What if Lenin & Trotsky Were Killed During the July Days?

[Arctofire]

During July 1917, when the workers of Petrograd wished to overthrow the Provisional Government for its continuation of the war and lack of progress on agrarian reform, it was an extremely difficult situation for the Bolsheviks. They knew that they didn't have sufficient support throughout the rest of Russia to be able to create a successful socialist revolution, but yet opposing the protestors would make them at odds with the sentiment at Petrograd.

In our timeline, this was a step backwards for the Bolsheviks. Numerous key members were arrested and many others had to go into hiding, however, in the aftermath of the Kornilov coup they felt they had gained enough support throughout the entire country, or at least in the Congress of Soviets, to be able to overthrow the Provisional Government.

Supporters of the Bolsheviks often place all of the blame of the failure of the revolution on Germany on the death of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. They place a lot of emphasis on individuals, despite numerous other factors that would point to the contrary. However, what they do get right in this comparison is emphasising Lenin and Trotsky as the key architect of the October Revolution and of consolidating the Bolshevik one party state.

Other leading Bolsheviks, among them Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin, were in favor of a coalition between all of the major socialist parties in Russia and for the drafting of a new constitution through the constituent assembly. They also wanted to wait for the Second Congress of Soviets to convene in Petrograd before they took action to overthrow the Provisional Government, that was extremely unpopular due to its continued support of the war which was at that point a lost cause. Lenin and Trotsky however, having a firm belief in the supremacy of 'soviet democracy' and being against the sharing of power with other parties, implemented the October Revolution in Petrograd one day before the congress convened. Trotsky in particular was instrumental in the quick forming of the red army to enable them to have the military strength to dissolve the constituent assembly when it was clear that they didn't have majority support throughout the country.

So I ask, what if, like Luxemburg and Liebknecht in Germany, at some point between July and August 1917 Lenin and Trotsky find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are killed by right wing militiamen?

My view is that the October Revolution would still happen, as Kerensky had very little support by November due to the war, but after the second congress had convened. Lenin and Trotsky's replacements for leadership of the Bolsheviks, Kamenev and Zinoviev, would not have the same desire to supress other socialist parties, and were open to having a coalition of all socialist parties in Russia draft a new constitution. Therefore, there would be no immediate forming of the red army, and the Congress of Soviets would give way to the Constituent Assembly, where the SRs would win as they did in our timeline. Victor Chernov would chair the assembly, and would then become the leader of Russia.

There would be a minor civil war from the aristocracy and elements of the army that would resist the redistribution of land, but the new constitution would have a significantly larger base of support than the Bolshevik dictatorship did, which only had the support of urban areas and even that had faded by the end of 1918. I also have a feeling that, less committed to the idea of proletarian internationalism, the SR government led by Chernov would seek an agreement with the allies whereby they are able to exit the war, yet still support the allies when the tide starts to turn against Germany as American troops arrive in Europe.

This has huge implications for the 20th century. Here are a few.

- Firstly, I don't think Russia would become a full democracy, even without the Bolsheviks taking over. The country's sheer size, its diversity of people, and its number of illiterate peasants is just too large to be to enable a functioning democratic system. Also, due to the influence of the SRs on the peasantry I can imagine the party becoming extremely dominant, entrenching itself and rigging the rules of elections in its favour. There would be radical land reform, however the ruling SR party would gradually turn away from being the party of poor peasants to being a corrupt oligarchy. To give an OTL example of the type of regime that I think would emerge in Russia, I think Mexico in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution would be a very good one. Here, an agrarian populist party, the National Revolutionary Party, took over and initially undertook huge reforms in favour of the peasantry, however, over time, it became a corrupt oligarchic organisation and a new elite emerged. Whilst Russia wouldn't be democratic in this timeline though, it would be a far, far cry from the totalitarianism of Stalinism.

- Russia would be spared the devastation of the Russian Civil War. It would join the League of Nations and wouldn't be an international pariah like in OTL. However, it would not develop as rapidly during the 1930s. This is because in OTL, the power of organised labour had been completely smashed by the Bolsheviks, who could supress wages and make workers work longer hours to achieve the targets of the Five Year Plans. However, in a less dictatorial system. unions would have some power to resist these measures, as well as less ideological ruling party coming more and more under the financial influence of the Kulaks.

- Without the all encompassing ideology and cohesive organisation of the Comintern completely denouncing social democracy and reformism worldwide, the split in the SPD and KPD in Germany doesn't happen. Whilst the USPD may exist due to existing dissatisfaction with the SPD's support of the war, it would be much smaller without the influence of Bolshevism and most of its members would re-join the SPD at some point during the early 1920s. A small radical left breakaway group would probably still exist, however without Comintern it would get a much lower vote share. This is the single biggest change which would happen, let me explain...

In 1925, Germany had its presidential elections, where in the second round Centre Party candidate Wilhelm Marx, (no relation to Karl) supported by the 'Weimar Coalition' (SPD, DP, Zentrum), competed against hard right General Paul Von Hindenburg. In OTL as we know, Hindenburg won. However, Ernest Thallman, the KPD candidate, considering the SPD 'social fascists' and the Weimar Coalition parties just as bad as the far right, also stood as a candidate. This undoubtedly took votes away from Wilhelm Marx, who was very close to winning. If the SPD had stayed united, and the voters that in our timeline supported Thallman, supported Marx, then Marx would have won the presidency.

Hindenburg was absolutely instrumental in the Weimar Republics downfall, having an intense dislike of even the SPD, and therefore was willing to appoint chancellors without the consent of the Reichstag and pass laws through executive orders. We all know that this culminated in him appointing Hitler as chancellor in 1933. Wilhelm Marx however, being committed to democracy and being willing to co-operate with the SPD, would have allowed them to form a government in 1928. The SPD also would have gained a larger share of the vote without the KPD, enabling them to form a government with the DP and Centre Party without having to rely on the DVP.

The Nazi's gained support due to the Great Depression, but their economic recovery plans weren't their own. If the SPD is able to form a stable government, it can implement similar Keynesian economic policies, allowing the economy to recover and stopping Hitler from coming to power. Without Hitler, there is no WW2 in Europe, with the war being limited to the Pacific theatre. I think that an SPD government would be successful in renegotiating the Treaty of Versailles, and would assist the US in the war against Japan, winning it respect across the democratic world.

I notice that I've made a very long post, but the implications of this are massive. What do you think about this scenario? Do you believe it's plausible? Please give your thoughts.

 

[FightingBob24]

I think this would make for a great TL! A Russia like this would very interesting to watch develop.

Without Russia serving as the anchor of international Bolshevism, Germany may very well play out differently. However, it may be hard to stifle the Nazis even with Marx in power, although I believe it could be done, but the German government will be very tense throughout the 30s. It also begs the question of the international perception of fascism and Nazism if the NSDAP never takes power.

 

[Jearom]

Without Hitler, there is no WW2 in Europe, with the war being limited to the Pacific theatre. I think that an SPD government would be successful in renegotiating the Treaty of Versailles, and would assist the US in the war against Japan, winning it respect across the democratic world.

If there is no war in Europe, there is not going to be a larger Pacific War. The only reason Japan attacked the USA, UK, and the Netherlands colonies and territories is because of the war in Europe at the time. Without that war going on Japan would never invade French Indochina and thus the USA would not impose an Oil Embargo. The Dutch would probably happily sell materials to Japan to fuel their conquest of China, as the only reason they didn't OTL is because their mother country in Europe was under German Occupation and they were dependent on the US and UK.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

There is an ongoing TL about Lenin and Stalin being killed.

 

[Arctofire]

If there is no war in Europe, there is not going to be a larger Pacific War. The only reason Japan attacked the USA, UK, and the Netherlands colonies and territories is because of the war in Europe at the time. Without that war going on Japan would never invade French Indochina and thus the USA would not impose an Oil Embargo. The Dutch would probably happily sell materials to Japan to fuel their conquest of China, as the only reason they didn't OTL is because their mother country in Europe was under German Occupation and they were dependent on the US and UK.

But Japan had already invaded Manchuria in 1931, and had begun to invade mainland China after the Marco Pollo Bridge Incident in 1937. The Japanese conquest of Asia had begun before the Nazi's even came to power, let alone before the war in Europe, so I think there would still have been a Pacific War as the US did not want Japan to dominate East Asia.

 

[Salvador79]

I am pursuing a similar course of divergences in my TL (see signature), even though I have Lenin and Trotsky live.

I am not sure on the "minor civil war" and whether the "Russia is too big for a democracy" point is more than just a stereotype. But I agree on the potential for an SR-dominated state to evolve in the "Mexican direction". This is actually something that @galileo-034 , who is also drafting a TL with an SR Russia, and I have been discussing frequently.

Since you mentioned the butterfly effects on Germany, well, obviously this could go in many different ways. If Russia stays in the war somehow, even if they don't undertake any offensive operations until very late, then Germany is royally screwed. (Which may not be so bad for Germany in the middle run.) If not, Germany still gets harsher terms than IOTL because the Entente don't need to stabilise them against Bolshevism.

This in itself is going to make a different Weimar, if it makes for a Weimar at all, so any talk of a presidential election in 1925 might be highly speculative.
The split between MSPD and USPD occurred during the war and was caused by the war, it had nothing to do with any events in Russia. But MSPD and USPD could co-operate better in late 1918 if not for MSPD fears to suffer a fate analogous to that of the Russian Mensheviks.

Needless to say, I think the rise of Nazis in Germany in such a TL is not necessarily likely, just because it depended on many different factors, some of which are very likely not to remain identical in such a world-changing TL. There are some good arguments that something akin to fascism had been in the making before 1917 already, so maybe some sort of fascism still comes to exist. But nobody says it'll take power where it did IOTL...

 

[UnaiB]

@Zulfurium

 

[Zulfurium]

With A Day in July, my TL. I had Lenin and Stalin get killed during the initial raids on Pravda's offices - IOTL they made their escape literally five minutes before government forces turned up. While Stalin dying is significant in the more long-term, Lenin's death had immense consequences when I started mapping things out. Your assumption that Kamenev, Zinoviev or the like would be able to easily step into the breach seems rather optimistic in my eyes. Lenin was the glue which held the Bolsheviks together and was directly responsible for many of the most significant decisions taken during this period. With him dead, we should see a sudden leadership vacuum erupt at the heart of the Bolshevik Party.

It would take time and stability to work out who takes over leadership of the party, and if you go in and check the timeline - the Bolsheviks have precious little of that.

IOTL they were able to make their comeback because the Bolsheviks proved instrumental in organizing resistance to Kornilov's coup, but with the party in disarray, do they even have the capacity to do that? Even if Kornilov is held off, the Bolsheviks are unlikely to play a central role in doing so, and as such are unlikely to be accepted back into the fold after the July Days. Furthermore, without the Bolsheviks organizing resistance to Kornilov, what damage is done to the political situation? Do we see Kerensky even survive? What happens to Russia's political order if Kornilov is more successful?

I go into all of that in my TL and the butterflies swiftly pick up from there.

Your choice to kill off Trotsky is one which I find a lot more interesting, given that I haven't really explored it before. At the time of the July Days, Trotsky was part of the Mezhraiontsy - a sort of middle group between the Bolsheviks and Menshiviks which, while small, contained a lot of important Communist figures. He wasn't actually part of the Bolsheviks at the time - that only came after the July Days, so when and how he dies has a large impact on whether the Mezhraiontsy are part of the Bolsheviks and a cohesive faction, or whether they splinter.

By the time of the July Days, I think that a civil war would be astonishingly difficult to avert. The Kerensky government is going to fall at some point and you already had the groundworks for the White faction of the Civil War being laid. Any socialist regime, which is really the only direction the civilian government in Petrograd could go by this point, is going to be unacceptable to large swathes of the Russian establishment. All that is without going into the steady collapse of order occurring across Russia at the time and the large bandit groups/peasant armies which were likely to form. I don't think there is any form of central government which would be able to restore order without a long and bloody effort.

The situation has already reached a point where it is next to impossible to get things back under control, even if the Constituent Assembly is called and it is recognized as legitimate by the main political forces of Russia.

You are still left with the fact that Russia cannot win on the Eastern Front of the Great War, and that any government is going to have to find some way of cutting its losses. However, any government that finds its way to the negotiating table with the Germans is going to have to bleed popularity and support on a massive scale if they actually sign any sort of treaty - and if they don't, they get to continue the dark cycle which has been going on since the start of the war in which military failures result in a collapse in support for the government. The fact that the Bolsheviks were able to sign a treaty with the Germans and still survive politically is something of a miracle - but it also proved to be one of the most significant weapons their opponents could levy against them. If the Constituent Assembly signs off on any sort of peace deal, it losses just about all political prestige and legitimacy - which once again puts us back at square one. Russia is in a very, very deep hole and it is going to take miracle upon miracle to dig them out.

One thing to consider is how the various changes in Russia impact the Great War - because things are far from certain there. There are a lot of ways in which the course of the war can change.

I go into a lot of this a lot more in my TL, but I hope this is sufficient to get a good discussion going here.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Thing with the Nazis is, the whole idea of anti-Slavism wasn't there at the very start.
It was only after the death of Scheubner-Richter in the Beer Hall putsch did Drang nach Osten, Lebensraum and anti-Slavism enter the Nazi rhetoric.

Aufbau Vereinigung - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And what about the Romanovs?
If Trotsky and Lenin die in July 1917 then there's plenty of opportunities for the Tsar and his family to be rescued by White Russian forces or escape to territory occupied by White troops.
What would happen to the Romanovs then, in this case?

 

[jbgusa]

During July 1917, when the workers of Petrograd wished to overthrow the Provisional Government for its continuation of the war and lack of progress on agrarian reform, it was an extremely difficult situation for the Bolsheviks. They knew that they didn't have sufficient support throughout the rest of Russia to be able to create a successful socialist revolution, but yet opposing the protestors would make them at odds with the sentiment at Petrograd.

In our timeline, this was a step backwards for the Bolsheviks. Numerous key members were arrested and many others had to go into hiding, however, in the aftermath of the Kornilov coup they felt they had gained enough support throughout the entire country, or at least in the Congress of Soviets, to be able to overthrow the Provisional Government.

Supporters of the Bolsheviks often place all of the blame of the failure of the revolution on Germany on the death of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. They place a lot of emphasis on individuals, despite numerous other factors that would point to the contrary. However, what they do get right in this comparison is emphasising Lenin and Trotsky as the key architect of the October Revolution and of consolidating the Bolshevik one party state.

Other leading Bolsheviks, among them Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin, were in favor of a coalition between all of the major socialist parties in Russia and for the drafting of a new constitution through the constituent assembly. They also wanted to wait for the Second Congress of Soviets to convene in Petrograd before they took action to overthrow the Provisional Government, that was extremely unpopular due to its continued support of the war which was at that point a lost cause. Lenin and Trotsky however, having a firm belief in the supremacy of 'soviet democracy' and being against the sharing of power with other parties, implemented the October Revolution in Petrograd one day before the congress convened. Trotsky in particular was instrumental in the quick forming of the red army to enable them to have the military strength to dissolve the constituent assembly when it was clear that they didn't have majority support throughout the country.

So I ask, what if, like Luxemburg and Liebknecht in Germany, at some point between July and August 1917 Lenin and Trotsky find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are killed by right wing militiamen?

My view is that the October Revolution would still happen, as Kerensky had very little support by November due to the war, but after the second congress had convened. Lenin and Trotsky's replacements for leadership of the Bolsheviks, Kamenev and Zinoviev, would not have the same desire to supress other socialist parties, and were open to having a coalition of all socialist parties in Russia draft a new constitution. Therefore, there would be no immediate forming of the red army, and the Congress of Soviets would give way to the Constituent Assembly, where the SRs would win as they did in our timeline. Victor Chernov would chair the assembly, and would then become the leader of Russia.

There would be a minor civil war from the aristocracy and elements of the army that would resist the redistribution of land, but the new constitution would have a significantly larger base of support than the Bolshevik dictatorship did, which only had the support of urban areas and even that had faded by the end of 1918. I also have a feeling that, less committed to the idea of proletarian internationalism, the SR government led by Chernov would seek an agreement with the allies whereby they are able to exit the war, yet still support the allies when the tide starts to turn against Germany as American troops arrive in Europe.

This has huge implications for the 20th century. Here are a few.

- Firstly, I don't think Russia would become a full democracy, even without the Bolsheviks taking over. The country's sheer size, its diversity of people, and its number of illiterate peasants is just too large to be to enable a functioning democratic system. Also, due to the influence of the SRs on the peasantry I can imagine the party becoming extremely dominant, entrenching itself and rigging the rules of elections in its favour. There would be radical land reform, however the ruling SR party would gradually turn away from being the party of poor peasants to being a corrupt oligarchy. To give an OTL example of the type of regime that I think would emerge in Russia, I think Mexico in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution would be a very good one. Here, an agrarian populist party, the National Revolutionary Party, took over and initially undertook huge reforms in favour of the peasantry, however, over time, it became a corrupt oligarchic organisation and a new elite emerged. Whilst Russia wouldn't be democratic in this timeline though, it would be a far, far cry from the totalitarianism of Stalinism.

- Russia would be spared the devastation of the Russian Civil War. It would join the League of Nations and wouldn't be an international pariah like in OTL. However, it would not develop as rapidly during the 1930s. This is because in OTL, the power of organised labour had been completely smashed by the Bolsheviks, who could supress wages and make workers work longer hours to achieve the targets of the Five Year Plans. However, in a less dictatorial system. unions would have some power to resist these measures, as well as less ideological ruling party coming more and more under the financial influence of the Kulaks.

- Without the all encompassing ideology and cohesive organisation of the Comintern completely denouncing social democracy and reformism worldwide, the split in the SPD and KPD in Germany doesn't happen. Whilst the USPD may exist due to existing dissatisfaction with the SPD's support of the war, it would be much smaller without the influence of Bolshevism and most of its members would re-join the SPD at some point during the early 1920s. A small radical left breakaway group would probably still exist, however without Comintern it would get a much lower vote share. This is the single biggest change which would happen, let me explain...

In 1925, Germany had its presidential elections, where in the second round Centre Party candidate Wilhelm Marx, (no relation to Karl) supported by the 'Weimar Coalition' (SPD, DP, Zentrum), competed against hard right General Paul Von Hindenburg. In OTL as we know, Hindenburg won. However, Ernest Thallman, the KPD candidate, considering the SPD 'social fascists' and the Weimar Coalition parties just as bad as the far right, also stood as a candidate. This undoubtedly took votes away from Wilhelm Marx, who was very close to winning. If the SPD had stayed united, and the voters that in our timeline supported Thallman, supported Marx, then Marx would have won the presidency.

Hindenburg was absolutely instrumental in the Weimar Republics downfall, having an intense dislike of even the SPD, and therefore was willing to appoint chancellors without the consent of the Reichstag and pass laws through executive orders. We all know that this culminated in him appointing Hitler as chancellor in 1933. Wilhelm Marx however, being committed to democracy and being willing to co-operate with the SPD, would have allowed them to form a government in 1928. The SPD also would have gained a larger share of the vote without the KPD, enabling them to form a government with the DP and Centre Party without having to rely on the DVP.

The Nazi's gained support due to the Great Depression, but their economic recovery plans weren't their own. If the SPD is able to form a stable government, it can implement similar Keynesian economic policies, allowing the economy to recover and stopping Hitler from coming to power. Without Hitler, there is no WW2 in Europe, with the war being limited to the Pacific theatre. I think that an SPD government would be successful in renegotiating the Treaty of Versailles, and would assist the US in the war against Japan, winning it respect across the democratic world.

I notice that I've made a very long post, but the implications of this are massive. What do you think about this scenario? Do you believe it's plausible? Please give your thoughts.

I don't know that it would have made much of a difference.

I do not believe that the form of government does not make much difference. My general view of history with regard to countries is plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, "the more things change the more things stay the same." I'll go through a few examples:

1. Russia - Life under the Czars was largely the same as life under the Communist dictators and under Putin. Russia before and after, the USSR in between, were and are police states, rife with corruption, drunkenness, and bad government. Even the liberal interludes, Kerensky and Yeltsin, were not stable democracies. They had no law and order, and centrifugal forces made many people welcome the return of tyranny. Stalin was the worst monster of all but there were some Czars that gave him a run for his money. Even if Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were killed, someone similar would have seized the helm. Russia has no tradition of rule by consent of the people.
2. France - The absolute monarchy, pre-1789, was followed by a brief liberal interval. This was followed by the rape and ruin of the revolutionary periods, the guillotine,the attacks and the clergy and the reaction under Napoleon. Rinse, wash and repeat with the Paris Commune, the reaction of the period marked by L'Affaire Dreyfus, led by the Army and the clergy. The WW I period was followed by the near-welcome of the Nazi invasion and the Vichy Period. The postwar Fourth Republic was not quite as violently anarchic as the French Revolution. However, the election of Charles De Gaulle marked a similar period of reaction. Even the post-De Gaulle period has been marked by verbal condemnation of anti-Semitism but official toleration and enabling of that common French phenomenon.
3. The U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand - Two are Constitutional Monarchies (and throw in Canada with this group) and one is a republic. None are perfect, but all, relatively speaking, are lights to the world. While none has a perfect race record all try to be inclusive. It's a struggle but a worthwhile one. There is a reason that all are magnets for world migration.
4. Kingdom of Judah before, State of Israel now - The Kingdom of Judah (and before that Israel) was not perfect by a long shot. Things happened there that we would consider downright savage. On the other hand, it had higher rates of literacy and education that the surrounding areas. Judah made halting progress towards enthroning a society characterized by rule of law and not and not of man. Modern-day Israel is not a paradise. However, it succeeds in maintaining a stable democracy, one of the most advanced in the world. Gaza, by contrast, not so much.
5. Much of Africa and much of Asia outside the "tiger" countries and increasingly India - In general, a hot mess, before, during and after the colonial eras.

In short, it's the quality and quality of the people, not the method of establishing and empowering governments that matters most. I am not sure how much national self-determination and the spread of a republican veneer over oppressive governments has helped.

 

[Salvador79]

If I had doubted for a moment why I'm writing my TL, then the racist stereotypes presented by jbgusa would have reminded me.
(Though I must say I find this particular racist story of the world hilariously creative, it's rare people try it with the Jews as the good guys...)

 

[Cregan]

I’m going to take a very simplistic crack at this:

- Lenin and Trotsky, and Stalin for good measure, are killed in the July Days. Lenin and Stalin are killed in the same way as in @Zulfurium ’s excellent “A Day in July” TL, that is by nervous Provisional Government troops sent to apprehend them. IOTL Trotsky was actually jailed by the Provisional Government after the July Days, so in this scenario that is changed to him also being killed by the Provisional Government troops sent to arrest him.

- The other leading Bolsheviks, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, etc were indeed more conciliatory to the other socialist parties. The Bolshevik Party and other revolutionary factions will be outraged by the deaths of leading revolutionaries like Lenin, Trotsky and (yes even) Stalin. However, I don’t think this outrage would be enough for the Bolsheviks to strike out on their own against the Provisional Government like they did in the IOTL October Revolution. Lenin and Trotsky really made that happen, the other Bolshevik leaders were against it. So, the ITTL Bolsheviks will form a coalition with the other socialist parties, most prominently the SRs and the Mensheviks, but no immediate Revolution as yet.

- There is still the question of Kerensky’s Provisional Government and the Kornilov Affair. Without the Bolsheviks, especially Trotsky, organising the worker’s resistance against Kornilov’s putsch I would say he succeeds in marching into Moscow, forcibly dispersing the Soviet (if they haven’t already fled the city) and deposing Kerensky’s Provisional Government (and either executing or arresting Kerensky, either way he and his government are finished). Afterwards, Kornilov establishes a right-wing reactionary military dictatorship in Petrograd and refuses to call the Constituent Assembly.

- However, the situation is far too unstable for Kornilov’s military regime to wield effective power over Russia. A rival revolutionary government is declared in Moscow, led by the Bolsheviks (who were popular in that city) in a coalition with the other socialist parties there. Surviving leaders of the Soviet will regroup in Moscow as leaders of this new revolutionary government. The generals, landowners, aristocrats, anti-Semites and Russian chauvinists that formed the reactionary faction of the OTL White movement will coalesce under Kornilov, whose regime will be called the Whites. Supporters of the socialist parties will rally to the socialist coalition revolutionary government in Moscow, which will be called the Reds.

- Fighting breaks out between the Whites and the Reds. Minority nationalist secessionists also rise up like OTL to breakaway from Russia.

- The Reds reconstitute the Soviet with fresh elections and hold Constituent Assembly elections, where their socialist coalition revolutionary government wins an overwhelming majority (in an admittedly flawe and limited election, given the chaos engulfing Russia). The Reds institute a new constitution, declaring the Russian Soviet Republic and absorbing the Constituent Assembly into the machinery of the Soviet government. The Reds also announce their intentions to exit WW1, redistribute land to the peasantry, nationalise industry under worker’s control and grant minorities the right of self determination under a sweeping, radical program of socialist transformation. The Reds encapsulate their agenda with the simple slogan of “Land, Peace, Bread”.

- The Whites refuse to exit WW1, but are forced to halt operations against the Central Powers anyway because the Russian Army has effectively collapsed at the front, with entire units and divisions dissolving, dissension and subversive soldiers councils rife amongst the rank-and-file, fragging of officers becoming disturbingly common, and the peasant soldiers, weary of the war, deserting en masse to return to their villages to claim land being redistributed by the Reds.

- The Whites also suffer from a lack of cohesion, as while Kornilov is their overall nominal leader, he wields little actual authority over the other White generals. While they are nominally his subordinates, in reality the other White generals operate autonomously from Kornilov and each other, leaving the Whites disorganised, uncoordinated and ineffective. The Whites are also deeply unpopular with the peasant and worker masses of Russia, who cripple their war effort by denying them food, launching debilitating strikes and deserting their ranks. The Whites are forced to seize food from the peasants, force the workers back to work and keep their conscript soldiers serving at gunpoint, and also indulge in many anti-Semitic pogroms, further eroding their popularity. However, the Whites have secured the backing of the Entente though, who supply them with weapons, supplies and military advisers. The Central Powers are also passive toward the Whites, which is in effect supporting them.

- The Reds are much more popular with the peasant and worker masses of Russia and actually have a democratic mandate from them. The Reds are also supported by some of the ethnic minority nationalists due to their support for greater minority autonomy. As a result, despite heavy Western support for the Whites, the Reds defeat them and win the Russian Civil War, ensuring the survival of the Russian Soviet Republic. The former Russian territories of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltics remain part of the Russian Soviet Republic, but with some autonomy. Finland and Poland however breakaway as independent nations led by anti-revolutionary nationalist regimes.

- The Russian Soviet Republic is not really a democracy, but it isn’t a totalitarian one-party Stalinist state either. It is governed by the Reds, a left-wing revolutionary socialist coalition government who eventually merge into a single dominant party. Elections are still held, but they are largely a sham as the Reds will never be voted out of power and they completely dominate the government. There is internal party democracy amongst the Reds though, so a totalitarian dictator like Stalin cannot rise to power and the party is led by an internal consensus approach.

- Because they aren’t a totalitarian system, the Reds cannot transform Russia as rapidly, brutally and totally as Stalin did IOTL. The Russian Soviet Republic will be less industrialised and militarised than the OTL Soviet Union, but it will be better off as millions of its people have not been killed in famines, purges, mass deportations, forced labour and gulags. It’s military, while not as well-armed as the OTL Red Army, also won’t suffer from the dysfunction caused by Stalin’s mass purges. It’s government also won’t be hollowed out and discredited like the Soviet Union’s government was by Stalin’s mass purges and climate of terror.

- Land in the Russian Soviet Republic will be largely owned by peasant village communes and smallholders. The kulaks will be rich and influential. Industry will be nationalised and the government will enjoy a cosy relationship with the trade unions. Large infrastructure projects and heavy industry will be invested in. Mass literacy and healthcare programs will be rolled out. Oligarchic Party elites within the Reds will amass wealth and patronage networks. Corruption will of course flourish, but the Russian Soviet Republic will still be more advanced, powerful and wealthier than the Tsarist Russian Empire (and certainly much better, stronger and richer than whatever the White regime would have done).

- The Reds will not execute the Romanovs, but they will be exiled from Russia. The Reds will also suppress the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious authorities, but not to the brutal extent that Stalin did IOTL. The Reds will promote social and cultural advancements and a revolutionary proletarian culture in Russia, but will be less censorious than the OTL Soviet Union.

- WW1 still ends but the Reds are not invited to the peace negotiations as they withdrew from the war. This means that the Russian Soviet Republic is still somewhat of an international pariah, like the OTL Soviet Union.

- The Reds do not found the Comintern, so there is no single ideological font and approved ideology for the global revolutionary movement to be directed by the Kremlin. Some radicals in other countries will found their own parties in imitation of the Reds though. This has significant impacts in Germany, where the KPD is not founded and many of the radicals in the USPD will reconcile with the SPD, making it stronger. I believe a Spartacist Revolt will still occur, and it will still be crushed by the Freikorps though. Ditto for other uprisings of the postwar revolutionary wave like the Bavarian Soviet Republic, the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Italian Bienno Rosso, which will all still be quashed. However, with the SPD being stronger and with greater backing from former radicals that reconcile with it, the German Republic it supports will be more stable too.

- Fear of revolution will still lead to the rise of reactionary fascism. Mussolini and his Fascist Party still come to power in Italy, inspiring similar fascist movements elsewhere, but the popularity of the SPD is a bulwark against Nazism in Germany. That’s not to say a right-wing coup can’t overthrow the German Republic, just that the electoral strength of the SPD will prevent the Nazis or similar fascists from coming to power via electoral means like they did IOTL.

- Because the Russian Soviet Republic is not led by a totalitarian dictator like Stalin, the Reds find it easier to cooperate with the Western powers, despite initially being pariahs. This would prevent WW2 from breaking out in Europe, and will also lead to more foreign investment and less autarkic economic policies in the Russian Soviet Republic.

- The Reds won’t campaign much on anti-colonialism or racial equality overseas, which will make the Western powers happier to cooperate with the Russian Soviet Republic.

- The Reds, however, will support anti-fascism internationally. - If there is a Spanish Civil War, the Reds will support the Spanish Republicans. The lack of internal Stalinist witch-hunts will greatly improve the effectiveness of the Spanish Republicans.

- The Communist Party of China won’t be founded, and many of its OTL members will instead support the Left Wing of the Kuomintang. The Reds will heavily support the the Left Wing of the Kuomintang, especially against Japanese encroachment in China and reactionary Chinese warlords. This may also cause a permanent split between the Left Wing and Right Wing of the Kuomintang, starting a Chinese Civil War similar to OTL with the Russian Soviet Republic backing the Left Wing. This will turn into a proxy war over China between the Russian Soviet Republic and Japan, which could easily escalate into an open war between the two countries.

 

[Arctofire]

With A Day in July, my TL. I had Lenin and Stalin get killed during the initial raids on Pravda's offices - IOTL they made their escape literally five minutes before government forces turned up. While Stalin dying is significant in the more long-term, Lenin's death had immense consequences when I started mapping things out. Your assumption that Kamenev, Zinoviev or the like would be able to easily step into the breach seems rather optimistic in my eyes. Lenin was the glue which held the Bolsheviks together and was directly responsible for many of the most significant decisions taken during this period. With him dead, we should see a sudden leadership vacuum erupt at the heart of the Bolshevik Party.

It would take time and stability to work out who takes over leadership of the party, and if you go in and check the timeline - the Bolsheviks have precious little of that.

IOTL they were able to make their comeback because the Bolsheviks proved instrumental in organizing resistance to Kornilov's coup, but with the party in disarray, do they even have the capacity to do that? Even if Kornilov is held off, the Bolsheviks are unlikely to play a central role in doing so, and as such are unlikely to be accepted back into the fold after the July Days. Furthermore, without the Bolsheviks organizing resistance to Kornilov, what damage is done to the political situation? Do we see Kerensky even survive? What happens to Russia's political order if Kornilov is more successful?

I go into all of that in my TL and the butterflies swiftly pick up from there.

Your choice to kill off Trotsky is one which I find a lot more interesting, given that I haven't really explored it before. At the time of the July Days, Trotsky was part of the Mezhraiontsy - a sort of middle group between the Bolsheviks and Menshiviks which, while small, contained a lot of important Communist figures. He wasn't actually part of the Bolsheviks at the time - that only came after the July Days, so when and how he dies has a large impact on whether the Mezhraiontsy are part of the Bolsheviks and a cohesive faction, or whether they splinter.

By the time of the July Days, I think that a civil war would be astonishingly difficult to avert. The Kerensky government is going to fall at some point and you already had the groundworks for the White faction of the Civil War being laid. Any socialist regime, which is really the only direction the civilian government in Petrograd could go by this point, is going to be unacceptable to large swathes of the Russian establishment. All that is without going into the steady collapse of order occurring across Russia at the time and the large bandit groups/peasant armies which were likely to form. I don't think there is any form of central government which would be able to restore order without a long and bloody effort.

The situation has already reached a point where it is next to impossible to get things back under control, even if the Constituent Assembly is called and it is recognized as legitimate by the main political forces of Russia.

You are still left with the fact that Russia cannot win on the Eastern Front of the Great War, and that any government is going to have to find some way of cutting its losses. However, any government that finds its way to the negotiating table with the Germans is going to have to bleed popularity and support on a massive scale if they actually sign any sort of treaty - and if they don't, they get to continue the dark cycle which has been going on since the start of the war in which military failures result in a collapse in support for the government. The fact that the Bolsheviks were able to sign a treaty with the Germans and still survive politically is something of a miracle - but it also proved to be one of the most significant weapons their opponents could levy against them. If the Constituent Assembly signs off on any sort of peace deal, it losses just about all political prestige and legitimacy - which once again puts us back at square one. Russia is in a very, very deep hole and it is going to take miracle upon miracle to dig them out.

One thing to consider is how the various changes in Russia impact the Great War - because things are far from certain there. There are a lot of ways in which the course of the war can change.

I go into a lot of this a lot more in my TL, but I hope this is sufficient to get a good discussion going here.

These are all very good points. However, I do think that if all socialist parties had co-operated, the left would have a much wider base of support, and wouldn't have to resort to the kind of revolutionary terror it did in OTL. Of course there would still be a civil war, but if it's just the reactionary middle classes, upper class, and military generals who oppose the new regime that isn't going to get them very far, as that is still a small minority of the Russian population. They'll still be a minor civil war, but it will be less destructive. In Germany where a democratic republic was established, whilst reactionary forces tried multiple times to overthrow the new regime, most notably in 1920 and in 1923, they were simply unable to muster sufficient support, as the pluralism of Weimar allowed it to gain support from the 'moderate majority' of the population. Whilst the smaller size of the middle class and therefore stronger support for the left in Russia will mean measures will be more radical and therefore will have less middle class support, the pluralism promised by the new constitution I think would mean the majority of the Russian people would accept it.

As for your point about WW1, could there be a way for Russia to exit the war but still indirectly support the allies? The Bolsheviks were against this because they opposed the war on an ideological level and favored proletarian internationalism to realpolitik. However, surely Russia could have arranged some agreement. Even if the Germans find out about this and occupy Petrograd, as they were very close to doing, the war was lost for Germany the moment the US entered the war. What do you think about that?

In OTL, the Bolsheviks were opposed by the majority of the Russian population

 

[Arctofire]

I’m going to take a very simplistic crack at this:

- Lenin and Trotsky, and Stalin for good measure, are killed in the July Days. Lenin and Stalin are killed in the same way as in @Zulfurium ’s excellent “A Day in July” TL, that is by nervous Provisional Government troops sent to apprehend them. IOTL Trotsky was actually jailed by the Provisional Government after the July Days, so in this scenario that is changed to him also being killed by the Provisional Government troops sent to arrest him.

- The leading Bolsheviks, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, etc were indeed more conciliatory to the other socialist parties. The Bolshevik Party and other revolutionary factions will be outraged by the deaths of leading revolutionaries like Lenin, Trotsky and (yes even) Stalin. However, I don’t think this outrage would be enough for the Bolsheviks to strike out on their own against the Provisional Government like they did in the IOTL October Revolution. Lenin and Trotsky really made that happen, the other Bolshevik leaders were against it. So, the ITTL Bolsheviks will form a coalition with the other socialist parties, most prominently the SRs and the Mensheviks, but no immediate Revolution as yet.

- There is still the question of Kerensky’s Provisional Government and the Kornilov Affair. Without the Bolsheviks, especially Trotsky, organising the worker’s resistance against Kornilov’s putsch I would say he succeeds in marching into Moscow, forcibly dispersing the Soviet (if they haven’t already fled the city) and deposing Kerensky’s Provisional Government (and either executing or arresting Kerensky, either way he and his government are finished). Afterwards, Kornilov establishes a right-wing reactionary military dictatorship in Petrograd and refuses to call the Constituent Assembly.

- However, the situation is far too unstable for Kornilov’s military regime to wield effective power over Russia. A rival revolutionary government is declared in Moscow, led by the Bolsheviks (who were popular in that city) in a coalition with the other socialist parties there. Surviving leaders of the Soviet will regroup in Moscow as leaders of this new revolutionary government. The generals, landowners, aristocrats, anti-Semites and Russian chauvinists that formed the reactionary faction of the OTL White movement will coalesce under Kornilov, whose regime will be called the Whites. Supporters of the socialist parties will rally to the socialist coalition revolutionary government in Moscow, which will be called the Reds.

- Fighting breaks out between the Whites and the Reds. Minority nationalist secessionists also rise up like OTL to breakaway from Russia.

- The Reds reconstitute the Soviet with fresh elections and hold Constituent Assembly elections, where their socialist coalition revolutionary government wins an overwhelming majority (in an admittedly flawe and limited election, given the chaos engulfing Russia). The Reds institute a new constitution, declaring the Russian Soviet Republic and absorbing the Constituent Assembly into the machinery of the Soviet government. The Reds also announce their intentions to exit WW1, redistribute land to the peasantry, nationalise industry under worker’s control and grant minorities the right of self determination under a sweeping, radical program of socialist transformation. The Reds encapsulate their agenda with the simple slogan of “Land, Peace, Bread”.

- The Whites refuse to exit WW1, but are forced to halt operations against the Central Powers anyway because the Russian Army has effectively collapsed at the front, with entire units and divisions dissolving, dissension and subversive soldiers councils rife amongst the rank-and-file, fragging of officers becoming disturbingly common, and the peasant soldiers, weary of the war, deserting en masse to return to their villages to claim land being redistributed by the Reds.

- The Whites also suffer from a lack of cohesion, as while Kornilov is their overall nominal leader, he wields little actual authority over the other White generals. While they are nominally his subordinates, in reality the other White generals operate autonomously from Kornilov and each other, leaving the Whites disorganised, uncoordinated and ineffective. The Whites are also deeply unpopular with the peasant and worker masses of Russia, who cripple their war effort by denying them food, launching debilitating strikes and deserting their ranks. The Whites are forced to seize food from the peasants, force the workers back to work and keep their conscript soldiers serving at gunpoint, and also indulge in many anti-Semitic pogroms, further eroding their popularity. However, the Whites have secured the backing of the Entente though, who supply them with weapons, supplies and military advisers. The Central Powers are also passive toward the Whites, which is in effect supporting them.

- The Reds are much more popular with the peasant and worker masses of Russia and actually have a democratic mandate from them. The Reds are also supported by some of the ethnic minority nationalists due to their support for greater minority autonomy. As a result, despite heavy Western support for the Whites, the Reds defeat them and win the Russian Civil War, ensuring the survival of the Russian Soviet Republic. The former Russian territories of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltics remain part of the Russian Soviet Republic, but with some autonomy. Finland and Poland however breakaway as independent nations led by anti-revolutionary nationalist regimes.

- The Russian Soviet Republic is not really a democracy, but it isn’t a totalitarian one-party Stalinist state either. It is governed by the Reds, a left-wing revolutionary socialist coalition government who eventually merge into a single dominant party. Elections are still held, but they are largely a sham as the Reds will never be voted out of power and they completely dominate the government. There is internal party democracy amongst the Reds though, so a totalitarian dictator like Stalin cannot rise to power and the party is led by an internal consensus approach.

- Because they aren’t a totalitarian system, the Reds cannot transform Russia as rapidly, brutally and totally as Stalin did IOTL. The Russian Soviet Republic will be less industrialised and militarised than the OTL Soviet Union, but it will be better off as millions of its people have not been killed in famines, purges, mass deportations, forced labour and gulags. It’s military, while not as well-armed as the OTL Red Army, also won’t suffer from the dysfunction caused by Stalin’s mass purges. It’s government also won’t be hollowed out and discredited like the Soviet Union’s government was by Stalin’s mass purges and climate of terror.

- Land in the Russian Soviet Republic will be largely owned by peasant village communes and smallholders. The kulaks will be rich and influential. Industry will be nationalised and the government will have a cosy relationship with the trade unions. Large infrastructure projects will be invested in. Corruption will of course flourish, but the Russian Soviet Republic will still be more advanced and wealthier than the Russian Empire (and certainly much better and richer than whatever the White regime would have done).

- The Reds will not execute the Romanovs, but they will be exiled from Russia. The Reds will also suppress the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious authorities, but not to the brutal extent that Stalin did IOTL. The Reds will promote social and cultural advancements and a revolutionary proletarian culture in Russia, but will be less censorious than the OTL Soviet Union.

- WW1 still ends but the Reds are not invited to the peace negotiations as they withdrew from the war. This means that the Russian Soviet Republic is still somewhat of an international pariah, like the OTL Soviet Union.

- The Reds do not found the Comintern, so there is no single ideological font and approved ideology for the global revolutionary movement to be directed by the Kremlin. Some radicals in other countries will found their own parties in imitation of the Reds though. This has significant impacts in Germany, where the KPD is not founded and many of the radicals in the USPD will reconcile with the SPD, making it stronger. I believe a Spartacist Revolt will still occur, and it will still be crushed by the Freikorps though. Ditto for other uprisings of the postwar revolutionary wave like the Bavarian Soviet Republic, the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Italian Bienno Rosso, which will all still be quashed. However, with the SPD being stronger and with greater backing from former radicals that reconcile with it, the German Republic it supports will be more stable too.

- Fear of revolution will still lead to the rise of reactionary fascism. Mussolini and his Fascist Party still come to power in Italy, inspiring similar fascist movements elsewhere, but the popularity of the SPD is a bulwark against Nazism in Germany. That’s not to say a right-wing coup can’t overthrow the German Republic, just that the electoral strength of the SPD will prevent the Nazis or similar fascists from coming to power via electoral means like they did IOTL.

- If there is a Spanish Civil War, the Reds will support the Spanish Republicans. The lack of internal Stalinist witch-hunts will greatly improve the effectiveness of the Spanish Republicans.

- Because the Russian Soviet Republic is not led by a totalitarian dictator like Stalin, the Reds find it easier to cooperate with the Western powers, despite initially being pariahs. This would prevent WW2 from breaking out in Europe, and will also lead to more foreign investment and less autarkic economic policies in the Russian Soviet Republic.

- The Reds won’t campaign much on anti-colonialism or racial equality overseas, which will make the Western Powers happier to cooperate with the Russian Soviet Republic.

- The Reds, however, will support anti-fascism internationally.

- The Communist Party of China won’t be founded, and many of its OTL members will support the Left Wing of the Kuomintang. The Reds will heavily support the the Left Wing of the Kuomintang, especially against Japanese encroachment in China and reactionary Chinese warlords. This may also cause a permanent split between the Left Wing and Right Wing of the Kuomintang, starting a Chinese Civil War similar to OTL with the Russian Soviet Republic backing the Left Wing. This will turn into a proxy war over China between the Russian Soviet Republic and Japan, which could easily escalate into an open war between the two countries.

I hadn't thought of the Kornilov coup being more successful in this timeline, but that's probably correct. Thank you for pointing this out. The repercussions you mentioned make a lot of sense.

One thing that disappoints me about a lot of timelines on this site is that they are excessively detailed about a few years after the POD, and often don't explore what I find most interesting, the repercussions further down the line. I'm glad you talked about this.

Spain is interesting. In the timeline I imagined, I had Spain in 1936 being the place first proper communist revolution, as events there developed pretty independently of events in Russia. A democratic Germany would be torn between the two sides, with it almost breaking apart a coalition between the SPD and the Catholic Centre Party. Without the German airlift of Moroccan troops, the Nationalist uprising is decisively crushed. However, I think public sympathy for the Republic abroad would completely evaporate once the highly charged aftermath of the failed coup results in mass persecution of Catholicism and the radical left completely takes over, making Spain first full on Marxist state committed to international revolution.

Moderate Republicans defect from the new communist regime and join forces with former nationalists, still engaging in sporadic resistance, to restore capitalism and strike a compromise on social and cultural matters. Britain, France, and Germany eventually intervene to crush the revolution with the assistance of this coalition of right wing and liberal forces, and because of Spain's smaller size and time to recover from WW1, this time the counter-revolution is successful. The new settlement is similar to the regime of 1978 or Greece after the Greek Civil War, with the monarchy restored and the persecution of Catholicism ceasing, but the country becoming a liberal democracy. I think Russia would be pretty muted at this point, probably strongly supporting the Republic at the time of the coup but not interfering with the new settlement after the allied invasion.

 

[Zulfurium]

These are all very good points. However, I do think that if all socialist parties had co-operated, the left would have a much wider base of support, and wouldn't have to resort to the kind of revolutionary terror it did in OTL. Of course there would still be a civil war, but if it's just the reactionary middle classes, upper class, and military generals who oppose the new regime that isn't going to get them very far, as that is still a small minority of the Russian population. They'll still be a minor civil war, but it will be less destructive. In Germany where a democratic republic was established, whilst reactionary forces tried multiple times to overthrow the new regime, most notably in 1920 and in 1923, they were simply unable to muster sufficient support, as the pluralism of Weimar allowed it to gain support from the 'moderate majority' of the population. Whilst the smaller size of the middle class and therefore stronger support for the left in Russia will mean measures will be more radical and therefore will have less middle class support, the pluralism promised by the new constitution I think would mean the majority of the Russian people would accept it.

As for your point about WW1, could there be a way for Russia to exit the war but still indirectly support the allies? The Bolsheviks were against this because they opposed the war on an ideological level and favored proletarian internationalism to realpolitik. However, surely Russia could have arranged some agreement. Even if the Germans find out about this and occupy Petrograd, as they were very close to doing, the war was lost for Germany the moment the US entered the war. What do you think about that?

In OTL, the Bolsheviks were opposed by the majority of the Russian population

While I do think that cooperation between the leftist parties would be possible - and potentially even some level of multi-party democracy - I think you are greatly underestimating the sheer breadth and intra-ideological divisions and factionalism which characterized the Russian left at the time. Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy is one of the best books I have read on the Revolution and really helps to clarify the sheer magnitude of differences within Russian society - left, right and center. There was so much rancor and animosity built up during the later years of the Tsarist regime, that the moment central control begins to slip you really unleash just about every horror in Pandora's box.

I also think you are massively underplaying the right-wing tendencies (or at least their lack of adherence to left-wing interests) of large swathes of the peasant population - much as was experienced by the Narodniks in their various experiments and endeavors. The peasants want the land they work and for the urban classes (who dominated the left) to piss off. They were focused on the development of village communes and to a large extent lived within communal systems - if ones with stark and often horrifying inequalities and inequities. They never were, and likely never would have been, the bulwark of revolution in Russia. The majority of the peasantry should not be viewed as part of the left-wing - or as part of the "lower classes" when discussing an alliance across the left-wing. They had entirely separate social, political, economic and cultural goals - many of which would have gone exactly opposite of anything a left-wing coalition government at the time would wish to accomplish.

The key issue with Russia at this point in time was that the state was falling apart at the seams under the incredible pressures of the Great War. Government power and authority had essentially collapsed and actual command of the country outside of a couple dozen kilometers of Petrograd was dicey at best. The most important task facing any Russian government, after resolving the issues related to the ongoing Great War, is restoring control of the countryside and cities of the former Russian Empire. And quite simply, that is next to impossible without significant levels of violence and devastation. The Russian Civil War came to an end because the Bolsheviks fought all their enemies to exhaustion - internal and external. Hell, their most concerted war effort was against the peasantry which rebelled time after time after time. It required one of the most brutal famines in modern history for the peasantry to finally be starved into submission. While I think that having pro-peasant parties or factions in the government would definitely be a significant improvement from the Bolshevik repression of OTL, the government will still need to extend its control to the countryside somehow - and the peasantry will resist any such efforts regardless of who tries to do so. Maybe if all the land seizures are put into effect and the de facto theft of lands by the peasantry is brought into law as land reforms you could get some measure of buy-in from the peasantry, but there are massive structural issues related to the balance of power between rural and urban Russia which are going to be a constant source of trouble.

Characterizing Weimar Democracy as a victory by the "moderate majority" during the first half of the 1920s also overlooks the sheer radical revanchist nature of the post-war German governments. Hell, the people at the top in Germany were madmen who would rather drive their country into desperate straits barely better than the worst of the Great War simply in order to fuck with the post-war Versailles Treaty terms. If we are talking about the second half of the decade - after the Allies basically surrendered to German pressures and accepted the Dawes Plan - that is another matter entirely. But the period you are talking about (1918-1925) cannot be described as majority rule by most definitions of the word - rather I would characterise it as rule by the half of the pre-war elite which was unwilling to let Germany collapse entirely into the abyss during the Great War (although they damn well did all in their power to accomplish that after the war). Further, I would highlight the fact that you had violent revolts from both the far left and far right, and if you examine which side was treated worse it quickly becomes clear that significant parts of the post-War German government had strong sympathies if not outright ties to the reactionary elements of society.

Russia basically rolled over and ended all resistance after the rather disastrous Kerensky Offensive - but the Germans kept pressing. They quite simply cannot allow Russia to remain a participant in the conflict - active or otherwise - because it ties up an immense amount of military resources which they rather desperately need on the western front. There is really little way of stopping them from pressing on until the Russians either collapse or surrender - hell, as has already been mentioned in the thread, the Germans nearly reached Petrograd IOTL before the Soviets surrendered to them. One thing to bear in mind is that if Petrograd falls, Russia's government collapses and every anarchic element lets loose. Cossacks in the South, Whites in Siberia, Bolsheviks in Moscow. Everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Additionally, I strongly doubt any government set in Petrograd would have the wherewithal to move the capital to Moscow without things falling apart around them. I already covered some of the issues with what a surrender would entail - but to reiterate, it would greatly undermine any hope of the Russian government holding on to power without a massive civil war to reclaim their legitimacy and authority through outright conquest (which is basically what the Bolsheviks ended up doing IOTL).

Again, while the American entry into the war is significant and greatly turns the tide in Allied favor, I think you need to bear in mind that the French were on the brink of collapse by the time the Great War came to an end - hell, they were basically relegated to a secondary participant by the end of the Nivelle Offensives, limping on painfully for the remainder of the war. A French collapse would be a disaster for the Allies, and the Germans came incredibly close to accomplishing just that during the Spring Offensives (although they killed off most of their army in the effort) That said, the war is unlikely to go Germany's way. However, imo the important part is how Germany loses the war. Any change to the course of the war on the Eastern Front is going to have major repercussions for how the Western Front plays out, which in turn will have major repercussions for what the post-war world looks like. The terms of the Versailles Treaty are immensely complex and closely bound up with both the course of the war and immediate post-war period - Germany's control over Eastern Europe was collapsing as the terms of the Versailles Treaty were being negotiated. There is a podcast called When Diplomacy Fails which has a brilliant in-depth exploration of the shaping of the Versailles Treaty with almost day-by-day coverage of how specific articles were formed.

One of the most interesting and exciting aspects of working with the end of the Great War, and all the events which played out during 1917-1923, is that everything is so maleable and uncertain - just about anything could have happened, and the world which is shaped then will define just about everything about the world that follows. IMO we live in the world shaped by the Great War - much more so than the Cold War or WW2 (I tend to view them as follow-on conflicts largely set up by how the Great War played out).

 

[marktaha]

If I had doubted for a moment why I'm writing my TL, then the racist stereotypes presented by jbgusa would have reminded me.
(Though I must say I find this particular racist story of the world hilariously creative, it's rare people try it with the Jews as the good guys...)

Not stereotypes- just a study of history. Could the Bolsheviks have won the Civil War without Trotsky in charge of the Red Army?

 

[jbgusa]

If I had doubted for a moment why I'm writing my TL, then the racist stereotypes presented by jbgusa would have reminded me.
(Though I must say I find this particular racist story of the world hilariously creative, it's rare people try it with the Jews as the good guys...)

The Jews (I am one) have rarely been well-regarded. The book Anti-Judaism by David Nirenberg highlights the history of this scourge since the days of Pharaoh. The author points out that many Jew-haters have never met a Jewish person. Link to my review of this book.

 

[marktaha]

But Japan had already invaded Manchuria in 1931, and had begun to invade mainland China after the Marco Pollo Bridge Incident in 1937. The Japanese conquest of Asia had begun before the Nazi's even came to power, let alone before the war in Europe, so I think there would still have been a Pacific War as the US did not want Japan to dominate East Asia.

Not European colonies. Can see Japs permanently bogged down in China.