We should remember that in OTL, the Whites only really started to come undone after 1919 (corruption, drug abuse, arms-dealing, black marketeering, etc. were already endemic to the Whites, but not yet cripplingly so). The winter of 1919 is when Yudenich bowed out, basically leaving Whites in the Baltics and northwestern Russia without a leader. It's also the year that Denikin and Wrangel started fighting over what to do with their forces, a fight that would lead to Wrangel's resignation (and later brief re-installment) and Denikin and his cronies-cum-warlords grabbing land, wantonly looting, alienating Ukrainians with cultural chauvinism, and basically reversing all of the progress that the reform-minded Wrangel had initiated, thereby losing the support of most of the peasantry. And Kolchak? Well, he just got more and more autocratic when he realized he was the Whites' last chance at achieving anything.
So there we have it. A White victory complete with all of the delicious butterflies that come with them still having refused to recognize Finnish and Polish independence.
Wolfpaw said:
The Whites win in late-1919-early 1920, something that is very, very plausible. A junta is established between Denikin, Wrangel, Kolchak, and Yudenich. It is decided that Wrangel becomes head of government (probably alongside Milyukov and Pepelyayev) while Denikin and Yudenich are put in charge of the military. Kolchak becomes an élément grise in Russian politics, sort of like a Hindenburg-Ludendorff mix; a figure given deference who sort of stays behind the scenes but is the man to call when "decisive measures" must be taken to reestablish "order."

Meanwhile, the near-universally beloved Grand Duke Nikolai becomes Tsar, though this time he is a constitutional monarch with negligible power at best. This not only satisfies traditionalists and democrats, but also provides the nation with an untainted figurehead that pretty much everybody can rally around.

After an ill-fated Russian experiment with parliamentary democracy à la pre-fascist Italy, Kolchak (at the urging of Grand Duke Cyril who ascends the throne in 1929) finally steps in to reestablish "law and order" and becomes the de facto dictator of Russia. People who present a threat to his new order like Denikin and Kutepov and much of the Army high-command will probably be purged.

Kolchak probably dies some time in the '30s. During and after his reign, movements like Aleksandr Kazem-Bek's Mladorossi gains momentum with its unique and popular (and typically fascist) slogans promoting both industrialization/modernization and traditionalism. Mladorossi or something with a similar name but in the same mold becomes the major (and eventually only) political party in Russia.

The charismatic and handsome Kazem-Bek becomes dictator after Kolchak kicks the bucket. How long his rule lasts is debatable due to his being of Azeri stock, but the major point is that his general philosophy of a social monarchy ("Tsar and the Soviets!") becomes the norm. His most likely successor is Anastasy Vonsyatsky (who may not be bigoted enough), or maybe Konstantin Rodzayevsky.

Ethnicities that will most likely be targeted under the Whites (and I'm assuming we have pre-WWII Soviet borders here) are Jews (of course), Poles, Gypsies, Ukrainians (i.e. people who regard themselves as "Ukrainians" rather than "Little Russians"), Volga Germans, Crimean Karaites, possibly Chinese, perhaps Finns, and maybe Azeris depending on if and how far Kazem-Bek falls. Obviously homosexuals and non-Orthodox will be persecuted, the only exception being Muslims. Also expect a great deal of anti-Western sentiment.

Caucasians and Central Asian tribesmen like Kazakhs and Kalmyks and Buryats and Turkmen will in all likelihood not be targeted for two main reasons; the anti-Bolshevism that the majority of these groups displayed, and the distinct lack of general anti-Tsarist sentiment amongst them. In fact, the tribesmen will probably join the Cossacks in the pantheon of "martial races" (excellent theory, RGB). Again, the fate of Azeris largely depends on the success or failure of Kazem-Bek.

Interestingly, the concept of "sophisticated secret policemen vs. partisan street thugs" like we see exemplified in the rivalry between the SS and SA already existed in Imperial Russia. The "sophisticated" aspect—the Okhrana—will be reestablished, expanded, and revitalized under the leadership of people like Mikhail Diterikhs. The "street thug" element will lie in the resurrected Yellow Shirts under the command of somebody like Lev Okhotin or Gen. Vladimir Kozmin.

Another thing of note is the viability of Konstantin Rodzayevsky as the successor to basically any post. Head of the Okhrana, head of the Yellow Shirts, even Vozhd (or whatever the head honcho spot is called); Rodzayevsky could potentially succeed to any one (or perhaps even two) of these positions.

Basically, the regime we get is a cross between Iron Guard Romania and Francoist Spain alongside some major elements of clerical fascism.
 
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