Uber-Russia, sans Ukraine?

im reworking my ATL and the map that goes with it. at the moment, ive gotten to russia, which ive already decided has the following divergences from OTL:

  1. no WW1 means that discontent over Nick II's marriage to Alix of Hesse due to war with Germany is nonexistent
  2. Alex III doesn't die when he does IOTL, so Nick has a bit more time to prepare before becoming tsar
  3. more obvious transitions towards democracy and constitutionalism mean less discontent among the commoners
  4. as a result of the above, the Bolsheviks don't have as much support and there are more soldiers in Petrograd to fight them off, so the Romanovs survive; the Soviet Union never comes to be
  5. the transition to constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy is made as a result of the Great Depression
with these in mind (i may have forgotten one or two things, so please point out inconsistencies and i may remember), what do you all think are the possibilities that Ukraine, at least, proposes and possibly attains independence from the Russian Federation around the same time that it did from the Soviet Union IOTL?
 
Well-on none, for several reasons:

1) Before WW1, even most declared Ukrainian nationalists (an overwhelmingly lower-middle-class group of persons) did not talk about independence from Russia but about a republican federation of some sort (and some, like Hrushevsky, cautiously welcomed the USSR after the collapse of the Ukrainian Republic, which, by the way, did not secede from Russia formally until after Red October, same as the Don). Without WW1, and the resulting disillusionment with the regime and lengthy stays in Galician PoW camps, Ukrainian nationalism is going to remain concerned with language, culture, and autonomy.

2) The vigorous Ukrainianisation campaign in the 1920s would never be undertaken by a surviving tsarist regime. No demands for Ukrainian in government, no official cultivation of Ukrainian historiography, nothing. Ukrainian language and culture would be taken as seriously by the tsars as Catalan culture by Franco. :(

3) So by the time democracy and possible (what did democratic Britain and France ever do for their minority languages until very recently?) autonomy for Ukraine and recognition for Ukrainian culture come along, Russian is the language of the cities, the professions, most commerce...

You might well get Ukrainian nationalism talking about independence - you get Scottish and Catalan nationalism, after all - but then, Scotland and Catalonia have economic incentives to be talking about independence, which might well not be the case with Ukraine depending on how things have developed. To be crude, Scotland has all the oil, whereas Ukraine notably doesn't have any.

(Geddit? Crude?)


Now, a bit of constructive criticism about the scenario more generally: you seem to be ignoring the butterfly effect. If there is no WW1, the Bolsheviks in 1917 are a small underground organisation and haven't infiltrated the army, which is a much tighter, more professional body and a fraction of its OTL size. There isn't going to be a Great Depression as we know it.
 
Now, a bit of constructive criticism about the scenario more generally: you seem to be ignoring the butterfly effect. If there is no WW1, the Bolsheviks in 1917 are a small underground organisation and haven't infiltrated the army, which is a much tighter, more professional body and a fraction of its OTL size. There isn't going to be a Great Depression as we know it.
Not to mention that they didn't overthrow the Romanovs even in OTL.
 
plus what about nicholas advisors like rasputin and such?...and also the problem of serfdom in the country, the lack of industrilization, etc...nichola wouldnt have jumped directly to a democratic system nor acceptted a constitucional momarchy without having some major event force him too...really to get this even close to what your saying youd have to move the pod further back, mabye whith peoples revolutions that actually worked in russia durinng the 18th centuary forcing the goverment to abolish serfdom, and a greater influence of the industrial buildup of other nations over russia
also the ukraine part...yopu need some form of nationalist trigger to make them leave the empire like i blame says...it just doesnt happen randomly
 
Then there's Nicholas II's upbringing during the Romantic era and the fasion for 'Neo-Russism' as opposed the western styles of Neo-Classicsm popular under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. This led to Nicholas growing up under the unfortunate impression that his role as Tsar was more similar to that of the 17th Century than the 20th, and further that the people would react in the same way and-through love of their Tsar, the 'little father' of the people- would only call for the deposition of 'wicked advisors' rather than regime change.
 
Now, a bit of constructive criticism about the scenario more generally: you seem to be ignoring the butterfly effect. If there is no WW1, the Bolsheviks in 1917 are a small underground organisation and haven't infiltrated the army, which is a much tighter, more professional body and a fraction of its OTL size. There isn't going to be a Great Depression as we know it.
i didnt want to mention it because i was afraid it would turn some people off of the discussion, but my ATL is all in all kinda ASB, the major factor being that the butterfly effect is ignored in many cases. basically, im trying to make the ATL as realistically divergent as possible while still getting a desired result, if that makes any sense

on the matter of rasputin and other advisors, its the failed bolshevik uprising that is russia's main POD here. no comment on the rest of that
Even if you have a USSR under this TL, you have no Kruschev, Brezniev or AFAIK no Chernenko as USSR leaders!
well i imagine that they would still be there, but maybe not to the same degree as IOTL

thanks for you help; i mainlyjust wanted to know what you all thought was the plausibility of ukraine breaking off from russia. given the tsardom's views of ukraine, what do you all think are the possibilities of ukrainian independence in the time since then? my ATL actually goes through to the near future (the 2030s), so, if it ever happens, around what time do you all think it would/could happen?
 
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