WI: Immigration to Russian Empire instead of United States?

Russia already grew millet and winter wheat though, which was more adapted to the region.

How about locally harvested edible wild plants? Can they be domesticated quick enough with sufficient yields? (DValdron taught all us that North American Arctic flora is promising, but timescales are measured in centuries there - given that humans managed to turn teosinte into corn, I guess there's some possibility... but probably not rewarding fast enough).
 
Maybe. But maybe not as fast, either. Maybe better long-term (without kolkhozes to create additional difficulties). Who knows (it's rhetorical - nobody really does).

In any case I am only speaking chronologically and historically. The Stolypin reforms weren't nearly as wide-ranging or as fast as people seem to think they were, and Russia's problems were piling up quite rapidly. Which sort of explains why things went the way they did.

World War I was the biggest reason, although there certainly signs earlier. Actually reform itself tends to be destabilizing in the short run. By definition it changes society from what people know to what people in general don't know. It takes time to adjust and some people won't do it very well.
 
Maybe. But maybe not as fast, either. Maybe better long-term (without kolkhozes to create additional difficulties). Who knows (it's rhetorical - nobody really does).

In any case I am only speaking chronologically and historically. The Stolypin reforms weren't nearly as wide-ranging or as fast as people seem to think they were, and Russia's problems were piling up quite rapidly. Which sort of explains why things went the way they did.

Land reforms usual take decades to implement, the Stolypin reforms was only in its early phase. But it had a potential to have changed Russia radical if it had been fully implemented. The increase in productivity was only a small part, the biggest change was the greater mobility it would have created. One of the reasons for the low migration from rural to urban areas, was that it was next to impossible for peasants to sell their land, because it was collective owned. If the reforms was fully implemented Russia would have seen much greater migration to urban areas. Russia should really have implemented the reforms decades earlier.
 
Land reforms usual take decades to implement, the Stolypin reforms was only in its early phase. But it had a potential to have changed Russia radical if it had been fully implemented. The increase in productivity was only a small part, the biggest change was the greater mobility it would have created. One of the reasons for the low migration from rural to urban areas, was that it was next to impossible for peasants to sell their land, because it was collective owned. If the reforms was fully implemented Russia would have seen much greater migration to urban areas. Russia should really have implemented the reforms decades earlier.

In any case it is hard to imagine it would do as much damage to Russian agriculture as the wholesale sabotage of the agricultural sector during collectivization. It took the USSR decades to recover from it.
 

Chaough

Banned
The average American's ethnic makeup would be much more WASP-y, and the whole idea of America as "a nation of immigrants" likely wouldn't exist. A majority of Americans would be 5+ generations in the country, and the predominant ancestry would likely still be English. Culturally, this would have huge ramifications.

America would also be more left-wing economically, as without foreign paupers disrupting the labor force and acting as scabs, unions are much more successful. American progressivism (the brainchild of WASP/Anglo-Saxon Americans) is more thorough, and it's like that prohibition remains in effect much longer. Furthermore, without large scale, ethnic immigration, there is significantly less crime in America. There are no Irish gangs nor Italian mafias.

The Midwest is severely underpopulated.
 
Corollary to this thread: What if the groups that did emigrate from the Russian Empire didn't, and the groups that didn't emigrate, did?

So a lot of Russians, Mongolians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Georgians, emigrate from the Russian Empire, while Russian Jews, Poles, Volga Germans, Lithuanians, and Finns stay in the Russian Empire, but settle new towns.
 
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