Would falling to Red Army in 1920 have saved more lives in Poland thru 1955 than it costs?

Would falling to Red Army in 1920 have saved more lives in Poland thru 1955 than it costs?

  • Yes

    Votes: 16 43.2%
  • No

    Votes: 21 56.8%

  • Total voters
    37

raharris1973

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If the Red Army defeated Poland in 1920, taking control over at least all of former Russian and Austrian Poland, (and possibly all interwar Poland including Posen and the corridor), how bloody would the process of consolidating Communist rule have been?

I leave it open as to whether Poland becomes a Communist-ruled satellite of the Soviet Union or actually becomes a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

Should we expect Poland to experience a brutal collectivization in the late 1920s early 1930s? On the one hand, that is what Ukraine experienced, on the other hand, when Poland did become Communist in OTL it did not have such radical policies in the countryside.

Should we expect deaths related to actions of the Communist police state in Poland be at all comparable to Poland's wartime losses in OTL.

If there is a WWII fought over Central Europe even in this ATL, is it likely to be more or less bloody for the region's inhabitants than OTL's WWII?

Why so?
 

Deleted member 1487

Hard to say given the huge butterflies. Maybe if it prevented Hitler and WW2, which it might...or might alter history enough to end up with something worse. I think it is generally accepted that if the Poles lose the Battle of Warsaw and end up Soviet then Germany gets to wiggle out of the ToV and rearm to be the bulwark against Communism in Central Europe, as it is unlikely that the Allies would remobilize to fight the Soviets especially given the labor unrest at home in support of the Soviets. The internal situation within the USSR changes drastically if the USSR wins and Trotsky's brand of permanent international revolution might well be the order of the day, as the Soviets really wanted to link up with the German communists and get the aid of an industrial major power to develop the USSR as well as 'liberate' Marx's homeland, which was a bit of a 'holy grail' of sorts at this time during the early revolution. So we might butterfly Stalin's rise, perhaps get the USSR overextended, maybe have another war in Europe in the 1920s to deal with the USSR, etc. I do have a tough time seeing how the result would net us something as bad as Hitler, the Nazis, and OTL WW2, but who knows?

At the least though I'd expect some pretty heavy purges in 1920 and beyond of the nationalistic officer class, so things would get pretty bad early on, especially if it disrupted food production due to the fighting and extended the Flu Epidemic, which was dying out at the time. The question is what happens with Germany and whether the fighting extends into the rest of Central Europe and whether/when the Soviets get pushed out of Poland...and if that creates round 2 of the world war in the 1920s. I'm inclined to say the overall losses probably wouldn't be nearly as bad as what happened during WW2, but likely overall the losses could potentially be a lot worse than what the Soviets inflicted by themselves during the Soviet period of conquest/control of Poland (1939-41/1945-89).
 
Uhm.. Not sure people will be happy about Posen and the corridor . The Germans would jump in as would others.
 

raharris1973

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Uhm.. Not sure people will be happy about Posen and the corridor . The Germans would jump in as would others.

Who would jump in over Posen and the corridor specifically *besides* the Germans? I do not think seizing those territories (or even East Prussia) would be any more provocative to Britain or France than seizing Warsaw would be.

I think it is generally accepted that if the Poles lose the Battle of Warsaw and end up Soviet then Germany gets to wiggle out of the ToV and rearm to be the bulwark against Communism in Central Europe

Is it generally accepted? I imagine a loosening of restrictions on ground forces and internal security forces size, but the British remaining sticklers about naval limitations until the 1930s and the French being sticklers about Rhineland demilitarization. And they may feel more wary about a German air force, at least until the Soviets acquire a demonstrably substantial one.

If this situation happens (let's define the end state as things stabilizing in 1922 with the Russo-German border along 1914 lines, but with the USSR having former Austrian Galicia and there's no further war till the 1930) - what does Czechoslovakia's history and foreign policy look like?
 

Deleted member 1487

Is it generally accepted? I imagine a loosening of restrictions on ground forces and internal security forces size, but the British remaining sticklers about naval limitations until the 1930s and the French being sticklers about Rhineland demilitarization. And they may feel more wary about a German air force, at least until the Soviets acquire a demonstrably substantial one.

If this situation happens (let's define the end state as things stabilizing in 1922 with the Russo-German border along 1914 lines, but with the USSR having former Austrian Galicia and there's no further war till the 1930) - what does Czechoslovakia's history and foreign policy look like?
No one would tolerate Germany being conquered by the USSR. Britain would be in a panic if the Soviets were on the border of already unstable Germany, which just had a Communist Uprising and France would certainly not be getting any reparations if Germany were overtaken by the USSR. Poland too was her project and if Poland was gone Germany is the last frontier separating the Soviet military from a pretty politically left French working class, a fact not lost on the Allies. The Hungarian SSR had just been defeated too and the Czechs were pretty favorable to the Russians as it was, Red or otherwise (they helped block shipments from the Allies to the Poles). Britain as it was already understood it couldn't help Poland due to the working class revolt against sending supplies to the Poles, so used a combination of hollow threats to the Soviets, and pleading with the Poles to cut a deal ASAP even at the expense of giving the Soviets most of what they wanted in East Poland/Galicia. You have to understand that the Allied/Entente view of punishing Germany was only in a world in which the USSR had already been beaten and had given up on the policy of international revolution; it had been contained and a new order successfully established in Europe that was in part predicated on the Franco-Polish alliance, which was given weight by the Poles successfully defeating the Soviets and appearing formidable internationally and as a bulwark against the spread of Communism.

Czechoslovakia is a weird situation given how pro-Russian they are and how much they fear Germany...they might well go communist if the Soviets really put efforts in to overthrow the 'White' government (IIRC the Czechoslovak Legion was not liked by the Soviets and they helped provide a serious boost to the post-war government).
 
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Yeah, odds of the ToV getting revoked are pretty high. An alternative possibility is that some restrictions are kept around, but so many others are lifted that it doesn't really even matter. Either way, it's a dead letter. One can also expect Germany to reclaim the 1914 borders.

I'm a bit more dubious about there being a later war in the 1920s, even if Trotsky or some other Permanent Revolutionary minded fellow wins the power struggle after Lenin's death. Even they were interested in industrializing first, revolution exportation later. Now a war in the 30's or 40's... maybe. But who knows how the long term would work out or if a Polish victory is enough to get the Permanent Revolution camp to win out.

The poll needs a "maybe" option.
 
I agree with some of the other posters that if the Soviets take Poland the British and French will allow Germany to reestablish their 1914 eastern borders and (quietly) revoke a good chunk of the ToV. They'll allow Germany to rearm and bolster it's army but France will insist on a demilitarized Rhineland and the British will insist on the naval limitations. Reparations will be renegotiated to either a reduced amount or a more flexible billing schedule but I'm not sure if the war guilt clause will be removed or not. The Brits will be reluctant but see the strategic reasoning to do so while France will be furious but ultimately give in because even the most ardent German-hating French nationalist would rather see a strong German buffer between them and the Soviets than see Soviet soldiers on the Rhine. The loosening of the ToV could butterfly the rise of the Nazis (I don't think it'll butterfly the Nazis' existence but their rise to power since most of the ToV will be reversed).

There won't be a second world war in the 20's since the Soviets will be overextended after taking Poland (even more so if they integrate Poland into the Soviet Union instead of making it a Soviet puppet) but either in the 30's or 40's at the latest. As for the death count in Poland I think it depends on whether or not their incorporated in to the Soviet Union or not because the Poles will not want to be under Russian control again even if it's under new management and will probably revolt at least once with arms smuggled in from the West leading to a brutal Soviet retaliation and the collectivization will be more disastrous under the Soviets than under the Poles.

One question is if the Soviets are successful in Poland would they go after Finland next and if they do will they get away with it? If they do I can see the Swedes take the Aland islands with the blessings of Britain, France and Germany to prevent it from falling into Soviet control.
 
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