WI: Earlier Bolshevik Revolution

I read that the February Revolution of 1917 was very influenced by the Russian Revolution of 1905. So what if the Bolsheviks struck earlier, maybe during The Great War? The Bolsheviks take over, cutting off the Russian Army from HQ, crippling them. Germany/Austria/Ottomans mop up and take what they want without any strong opposition, suing for peace with England before America can join?

If it's possible, what territories would the Central Powers be able to walk away with? Maybe Germany gets Alsace-Lorraine and some land in the Baltic/Poland, Austria gets Serbia and maybe some more Ukraine for Galicia, and the Ottomans...it gets foggy for me with the Ottomans in WWI.

Is this plausible?
 
The Bolsheviks were a minority among the ones who might rebel, and it was only luck that allowed them to seize power in October. Which technically was during the Great War too. I don't think the discontent and disillusionment would be great enough. Maybe the SR guys would have more luck, I don't know.
 
The Bolsheviks were a minority among the ones who might rebel, and it was only luck that allowed them to seize power in October. Which technically was during the Great War too. I don't think the discontent and disillusionment would be great enough. Maybe the SR guys would have more luck, I don't know.

Well I'd want it to happen early enough to have a large effect on the war. Maybe a stronger February Revolution, and the Second Revolution would be a direct effect of Russian Declaration of war, the populace having been fed up of Russian Imperialism?
 
The conditions for revolution weren't ideal until it actually happened. As in all the combatant countries, the war had triggered a rush of patriotic mobilisation in Russia and even much of the revolutionary left (which was a much bigger tent than the Bolsheviks) believed that the country had to be saved from the Germans before any progress could be made (just like the socialists in all the other countries... :().

Defeat, exhaustion, and disillusionment all told, but whereas the biggest factor in the overthrow of the Tsar's government was its incompetance in prsecuting the war ("Stupidity or treason?"), the biggest factor in the Bolshevik revolution was the war itself, that is, the massive bread shortages it was causing in the cities as the railway lines were overburdened with military supplies.

Until the food crisis has got so severe that people just want the whole thing to end, any movement to hand the country over to the Germans is likely to end in a few hangings and perhaps a military dictatorship, but not a succesful revolution.
 
Yeah, poople weren't ready for a really radical revolution until the less radical one had shown that it was not delivering, and even then the Bolsheviks had to mount a coup d'etat to seize power.

IMHO it was the failure of the earlier revolution to end the war and alleviate the crises which allowed the Bolsheviks to recover - now you have a few months in your POD here, since what they were recovering FROM was a misfiring in July. You could look more into that event?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Yeah, people weren't ready for a really radical revolution until the less radical one had shown that it was not delivering, and even then the Bolsheviks had to mount a coup d'etat to seize power.

IMHO it was the failure of the earlier revolution to end the war and alleviate the crises which allowed the Bolsheviks to recover - now you have a few months in your POD here, since what they were recovering FROM was a misfiring in July. You could look more into that event?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Would a worse ending for the 1905 revolution help this? What if the people were ruthlessly put down, giving victory to the Monarchy but brewing even worse hatred by the people for the government in the future?

Would this help the bread rioters and industrial strikers to rise up, in say, 1915, and due to the mobilization of the Russian Army, succeed in taking over the government. Instead of the Russian Provisional Govt. being created by a liberal-socialist uprising, maybe just a stronger, purely socialist uprising takes place, succeeds, an instates a Communist Council type of government. Could this happen?
 
Would a worse ending for the 1905 revolution help this? What if the people were ruthlessly put down, giving victory to the Monarchy but brewing even worse hatred by the people for the government in the future?

Yeah, I read a timeline where that happened. It's called 'this one'.
 
Yeah, I read a timeline where that happened. It's called 'this one'.

Wiki says this happened:
Wikipedia said:

If the Monarchy won even more ruthlessly than OTL, and none of that happened, and it stayed an Absolute Monarchy, could that lay down the start of an epic socialist uprising?
 
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