WI: The February revolution fails narrowly, and the Tsar makes peace with Germany in March/Apr 1917?

[Max Sinister]

Reminds me of the joke:

German PoW in Russia: "Our kaiser is great. He visits the front every week."
Jewish Russian guard: "Our tsar is even greater. He doesn't even have to leave his palace, the front is getting closer to him every week."

 

[Tibi088]

Are we really that sure that the vast number of peasants were ant tzarist? Because afaik they were never asked. The revolution was a mainly urban thing and Russia I think was still a mainly rural country. Just to point out that statements that everyone wanted him gone are hard to check.

I think that if things went as OP proposed the tzar has a good shot at winning the inevitable civil war. Especially if workers and burgeoisie are fighting each other as well as the imperial troops. And if the civil war ends with the tsarist and burgeoisie are making an alliance at the end - communist revolts make this agood possibility - we might end up with an exhausted but much more stable Russia.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

Are we really that sure that the vast number of peasants were ant tzarist? Because afaik they were never asked. The revolution was a mainly urban thing and Russia I think was still a mainly rural country. Just to point out that statements that everyone wanted him gone are hard to check.

I think that if things went as OP proposed the tzar has a good shot at winning the inevitable civil war. Especially if workers and burgeoisie are fighting each other as well as the imperial troops. And if the civil war ends with the tsarist and burgeoisie are making an alliance at the end - communist revolts make this agood possibility - we might end up with an exhausted but much more stable Russia.

The SR's, who were the closest thing to a representative of peasant attitudes we have, were at the very least economically leftist in the sense they wanted land redistribution, and capitalist in the sense they wanted to sell their grain for the price they could get. I highly doubt your average Ivan spending his days in the potato fields had his opinion on weather or not Nicky was on the throne as particularly high on his list of priorities. Maybe he'd be a little happier if he was gone or a little sad if he was shot, but I don't think it'd be enough for Ivan to change his actions so long as the rest of life went on as usual.

However, your point on the army crushing the rebellion, especially if its pulled back in an organized fashion before the insurgents can coalese into a united military-political front, being very likely. Of course, it probably involves house to house fighting at the barricades if you don't want to shell your own cities and industrial centers to rubble...

 

[MichaelWest]

We saw the peasants vote with their feet, they simply redistributed land and abandoned the army as the revolution undid things, so that may be their sentiment. The Czar relied too much on a heavy hand to keep things in order so I doubt the average peasant felt any genuine loyalty, church and state and such proved rather thin until things were too far gone to salvage the old order. And an army filled with disgruntled peasant conscripts seems least suited to restoring order. Mutiny, looting, shooting the remaining officers, that might be the outcome if the army is relied upon. The best case I can think of is a palace coup, when the nobility gets the guts to kill Rasputin, they depose Nicholas and seat another more competent or popular Romanov who concedes that survival is far more important than France, Britain or the pride of a war well lost. I do not find Germany to favor a republican Russia so this might offer a path towards a reformed monarchy. Even if civil war erupts, at least the old order has a better figurehead and some semblance of legitimacy to counter the revolutionaries.