White Siberia - Russian Civil War

I think the Soviets would have a far harder time accepting Ukraine's loss (which had a large portion of Russian industry and population) than Siberia (much tinier in population and industry though high in resources), and Ukraine doesn't have a convenient power wanting to set up a buffer state. Maybe if the Germans win WW1, but none of the victorious powers really have enough interest in the region in the region to back it long term, other than the interest of 'Stick it to the Communists', which would fade as Communism became seen as more legitimate.

Britain and France would be willing to support the Ukraine a little, as long as they don't have to get involved themselves they're fine.
The big support though I would see would come from Poland. The Poles were rather strong post-war and they would be very interested in a weaker, split Russia.

Yep, Russia would be less willing and more annoyed at losing Ukraine whilst Siberia would be nothing...however the same is true for other nations. A independent Siberia no matter its legitmacy and connection to old Russia is rather unimportant. The Ukraine though, a nation in Eastern Europe...now that is important,.
 
Britain and France would be willing to support the Ukraine a little, as long as they don't have to get involved themselves they're fine.
The big support though I would see would come from Poland. The Poles were rather strong post-war and they would be very interested in a weaker, split Russia.

Yep, Russia would be less willing and more annoyed at losing Ukraine whilst Siberia would be nothing...however the same is true for other nations. A independent Siberia no matter its legitmacy and connection to old Russia is rather unimportant. The Ukraine though, a nation in Eastern Europe...now that is important,.

Actually, one of the reasons Ukraine failed was because Poland brutally attacked it hoping to annex it. They were interested in a smaller Russia, but not by splitting it, but rather by conquering as much of it as possible.
 

Hendryk

Banned
I've looked up one of my favorite sources, George Stephan's The Russian Far East: A History, and I think I may have found the reason for the discrepancy between our estimates. He mentions that "after war broke out in 1914, military and labor conscription depleted the region of over 500,000 residents, nearly half the farming population." That made a huge dent in a demographic base of 3 to 4 million.

Stephan also mentions that the Far East had "the highest proportion of urban inhabitants of any Russian province", which I suppose would also be true of eastern Siberia as a whole. And when one looks at the population figures for Siberian cities, one finds fairly modest numbers before the mid-1920s. In my TL's Yakutia, there are basically three largeish cities: Verkhneudinsk (renamed Deede-Ude in my TL and Ulan-Ude in OTL), Chita and Irkutsk. Verkhneudinsk is populated in majority by Buryats; Chita had, according to Stephan, 39,000 inhabitants in 1907 and I don't see that figure rising much in the following decade; so that only leaves Irkutsk as the main urban concentration of ethnic Russians. This is the chart I've found for its population:

Population Irkutsk.png
 
I've looked up one of my favorite sources, George Stephan's The Russian Far East: A History, and I think I may have found the reason for the discrepancy between our estimates. He mentions that "after war broke out in 1914, military and labor conscription depleted the region of over 500,000 residents, nearly half the farming population." That made a huge dent in a demographic base of 3 to 4 million.

Stephan also mentions that the Far East had "the highest proportion of urban inhabitants of any Russian province", which I suppose would also be true of eastern Siberia as a whole. And when one looks at the population figures for Siberian cities, one finds fairly modest numbers before the mid-1920s. In my TL's Yakutia, there are basically three largeish cities: Verkhneudinsk (renamed Deede-Ude in my TL and Ulan-Ude in OTL), Chita and Irkutsk. Verkhneudinsk is populated in majority by Buryats; Chita had, according to Stephan, 39,000 inhabitants in 1907 and I don't see that figure rising much in the following decade; so that only leaves Irkutsk as the main urban concentration of ethnic Russians. This is the chart I've found for its population:

I'm not familiar with that source I'm afraid Hendryk, but I found similar statistics in the Cambridge History of Russia which tallies with your comments here. Having a high urban population isn't surprising given how extensive agriculture in Siberia would have to be in all but the most fertile areas (the plains around Omsk for example) and in addition, the dispersed nature of the ethnic Russian population would also limit the viability of an independent Russian rump state east of the Urals. I think that you and Abdul are both right with your notion of a Japanese controlled Far Eastern Republic, however, this would require a large degree of pragmatism by the White leaders. After all, after the humiliation of the Russo-Japanese War, I'm not sure how much people like Wrangel, and especially Kolchak, would be to being propped up by Tokyo.
 
I've looked up one of my favorite sources, George Stephan's The Russian Far East: A History, and I think I may have found the reason for the discrepancy between our estimates. He mentions that "after war broke out in 1914, military and labor conscription depleted the region of over 500,000 residents, nearly half the farming population." That made a huge dent in a demographic base of 3 to 4 million.

Stephan also mentions that the Far East had "the highest proportion of urban inhabitants of any Russian province", which I suppose would also be true of eastern Siberia as a whole. And when one looks at the population figures for Siberian cities, one finds fairly modest numbers before the mid-1920s. In my TL's Yakutia, there are basically three largeish cities: Verkhneudinsk (renamed Deede-Ude in my TL and Ulan-Ude in OTL), Chita and Irkutsk. Verkhneudinsk is populated in majority by Buryats; Chita had, according to Stephan, 39,000 inhabitants in 1907 and I don't see that figure rising much in the following decade; so that only leaves Irkutsk as the main urban concentration of ethnic Russians. This is the chart I've found for its population:

I'm not sure this Stephan is very reliable. Chita was much smaller than 39,000 in 1907, more like 12,000, and it was mostly Russian - it had a large Decembrist population - with decent Jewish & Tatar minorities. Verkhneudinsk was in the Buryat region but was a Russian city, and in 1920 had a population of 15,000 - it was a railway town. In this period Siberia wasn't very urban - around 8%. The Far East was a the exception, not the rule, but in SE it belongs to China, right? Irkutsk would be by far the largest city. Did you make that the capital?

You're missing Krasnoyarsk, which is on your border, at 33,000 in 1907 your second largest city.

Even if 500,000 Russians from Siberia were recruited, only a small proportion of them would be from Yakutia as most of the Siberian population in Superpower Empire is Red; proportionately it would be 150,000 (presuming only Russians recruited, which isn't the case), of which most would return home. At best, a 5% reduction of the Russian population, and that's setting aside Russians fleeing the Reds.
 
Siberia 1919

It's not implausible for Kolchak's Siberia to have survived the red attack in 1919. What would have been needed was a serious revolt behind the reds' lines, and there were plenty of people in Russia who had reason to hate the Bolsheviks. However, for an independent Siberia to result, you'd need some kind of a stalemate to have come about, because Kolchak wasn't aiming at an independent Siberia, but to reunite Russia under a non-communist government.

For long-term viability, some anticommunist entity would also have to have survived in South Russia to keep the communists looking over their shoulder. And, at some point, any Siberian government would have to eliminate the Semenov, Kalmykov and Ungern-Sternberg forces in the far East. They were unbelievably vicious even by Civil War standards, and were robbing the Omsk government of supplies.
 
If used the idea in several of my maps, but honestly I don't think a surviving Siberia is possible:

-As said before the population is initally very low
-All soviet schemes to increase Siberias agricultural productivity failed misarably in the long run
-Russias industry was also concentrated in the West during zarist times
-As the Soviets had allmost all of Russias population and industry their forces would be highly superior within a few years (Regardless of how good Siberia did)
-The Commies hated the Whites, had a very good claim to the area and have a highly superior force by say 1925. They are bound to crush it.
-If they don't the Japanes (or in the long run the Chinese) take it over

The only real chance for Siberia might be if Caucasia and Ukrainia do also seced. But even then I don't think they can really make it.
 
-If they don't the Japanes (or in the long run the Chinese) take it over

The only real chance for Siberia might be if Caucasia and Ukrainia do also seced. But even then I don't think they can really make it.
A sort of chance might be for the Japanese to take over in a more informal manner - given the timing, I suspect being a Japanese puppet won't, at least at first, be quite Manchuoko-bad.
 
Would there be any chance for the Provisional Government and Kerensky in 1918 to move to Crimea to be supported by the Entente? If Kerensky was still in the picture, he could provide a leader to at least one group of white Russians.

If he can take control of Ukraine and the area to the south of Rostok (with Allied help), the Polish-Soviet war end as in OTL, and have at least some white resistance in the Far East and Siberia, is there any chance of a White victory, or at least a White state?
 
Would there be any chance for the Provisional Government and Kerensky in 1918 to move to Crimea to be supported by the Entente? If Kerensky was still in the picture, he could provide a leader to at least one group of white Russians.

If he can take control of Ukraine and the area to the south of Rostok (with Allied help), the Polish-Soviet war end as in OTL, and have at least some white resistance in the Far East and Siberia, is there any chance of a White victory, or at least a White state?

The chances are zero until the very end of 1918. The Germans dominated the Black Sea area until November, and had no use for a man who had tried to keep the eastern front alive whenn he led Russia. Accordingly, he wouldn't have been allowed to get to the Crimea. In OTL, the Germans had a virtual puppet ruler of the Crimea in the person of General Sulkevich, whose policies, which were pretty similar to those of hetman Skoropadskii in the Ukraine, suited them fine.

After the armistice, the Allies could get through, but Kerensky was pretty discredited among the major combatants on the white side. He had opposed Kornilov in the summer of 1917, so there's not much likelihood of support from Kornilov's successors in the Volunteer Army. Although the picture was pretty complex in the Ukraine and Crimea, Kerensky didn't have much support from any of the other major factions ruling Black Sea territories either -- in fact the Don Cossacks and the Ukraine rada had both declared independence from his government in 1917.

The allies would have had to impose him at gunpoint. They had little inclination to do so (and the French intervention in the Ukraine was so inept otherwise that it's a safe prediction that they would have failed if they tried).
 
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