WI: Menshivik Russia

What would the effects be if the Menshiviks were able to become the ruling political faction of the USSR? How would it effect Russian Industrialization? WW2? and the post war world?

Now I'm still of the opinion that WW2 is still going to happen since one of the biggest reasons Hitler got into power was on the fear of a communist takeover of Germany and the fear of the influence (real or imagined) of the Soviet Union. Russia is still communist in this scenario and Hitler is still going to want to destroy Communism.
 
I'm not sure I agree with your premise "Russia is still Communist". (Here, I must confess ignorance of the exact differences between Mensheviks & Bolsheviks.) My sense is, the Mensheviks were very socialist, but less radical. I could see Russia being more like, IDK, Sweden? Or perhaps Canada?:p Does Hitler still have aims to attack Russia? Probably. Does Poland still distrust Russia enough to refuse to allow Russian troops passage? Certainly. Do Britain & France make a deal with *Russia to stop Hitler in '38? I would believe it.
 
The Mensheviks believed Russia needed to go through a "bourgeoisie phase" before Communism could begin.

Would their government even be recognized as Communist?

The Mensheviks did run Georgia for awhile before the Bolsheviks conquered the area, so that might be useful as a model for how a Menshevik government would look.
 
A Menshevik USSR is probably going to be a lot less threatening than a Bolshevik one, so whether there's the critical mass of anti-Communism needed to propel Hitler into power is debatable.

The OTL USSR was a terrorist state that supported foreign Communist movements. TTL's USSR might be a giant Sweden.
 
The OTL USSR was a terrorist state that supported foreign Communist movements.

I wouldn't go as far to call them a terrorist state, that's a loaded statement with a number of implications.

Menshevik Russia would be willing to cooperate with bourgeoisie to achieve their aims, which means they'd include a number of elements from Russian society (probably ranging from former aristocrats to hard-line Bolshevik defectors that the Mensheviks would need to win). With bourgeoisie elements more prevalent, it's entirely possible that Russia would simply go capitalist as a developing phase but remain in it.

Also important to note that the USSR didn't exist until the Bolsheviks created it. The USSR wouldn't exist with the Mensheviks and we'd see a different entity or one that included Ukraine and Belarus.
 
At first glance, Menshivik Russia would probably evolve along the lines of Lenin's New Development Plan of "state capitalism", and just never break away from it as in IOTL. As far as how Russia would develop, frankly I think it would balkanize since the Bolsheviks had numbers on their side; IMHO the theory that they wouldn't end up in power somewhere is highly suspect.
 
After a decade or so it would probably look like China does today; a oligarchical authoritarian state under the guise of communism but decidedly capitalist.
 
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This is an interesting scenario. If I remember rightly wasn't Trotsky a Menshevik before the 1917 revolutions?

Britain and France will probably consider themselves more ideologically alligned with a Menshevik Russia than communist one, so I doubt that World War II would happen ITTL. It's likely that Hitler wouldn't rise to power anyway with the fear of communism less acute, but even if he did, for the above reason he'd likely find himself surrounded at the very start.
 
I wouldn't go as far to call them a terrorist state, that's a loaded statement with a number of implications.

How about oulaw state, then? Bolshevik propaganda encouraged uprisings against the rest of the world's governments, and the Reds sent hit squads abroad to kill/kidnap prominent anti-Bolsheviks from the Civil War era.

A Menshevik government wouldn't have been as confrontational to the west as the Bolsheviks, but would have made similar land reforms internally.

The Bolshevik/Menshevik split was originally over whether decisionmaking power would be concentrated in the hands of a small number of party activists (Bolshevik position) or whether the outer party would also have a role.
 
While the Mensheviks (who might not be called that; the terms seem tailor-made for Bolshevid propaganda) would not be so egregiously isolate and troublemaking, there's still going to be a lot of hostility among British and US leaders who don't have the advantage of knowing just how much worse it could have been.

In the longer term, here in the US the Socialism=Communisim=BAD meme, which has been so useful to some people in politics, might not exist.:)
 
...Menshevik Russia would be willing to cooperate with bourgeoisie to achieve their aims, which means they'd include a number of elements from Russian society (probably ranging from former aristocrats to hard-line Bolshevik defectors that the Mensheviks would need to win).

Of course, OTL the Bolshevik Soviet Union eventually also did recruit back a great many conservative elements, into the Army for instance, on patriotic grounds, as well as for a time getting help from Western corporations, notably German and American ones. So actually this particular variation is a bit of a push, plus of course insofar as Mensheviks would be more open to compromise with bourgeois elements to begin with it is more likely they'd simply become essentially bourgeois in all but name. The name would indeed be sufficient to make trouble for them with more reactionary Western elements, the capitalist content would weaken their grip on the broader populace and make them that much more tempting a target for Hitler and his ilk; probably overall development would be less (despite the acknowledged horrible inefficiency of the various phases of OTL Soviet development!) and national morale would be weaker (despite the incredibly deranging effect of Stalinist terror OTL!)

So far then, a weaker Russia that may or may not call itself Soviet.

The USSR wouldn't exist with the Mensheviks and we'd see a different entity or one that included Ukraine and Belarus.

Of course the OTL USSR certainly did include both Ukraine and Belarus--not from the get-go to be sure, but by the time the term "USSR" was coined they'd been reincorporated already. On paper they may or may not have been legally "independent" at that point (and the Union was supposed to be a voluntary federation:rolleyes:) but real power lay in the Bolshevik Party, which on paper may also have been confederal but in practice was ruthlessly centralized in Moscow; with the Party of each element of the "confederation" completely subordinated to the Kremlin, the nominally independent member states were de facto part of one big state, a state fully subordinate to one de facto Party.

At first glance, Menshivik Russia would probably evolve along the lines of Lenin's New Development Plan of "state capitalism", and just never break away from it as in IOTL. As far as how Russia would develop, frankly I think it would balkanize since the Bolsheviks had numbers on their side; IMHO the theory that they wouldn't end up in power somewhere is highly suspect.

THIS! (the bolded part). To be sure, while securing the loyalty of those they defined as "workers" (industrial workers) was not the largest potential power base (that would be the peasants, who were more the turf of the Social Revolutionaries than the Mensheviks anyway) the industrial workers were strong out of proportion to their numbers because (per Marx's class analysis) they were both accustomed to organization and adaptable to more modern methods; in addition to that they had a special level of grievance with the old regime (in early Marx terms, they were "alienated"). In Russia, they also had a bit of an in into the peasant villages too because most of them had come from villages and retained family ties there. The claim of the Bolsheviks to be a party of the workers AND peasants was always a bit weak on the second part, but with rivals cut off they could claim it with some conviction. If the peasants could not achieve organization and a program to hold the Bolsheviks in check then they more or less fell to Bolshevik power; with industrial workers and peasants lumped together the Bolsheviks had a claim on the loyalty of the vast majority of all Russians (all residents of the former Tsarist empire lumped together that is).

So for the Mensheviks, for instance, to have something like those same numbers on their side, the POD needs to go back well before WWI, to show how they got traction with key elements of both these classes, because a complete hegemony over all other classes put together would not amount to much!

OTL, the Mensheviks essentially stood on air, with no solid base to speak of anywhere substantial. A number of them served in the Provisional Government and this shows where their "basis" such as it was really was--intellectual parlor classes. They talked a good game and looked like the sort of reasonable socialists that anti-socialist ruling classes forced to interface with an inconveniently strong and self-conscious socialist mass identity would pick as their go-betweens.

Thus, to speak of a Menshevik Red (or at any rate pinkish) Russia to my ears means either we have very different Mensheviks with a very different program that actually gets down and dirty with real workers and peasants and does so long before 1914 (say, during the 1905 Revolution, and pays severe legal and social prices for having done so in the interim) or else we are talking about essentially a White Old Regime restoration, but one gifted with astuteness (that would be ASB given the track record of OTL White leadership!:p) that persuades the returning capitalists, landlords, and other Old Regimists that they'd better wrap their essentially capitalist and authoritarian old order in a new and nominally democratic Red blanket; the Mensheviks might be included in this, along with the more obvious choice of handpicked Social Revolutionaries, the party of the countryside peasantry (and the party that OTL Kerensky decided to attach himself to).

I've learned a few lessons in my months here at AH about not simply dismissing an OP as being flat impossible; but I leave it to others to suggest how such an improbable political alliance could come into being and pre-empt Bolshevik street cred. It seems likeliest if the Bolshevik program is completely abortive and the Mensheviks wind up filling some of the vacuum. I'm not attracted to work out how it can go because my feeling is, bad as the OTL was this unholy alliance would be worse.:rolleyes:

This is an interesting scenario. If I remember rightly wasn't Trotsky a Menshevik before the 1917 revolutions?

He was, and it cost him all the rest of his life. However, he burned all his bridges to that past in the summer of '17 and came over to Lenin's side completely, being convinced that the Bolsheviks had logic as well as numbers on their side--that they had numbers and organization because their logic was better.

Britain and France will probably consider themselves more ideologically alligned with a Menshevik Russia than communist one, so I doubt that World War II would happen ITTL. It's likely that Hitler wouldn't rise to power anyway with the fear of communism less acute, but even if he did, for the above reason he'd likely find himself surrounded at the very start.

Well, it all depends on how "red" the postwar Russian regime is seen as being. As other posters have pointed out, it won't matter how sweet and innocent and puppylike the ITTL "Reds" are compared to OTL; they'd still be seen as an existential threat by reactionaries the world over and probably treated as pariahs, unless the "Menshevik" aspects are so cynically mere trappings covering an essentially reactionary old regime restored in all but name. But in that case, Russia will be very weak, with a highly restive and unstable set of working classes both peasant and industrial, all angry at being cheated of their worker's state that nearly came within their grasp--again they won't know about Stalinist purges and forced collectivization and all that in some ghostly other timeline, they'll assume everything would have worked out splendidly for them. I've gotten into catfights before about Russia's development potentials along essentially capitalist lines; I'll just say that personally I am unconvinced by claims that Russia could prosper without some sort of radical regime to more or less force development along very unorthodox lines. So in some combination, this alternate Russia is either very weak, unstable, undeveloped and hence a tempting target for conquest, or it is radical in some fashion and hence is an uncomfortable bedfellow for these Western powers. Either way, a Hitler or someone like him could very well be organizing another German attempt on looting the place and we will judge the regime by how well placed it is to stop that.
 
I think before we answer this, we need to know: which Mensheviks? The Mensheviks originally counted one Leon Trotsky as one of their most prominent members, yet by the eve of the October revolution they had formed a coalition with the non-Marxist peasant-based Socialist Revolutionaries and the bourgeois liberal Constitutional Democrats. As Merry said, these tendencies were apparent from 1905 onwards, but the party unquestionably drifted to the Right during this time. Thus, the outcome of the Mensheviks "taking power" could range from very similar to the Bolshevik takeover, but with a slightly more open Party structure (the "Trotsky" outcome) to a continuance of the Provisional Government with a Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary coalition, in other words a parliamentary political system combined with pro-peasant land reform and a measure of worker's control and nationalisation, but essentially a bourgeois liberal republic (the "Dan" outcome).
 
As far as I understand it, the Mensheviks had a much higher support among the workers then the Bolsheviks before the war and were in controll of most Soviets unitl 1917. Their eventual downfall was mostly because they supported the Provisional Goverment and were painted as responsible for the prolongation of the war by the Bolsheviks.

But (appart from national minorites) they never had much support among the peasantry and therefor did poorly in the 1918 election.
A democratic leftist Russia was possible, but it would have been run by the SRs (who won the election) not by the Mensheviks.

I envison the following scenario:
The Ms never support the Provisional Goverment and stay in firm control of the Petograd Soviet.
When an rightist coup attemp occurs (Kornilov, or after a republican constitution is made) they are instrumental in defeating it. A civil war against the whites ensues (maybe with Bs and/or Anarchists as a weaker third faction) and the Menshevik Military Revolutionary Comitee considers itself forced to take over the goverment and suspend the constitutional assembly.

they even had a Georgian with an impressive mustache:
Irakly_Tsereteli.jpg

Now in the drivers seat the Ms should have no problem to dominate all Soviet Congresses and Executive comitees. They should also get more support from the SRs & national minorities than the Bs did OTL, allowing them to win the civil war .

This leaves them as the rulers of Russia. As a free election would likely remove them from power (see above) they don't hold one.

Now what would a M. Russia be like:
-Something like NEP from the start gradually moving toward 2000s-China style controlled capitalism (even the Bs actually experimented with public private joint-ventures before the civil war). -> quicker economic development although maybe weaker heavy industry
-Better relations with western revisionist marxists (Labour, SFIO, SPD), maybe close cooperation with SPD ruled Germany and Kumniodang China. Probably still hated by western right.
-More real autonomy for minorities
-Abuses like executions of politcal prisoners & the persecution of the church could still happen (war is hell and the spanish socialists behaved little better than communists & anarchists) but are more likly to chease once the civil war is over.
-A voluntary transition to a democratic or semi-democratic goverment after a few years - decades is possible. Maybe something Iranian or late Franco style: Free Elections but only independent candidates and "tame oppositon" (Bundists, Left SRs, Bs if they never tried anything) allowed to run, some revolutionary comitees still controlling military & judicary and vetting all candidates for political offices.
 
After a decade or so it would probably look like China does today; a oligarchical authoritarian state under the guise of communism but decidedly capitalist.
but wasnt that what the OTL USSR turned into as well?

its been my understanding that the mensheviks were moderate communists while the bolsheviks were more radical (correct me if im wrong). assuming the bolsheviks arent as powerful or never come to power for one reason or another, maybe the mensheviks would rise to power some other way. iirc, russia was on its way to becoming a constitutional monarchy IOTL when lenin came to power, so maybe instead of staging a violent revolution, the mensheviks will instead have a more democratic approach, using numbers to place themselves in power in teh duma and get a menshevik PM?
 
Shevek23,

Thank you for some background information on that timeframe in Russian history. I'll try to come up with some questions, but you covered it too well:D
 
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