Would a Democratic Soviet Union butterfly the cold war?

"Soviet" refers to the workers' council system. You could have a Soviet Union that's governed by Mensheviks, who did a decent job in Georgia before the Bolsheviks curb-stomped them.

It wasn't a bad attempt by any means, but it was also an ethnic democracy. It was problematic enough in tiny Georgia, imagine the much larger and more diverse Russia.
 
"Soviet" refers to the workers' council system. You could have a Soviet Union that's governed by Mensheviks, who did a decent job in Georgia before the Bolsheviks curb-stomped them.
The only really plausible option is that the Mensheviks and SRs accept Lenin's proposal of an all (socialist) party soviet government. The resulting civil war is much shorter and more one-sided, leaving Russia quite a bit better off, with political violence being much more narrowly targeted on outright reactionaries. The Whites are pretty much uniformly Tsarist, or petty ethno-nationalist versions loosely allied with those who want to restore the Tsar.

The resulting Soviet Union is an authoritarian state that is still constrained by the norms of parliamentary government and grassroots democracy in the soviets and factory committees.
 
The only really plausible option is that the Mensheviks and SRs accept Lenin's proposal of an all (socialist) party soviet government. The resulting civil war is much shorter and more one-sided, leaving Russia quite a bit better off, with political violence being much more narrowly targeted on outright reactionaries. The Whites are pretty much uniformly Tsarist, or petty ethno-nationalist versions loosely allied with those who want to restore the Tsar.

The resulting Soviet Union is an authoritarian state that is still constrained by the norms of parliamentary government and grassroots democracy in the soviets and factory committees.

And Bolsheviks won't kick ass Mensheviks from goverment when they defeat whites and consolidate their power?
 
And Bolsheviks won't kick ass Mensheviks from goverment when they defeat whites and consolidate their power?
Why would they? They'd all have their own intertwined power-bases. The consolidation within the Bolshevik Party during and after the Civil War took over a decade, and it was hardly pre-ordained. It was fought by different factions of the party every step of the way.
 
I think it WOULD butterfly it to something seriously different IMHO, it'd be more of a competition, like with Japan, with no proxy wars ans smaller arms buildups.

One possible path would've been, if the Mensheviks had won AND not reneged on their promises (Trotsky wasn't the most trustworthy of men), they likely would've gone capitalist after starvation and the necessary change of party.

The Soviets voluntarily deimperialized in Gorbytime. I think in TTL, they'd likely've signed and acted on the antiimperialistic Atlantic Charter around WW2; after all, even Britain did, to their credit.

And, Communism was pretty low on Hitler's excuses for grabbing power; don't I remember something vaguely about Jews maybe? AntiCommunism was more foreign policy, reasons for the Axis. I also think Hitler was pretty talented at adapting.

There's still an antagonistic relationship in play, just the rhetoric got slightly toned down (it's less about MAD and more about fermenting internal collapse now).

Oh, yeah? Then, why were we all buddy buddy with the Yeltsin Administration? We were friendly enough to change the ISS plans seriously to add Russia, to help prop up their space institutions.
 

abc123

Banned
A democratic Soviet Union leading to the exact same conditions in 1948 (or 1945, 1943, 1917, whatever) is more or less ASB. But yes, despite the idealism of liberal internationalists, in that environment the Cold War would still occur.

Yep, after all, Soviet Union was widely known in the West as Russia, and containing of Russia was old Western doctrine...
 
Yep, after all, Soviet Union was widely known in the West as Russia, and containing of Russia was old Western doctrine...

It was old British doctrine..... until 1907. The US weren't engaged in any anti-Russian alliances until 1919 (and that was ideologically caused), France threw Anti-Russian sentiments overboard in the 1890s. Germany/Prussia had an on/off-relationship with Russia after 1890 until now, beforehands, Prussia was Russia's firm ally throughout the 19th century. Unless Russia's politics don't fall to wildly expansionist right-wing politicians (Hitlerowski or Mussolinowitsch?), I do not see much need for conflict on a global scale (small scale action to consolidate the borders, esp. in Asia, might be possible and tolerated).

As long as this alternate Russia / Soviet Union is neither

a) Communist
nor
b) lets its soldiers march through Warsaw, Beijing, Stockholm, Bukarest, Bagdad or Istanbul

there is no automatic line leading to a Cold War, or even to a bipolar alliance-system in Europe (let alone the world).

Also, such a Russia would be a Great power, doubtlessly, but without the ideological implications of being the Communist superpower, it would hardly be a global power meddling in Cuba, Angola or other very remote places. They would safe that efforts...
 
Would a Democratic Soviet Union butterfly the cold war?

No. The Cold War was a fairly direct consequence of events resulting from the Soviet Union being what it was.

It was not an event contingent on randomizable circumstances likely to be altered by the PoD.

In the first place, a "democratic" Soviet Union probably means no World War II, or a very different World War II. It may well lead to no Nazi takeover of Germany, by its effect on the political dynamics of the Weimar Republic. It could lead to a successful alliance between the USSR and the Western Powers against Germany, or prevent the Soviet-German pact which allowed Germany to start the European war.

Supposing all these things were got past, and the war happens. It will be fought differently. If the Soviet Union is democratic, then presumably it is also less oppressive and not controlled by the whims of a single paranoiac. The Soviet army could be smaller - but not likely to be weak, and won't have its senior ranks purged, and won't be ordered to ignore all the signs of a coming German invasion. Soviet citizens will be more loyal to a regime that doesn't starve and murder them, and won't desert to the enemy by the hundreds of thousands. The Soviet Union won't invade Finland or the Baltic States, which will remain neutral.

All these outcomes are knock-ons, not butterfly effects.
 
Oh, yeah? Then, why were we all buddy buddy with the Yeltsin Administration?

Uh... I don't think he was talking about the Russian Federation in the 1990's or even today. He was referring to this hypothetical "Authoritarianish-Democraticish" Soviet Union/Russian Republic in the mid/late-1940s. Two completely different situations...
 
Uh... I don't think he was talking about the Russian Federation in the 1990's or even today. He was referring to this hypothetical "Authoritarianish-Democraticish" Soviet Union/Russian Republic in the mid/late-1940s. Two completely different situations...

No, I really was talking about the actual historical RF (though perhaps overstated the case by a strong degree). Even so, the effective Yeltsin-era level of cooperation was not much greater than with Perestroika-era USSR and stopped the moment it looked like RF wouldn't be a viable economic colony.

I guess that IS the other alternative, but OP specifically didn't ask for a frozen banana republic.
 
No. The Cold War was a fairly direct consequence of events resulting from the Soviet Union being what it was.

It was not an event contingent on randomizable circumstances likely to be altered by the PoD.

In the first place, a "democratic" Soviet Union probably means no World War II, or a very different World War II. It may well lead to no Nazi takeover of Germany, by its effect on the political dynamics of the Weimar Republic. It could lead to a successful alliance between the USSR and the Western Powers against Germany, or prevent the Soviet-German pact which allowed Germany to start the European war.

Supposing all these things were got past, and the war happens. It will be fought differently. If the Soviet Union is democratic, then presumably it is also less oppressive and not controlled by the whims of a single paranoiac. The Soviet army could be smaller - but not likely to be weak, and won't have its senior ranks purged, and won't be ordered to ignore all the signs of a coming German invasion. Soviet citizens will be more loyal to a regime that doesn't starve and murder them, and won't desert to the enemy by the hundreds of thousands. The Soviet Union won't invade Finland or the Baltic States, which will remain neutral.

All these outcomes are knock-ons, not butterfly effects.

So what is a butterfly effect?
 

Esopo

Banned
No. Any socialist great power will be besieged by the capitalist nations, if there are not big conflicts among them.
 
No. Any socialist great power will be besieged by the capitalist nations, if there are not big conflicts among them.

Define "socialist power." Is Hollande's France "besieged" by center-right governments in the UK, Germany and Spain?
 
So what is a butterfly effect?

A "butterfly effect" is when a PoD affects later events that would be affected by the most trivial circumstances.

For instance, the conception of any given human being is the result of one sperm among thousands or millions reaching the egg first. Any change at all in the circumstances is likely to result in a different sperm winning the race, and a different person being born. This alternate person has a 50% chance of being of a different sex; but even a sibling of the same sex may be very different.

Another would be the death or life of the survivors or casualties of a war fought with missile weapons, particularly muskets and later. Many famous men survived lots of potentially fatal near-misses. Others were killed by stray rounds. Any slight change in circumstances would redirect a lot of bullets.

Such things are unpredictable. What is certain is that any PoD will cause circumstantial changes producing vast numbers of butterfly effects, which themselves will cause vast and unpredictable changes. Within a relatively short time, butterfly effects will replace all OTL persons not yet conceived with analogs.
 
RGB wrote:
No, I really was talking about the actual historical RF (though perhaps overstated the case by a strong degree). Even so, the effective Yeltsin-era level of cooperation was not much greater than with Perestroika-era USSR and stopped the moment it looked like RF wouldn't be a viable economic colony.
Give it up. Our cooperation on space continued until Yeltsin's tude turned out to be against us and his rule even less democratic. And we still cooperate on nuclear issues and and trade alot. Why so cranky about it? Did I kill your sister or something?
 
Give it up. Our cooperation on space continued until Yeltsin's tude turned out to be against us and his rule even less democratic. And we still cooperate on nuclear issues and and trade alot. Why so cranky about it? Did I kill your sister or something?

If it was Yeltsin's fault why did you guys continue to prop him up, huh? Why all the tear-shedding in western media when the bastard croaked? And it's not like USSR and the rest of the world didn't trade.

;)

Whatever, this thread probably deserves a more serious and more on-topic discussion, and I'm going to leave it to people who really care about the 1920s situation.
 
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