WI: Russian Provisional Government agrees to sue for peace in March 1917

Zarkar

What if, after the February Revolution, Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet agreed to sue for peace in March 1917?

Germany wouldn't have to send Lenin in April 1917, would they?

Would Russia thrives or would a Soviet Coup still happens?
 
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Remitonov

Remitonov

mendaix said:
I'm sorry I made a huge mistake posting it here, is there anything I can do to move it?
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Just report your own opening post (button on the bottom left of the post) and ask for it to be moved to Post 1900s in the commenrs. The mods will do the rest.
 
HelloThere

HelloThere

If the Provisional Government accepts a humiliating peace treaty, the Bolsheviks can probably use the public rage to promote a "neither war or peace"-strategy. Going to the peace table was not an instant-win-button for the PG, far from it.
 
King Nazar

King Nazar

Unless Germany is willing to offer 1914 borders, Russia is not going to withdraw from the war on its own. It knows negotiating with Germany on its own will lead to some very harsh peace terms that would lead to a coup or another revolution in Russia.

Also the members of the provisional government believed that the war could be won so pulling out of it was not really something that they would want to do.
 

Noblesse Oblige

King Nazar said:
Unless Germany is willing to offer 1914 borders, Russia is not going to withdraw from the war on its own. It knows negotiating with Germany on its own will lead to some very harsh peace terms that would lead to a coup or another revolution in Russia.

Also the members of the provisional government believed that the war could be won so pulling out of it was not really something that they would want to do.
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In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But then, the only smart move was never to play the game.
 

David T

mendaix said:
What if, after the February Revolution, Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet agreed to sue for peace in March 1917?
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It is difficult to overstate how impossible this is. As I have noted here before at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/kerensky-ends-the-war.468931/#post-19019193

"(In particular, in the weeks following the February Revolution, the mood in the country would be violently against it. Sukhanov, a left-wing "Zimmerwaldist" Menshevik wrote with regret that "During the first weeks the soldiers of Petrograd not only would not listen, but would not permit any talk of peace. They were ready to lift up on their bayonets any uncautious 'traitor' or exponent of 'opening the front to the enemy.'" (Quoted in Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks, p. 325. https://books.google.com/books?id=TdCK1WkconkC&pg=PA325; see https://books.google.com/books?id=6-D_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA202 for a slightly different translation...)"
 
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