Yeah, the only thing that the Whites had in common were that they weren't Bolsheviks. The Whites were a polyglot group (which is part of what hurt them, the Bolsheviks were FAR more unified) consisting of everything from non-Bolshevik Socialists to Tsarists. Soviet propaganda over the decades painted them as all Tsarists which has stuck over the decades.
White Victory in Russia; Horrible?
- Thread starter Johnharry
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Yeah, the only thing that the Whites had in common were that they weren't Bolsheviks. The Whites were a polyglot group (which is part of what hurt them, the Bolsheviks were FAR more unified) consisting of everything from non-Bolshevik Socialists to Tsarists. Soviet propaganda over the decades painted them as all Tsarists which has stuck over the decades.
Why? Most likely you are trading forced industrialization, totalitarianism, and purges for an initially weak government which strengthens over time while authoritarian isn't the totalitarian nightmare that the USSR was. There is a decent likelihood of a war lord period that lasts a few years to a couple decades or so. Bad but probably not Leninist/Stalinist bad.
ferdi254
Banned
Folks, I repeat what I once wrote here: If somebody had shot Hitler on the 20th of June 1941 and Germany had not invaded the USSR the by far (really really far) worst massmurderer and villain of the first half of the 20th century would be Stalin.
Discussing if any other rule would have been worse for Russia than Stalin is baffling imagination.
And for the industrialization: And Hitler built Autobahnen. And btw, without the RM pact and the splitting of Eastern Europe and all the materials that the USSR traded with him no Barbarossa either. Stalin did help Hitler 1939-41 big time.
Discussing if any other rule would have been worse for Russia than Stalin is baffling imagination.
And for the industrialization: And Hitler built Autobahnen. And btw, without the RM pact and the splitting of Eastern Europe and all the materials that the USSR traded with him no Barbarossa either. Stalin did help Hitler 1939-41 big time.
Raulpankine
Banned
The Soviet Census 1926 claims a population of 147 Million, the growth rate was 2.5-3% a year. Based on this the population in 1937 when the next cenus took place should have been between 175-180 Million, yet it was only 162 Million. Some 13 to 18 Million People are missing. It is impossible to calcualte how many died, how many were not born, wrong predictions ect ect however we know that roughly this many people were missing. And then there are the dead between 1937 and 1953. So while 50 Million + is a ridiculous number, so is 10 Million -. As with most estimates, the most accurate number can be found somwhere in the middle - around 30 Million.
As for the question: It would have been far better. No Communism in Russia means far less dead there AND on top of that probably no National Socialism in Germany as well and therefore no WW2.
marathag
Banned
But why would the Germans be at odds? Unlikely for *Nazis to take power that dream of Drang nach Osten.
marathag
Banned
I thinks Clive James put it best, that by 1939 Stalin had killed so many people, not even Hitler could catch up.
BigBlueBox
Banned
@Polish Eagle ’s entire point is that trying to calculate “death toll” by a deficit in real population compared to population projection is monkey math, which it definitely is. Most of that deficit was likely caused by a fall in birth rates and increase in emigration. Just because you can’t calculate directly how much of that was due to emigration and birth rate decline doesn’t mean you can make an arbitrary assumption.
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Wasn’t so much mine as some others’, but I agree. The other thing to consider is that the Soviets were happy to encourage abortion as a form of contraception (a legacy that persist to this day in that the Russian Federation has the highest per-capita abortion rate on Earth), which is not a direct form of murder by the state, and that, in general, a more urbanized and industrialized population will have a lower birth rate than a rural one dependent on child labor like the pre-war peasantry. Certain Soviet women made the observation that feminism in the USSR was the addition of male responsibilities to female ones without any corresponding which is not a situation conducive to high fecundity.
Would a White Russia have a higher population? In light of the above, maybe, though the extended civil war needed to create White Russia will probably cut into that.
Yes because the country was in a state of civil war. Not only that but the young soviet state was literally fighting for survival. Also, as you'll surely know, all of these measures were abolished after the war was won.
A very propagandistic statement. Things were not better in white-held territories. Also such measures are typical in a state of war.
Sí, the economy recovered during the NEP. Because that was after the war was over. Economies tend to recover after a war. Also the NEP was the right pollicy in the immediate post-war years, because before things like collevtivization or industrialisation could begin, the country had to be re-build. Also where do you get the notion from that the white government would implement an NEP style pollicy? The NEP took place in a framework where land reform had allready been carried out, with rich landlords having allready been expropriated and their land distributed amongst poor and landless peasants. No way the whites would do that. They worked in the interest of the old elite and would, if anything, reverse the effects if the land refrom.
How about a contemporary source:
Yeah, yeah it's Lenin, he's not neutral. But he is a contemporary source, and he's reliable. Because, if he had lied, it would have been completely obvious and he would have massively de-legitimized himself. You could look up where the delegates were from at the time. And if you claim that 80% of peasants were represented and thats not true, well, people aren't stupid. Yet, since that wasn't the case we can be quite sure that the description is the truth.
To quote from Lenin's book "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegate Kautsky":
" In the period between February 28 (old style) and October 25, 1917, the Soviets managed to convene two all-Russia congresses of representatives of the overwhelming majority of the population of Russia, of all the workers and soldiers, and of 70 or 80 per cent of the peasants, not to mention the vast number of local, uyezd, town, gubernia, and regional congresses. During this period the bourgeoisie did not succeed in convening a single institution representing the majority (except that obvious sham and mockery called the “Democratic Conference” , which enraged the proletariat). The Constituent Assembly reflected the same popular mood and the same political grouping as the First (June) All-Russia Congress of Soviets. By the time the Constituent Assembly was convened (January 1918), the Second (October 1917) and Third (January 1918) Congresses of Soviets had met, both of which had demonstrated as clear as clear could be that the people had swung to the left, had become revolutionised, had turned away from the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and had passed over to the side of the Bolsheviks".
Fun fact, people in the cities have to eat, too. And wheater you get the grain from peasants through taxes or confiscation doesn't matter much. Also, in 1921 the soviet government replaced Prodrazvyorstka (grain confiscation) with Prodnalog (grain taxes). In 1924 this system was abolished in favour of a universal direct agricultural tax, which was collected in monetary form.
And at least the peasants had their own piece of land in the soviet era (first as small individual farmers, then as collectives). Many, many peasants had to work on the land of the local nobles or rich landlords during the tsarist era, only getting a tiny piece of their work paid (often in grain). It would've stayed that way under a white regime.
Yes the Kronstadt and Tambov rebellions were a thing. Yet again, the Bolsheviks got 60% of the seats in the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets, with the Left-SRs getting 15,4%.
And again, virtually all of the workers and soldiers, and 80% of the peasants were represented (way more than in the Constituant Assembly).
And what does "uprising" even mean according to that source? 118 all out people's uprisings in one month are of course rediculously impossible. Logicly, "uprising" can only mean more or less violent incidents and, yes, there were many of those during the civil war. But again, I refer to the numbers listed above.
Stating that collectivisation didn't improve food production is just wrong.
Table 54 Estimates for grain production in the USSR between 1928 and 1940 millions of tons - Grain Production
Source Wheatcroft and Davies, 1994. Source Wheatcroft and Davies, 1994. good but less than planned about 83.5 million tons. The Western estimate is only 64
www.climate-policy-watcher.org
And those statistics are based partially on Robert Conquest, a radicaly anti-communist author.
Just think logicly, what is more effective? 1.) A bunch of small peasants which all work on their tiny piece of land and can't afford machinery, or 2.) A bunch of peasants working together on their combined land that share a tractor? Sharing of machinery was one of the main advantages of collectivisation, along with the fact that peasants had health insurance and the possibility to go on vaccation. Agricultural collectives also made the breeding of lifestock way easier.
While we're at it, soviet collective farms (called Kolkhozes) are often described as "fake cooperatives" and just an extension of state planing. Thats false. At the start of a year the state gave the elected Kolkhoz management a report on how much grain the state intended to buy from said Kolkhoz during that year. The Kolkhoz would in turn collectively draw up a plan of it's own. After that, the management would sign a contract with the state. This contract was now the final plan. Grain was sold to the state at fixed prices, and after the state's demands were met, the supulus could be given to the peasants or sold on the local market. The Kolkhozes decided about their own wages and investments (except for machinery, which was mostly provided by the state).
Now you might be saying "Aha, but why didn't the Kolkhozes just set the contracts as low as possible, and sold the bulk of their harvest on their local market"? Well thats simple, bread was heavily subsidized by the soviet state, so people would usually not be ready to pay the market price for something they can get cheaper. The Kolkhoz members mostly sold fruits and vegetables on those local markets.
I've got the information about how Kolkhozes worked from the Encyclopedia of Soviet Law, should somebody be interested.
Where do you get the idea from that the whites would conduct land reforms? Again, it was the movement of the elite, of the ruling class. You can be damn sure that they wouldn't give the peasants any more, than would be neccessary to keep them from revolting.
The soviet government wasn't stupid. Of course they knew that war with Germany was inevitable. However they didn't expect in in 1941, before Britain was dealt with. And thats the main point: They couldn't immagine Germany starting a two front war on such an enormous scale.
Yes, but actually no. Even the best officer corps recruited from the fines the feudal nobility has won't fix the massive lack of tanks, guns, planes, mines, amunition, etc. Again, without the massive oil industry of the Caucasus, the Russian Army can't even power the tanks, planes and truck they have. The soviets with their OTL industrial capabilities still lacked proper equipment (especially when it comes to medium and heavy tanks) in 1941. This TLs Russia would be screwed.
But hey, good luck fighting a german armored brigade with a bunch of Tatschankas.
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marathag
Banned
That was under Lenin, under Stalin there was not a lot migration outside the country.
Where did this 1930s did the Diaspora end up at?
Millions of Soviets would have been noticed in new countries.
The years of industrialization and the famine of 1932/33 were very hard times. It's logical that people would not be keen on getting children during these years. The "loss in population" (it's actually not a loss, but a lower growth rate) is the product of reduced birth rates.
Germanies population has hardly increased between 1990 and 2020 at all. Between 2008 and 2011 it even decreases by 2 million. Does that mean that the german state murdered millions of it's own people during that timespan?
Because any White Russian government that manages to get power will probably try using the same tactics to hold the nation together that often get used in such situations, namely give everyone a common foe/scapegoat. Which likely means Anti-Semitism coming back to the fore again, and groups similar to the Black Hundreds getting loosed on the Jewish population of Russia.
There is no effing way that scum like Denikin and Kolchak wouldn't take power to "prevent a communist resurgence" and turn Russia into a shitty military dictatorship.
Then again, most 1920s Europe pods likely butterfly Hitler so you could hypothetically argue that this would prevent Barbarossa...but SOME sort of WW2 was likely inevitable given what a joke the League was and how many tensions there were after WW1. And Denikin's Russia, just as an example, is going to be in no place to fight a major war.
Thing is, even though Stalin was shit at pretty much everything he did, he was smart enough to grok that some things HAD to be done to unfuck Russia. He did those things like a bull in a china shop and with way more petty cruelty than was at all necessary, and a less paranoid and evil leader would have undoubtedly done better, but I simply can't believe that, once the inevitable power struggle is done, that whatever dictator is in charge of White Russia will be anything more than a stagnant kleptocrat.
Basically, Stalin was a shit leader but I think whatever thug ended up on top of White Russia (and it WOULD be a military dictator, the generals always were the public face of the movement and I can't see them all just letting civilians who can't agree on anything take back over) would be long-term worse. Potentially even Mobutu levels of bad.
That depends if they could pull it off, which isn't a given. Thing is , it is very difficult to be as bad as Stalin. Even a shitty military dictator might be better. If it is a stagnant kleptocrat , how long does he last and who replaces him?
Probably fewer people killed overall at least thanks to the fact that they probably aren't going to turn down foreign famine relief efforts. Otherwise, the probable end result is a military dictatorship of some sort or another, still very anti-semitic, however, given that it's not completely isolated from the global economy or an international pariah industrialization and economic growth is likely still going to continue albeit at a slower pace (and probably fewer dead) compared to Stalin and the 5 - Year plans.
The effects of having Russia be a fairly large player in European politics likely butterflies away the rise of Hitler's Germany as we know it. The effects of also not having a German military mission in the USSR is likely going to have some knock on effects on the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht.
On the balance probably better than the Soviet Union OTL. Though that's more the fault of Stalin than anything having to do with the USSR.
The effects of having Russia be a fairly large player in European politics likely butterflies away the rise of Hitler's Germany as we know it. The effects of also not having a German military mission in the USSR is likely going to have some knock on effects on the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht.
On the balance probably better than the Soviet Union OTL. Though that's more the fault of Stalin than anything having to do with the USSR.
ferdi254
Banned
Well it is extremely hard to be worse than Stalin. You need a far above reasonable expectations successful Hitler (with large help from Stalin) or a Mao Tse Tung who also came to power due to Stalin.
And then there are the people indirectly killed due to Lysenko an Stalin executing nearly everyone with initiative.
And then there are the people indirectly killed due to Lysenko an Stalin executing nearly everyone with initiative.