Russian civil war was started by the October Revolution by the Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin against the Duma's provisional government . The commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, General Lavr Kornilov attempted a coup d'état against the against the Russian Provisional Government headed by Aleksander Kerensky. Kerensky armed the Bolsheviks against to defend against Kornilov. The Army deserted Kornilov and the Bolsheviks used this opportunity to depose the Provisional Government. But What if there were no Bolsheviks ? POD is Hitler,Lenin,Trotsky,Stalin,Mussolini are killed before WW1.
Russian civil war without Bolsheviks
- Thread starter Ohfshkssgb
- Start date
Well, first of all, there's probably not going to be much of a civil war. Without the ideological titans that are Lenin and Trotsky, riling up enough Bolsheviks to win is going to be harder. There will be an uprising, of course - when exactly I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, it would go down the same way the failed revolution in Germany did. Lots of grievance and trouble, with little immediate effect... But before that, the actual bear in the room needs to be addressed:
The biggest wildcard here is whether or not the treaty of Brest-Litovsk occurs. If it doesn't, Germany will be even more overstretched - as even though the Russians basically collapsed, they weren't completely gone, and that big fat frontline has to be maintained somehow. The treaty OTL gave them some breathing room to redeploy troops to the western front. If the Russians keep fighting, even barely, this doesn't happen, and chances are that WW1 ends a few months earlier as a result. With Russia this time being on the "winners table".
OTL Imperial plans for peace involved, well, basically pushing the boundary of Germany to it's 1945 borders. Now, of course, it's a question of whether or not they could actually achieve this, and I'm pretty sure the other powers wouldn't let this happen, particularly the British (they wanted Germany weakened, but butchered lest the others grow too powerful). Germany, however, is going to come out of that with something at least as bad as the treaty of Versailles. And that means that attempted revolution led by Rosa Luxemburg might just succeed... A Central European USSR? That would be quite a thing to behold.
Russia, on the other hand, would fall strangely into a situation not too dissimilar to post-WW1 Germany except they won except skipping right past the somewhat liberal and dysfunctional stage straight into mild Hitler mode. They've won, but at a bad cost: the tsarist mismanagement ended in catastrophe, and then to think that the leftists wanted to sink the ship entirely? That antisemitism prevalent in the country would head into overdrive - now Kolchak, Denikin et al. who are bound to take the reigns basically immediately are no Hitler, but their immediate move will be to basically deport all of Latvia into Central Asia or Siberia or wherever. Any group viewed as disproportionately Bolshevik, which is basically everyone not "Russian" in the expanded sense (incl. Belorussians, Ukrainians, etc). This purge won't last too long, though - nothing like the Soviet comical levels of terror. No economic blunders either. Still, it will sour foreign relations with the other powers who are now decided moralists.
What is going to happen is that the rebuilding process will happen faster, and all those half-assed "reforms" of the Tsarist days will be supercharged. The combination of being true winners, but the conservative lethargy and their, well, conservativeness "poisoning" it will produce a weird sort of right-wing progressivism. I imagine Russia in this case would go into some weird form of technocracy to the fullest extent, as this was en vogue across the world at the time. It's good to remember that pre-revolution Russia was a hotbed for all sorts of strange ideologies, such as Cosmism. That's not to mention the fact that there would be no White emigration; all that talent will remain in the country - you'll have a Red emigration instead. And that's the tricky part.
See, the White emigres were pretty important in curtailing the spread of Communism, which was popular across the world - Western countries didn't want to fall into a situation similar to Russia, and the Whites were good examples of what happens, resulting in the many Red Scares... But now, that might just become inversed. Soured by the purges of minorities, leftists and whatever boogeymen Petrograd identified, combined with the Red emigres probably resuming their political activity, you might just get... Communists getting to power in elections, even. If not, a higher chance of revolutions.
Then there's the WW2 question. Germany will still be revanchist, perhaps even more so - but without Hitler to rally everyone into a frenzy, who knows what would happen? My personal bet: with the heightened popularity of the left across the world, and a big vacuum, the Strassers fill it. What happens afterwards is anybody's guess.
There are other unresolved questions: Poland (Russian, but probably at this point extremely unruly) and Turkey. Austria-Hungary is a lost cause, probably ending up the same way it did, except now, basically everything but Austria and perhaps Hungary will instantly fall within Russian influence. The Balkans will as well, no matter what they think. And this raises the question of Turkey. It's going to be quite a a mess this time, because unlike the other powers, the Russians will not take no for an answer. It's going to be the first post-war crisis nearly instantly. If they leave the Turks alone, they will loose their Balkan allies, especially Greece and Bulgaria (though Bulgaria might as well be forcibly integrated into a giga-Yugoslavia). Whereas at least the British would like to keep Germany around for if nothing else to act as a counterweight, at that point nobody gave a damn about Turkey, and wanted to carve it not much unlike the bird. A curious scenario indeed.
Basically, all in all, this ends up being a gigantic Russia wank. Even more so if the Bolsheviks fleeing the place manage to start revolutions across Europe. You just end up with Russia being a poorer, less developed US with much faster growth.
On the other hand, this is very much a post-1900 question.
The biggest wildcard here is whether or not the treaty of Brest-Litovsk occurs. If it doesn't, Germany will be even more overstretched - as even though the Russians basically collapsed, they weren't completely gone, and that big fat frontline has to be maintained somehow. The treaty OTL gave them some breathing room to redeploy troops to the western front. If the Russians keep fighting, even barely, this doesn't happen, and chances are that WW1 ends a few months earlier as a result. With Russia this time being on the "winners table".
OTL Imperial plans for peace involved, well, basically pushing the boundary of Germany to it's 1945 borders. Now, of course, it's a question of whether or not they could actually achieve this, and I'm pretty sure the other powers wouldn't let this happen, particularly the British (they wanted Germany weakened, but butchered lest the others grow too powerful). Germany, however, is going to come out of that with something at least as bad as the treaty of Versailles. And that means that attempted revolution led by Rosa Luxemburg might just succeed... A Central European USSR? That would be quite a thing to behold.
Russia, on the other hand, would fall strangely into a situation not too dissimilar to post-WW1 Germany except they won except skipping right past the somewhat liberal and dysfunctional stage straight into mild Hitler mode. They've won, but at a bad cost: the tsarist mismanagement ended in catastrophe, and then to think that the leftists wanted to sink the ship entirely? That antisemitism prevalent in the country would head into overdrive - now Kolchak, Denikin et al. who are bound to take the reigns basically immediately are no Hitler, but their immediate move will be to basically deport all of Latvia into Central Asia or Siberia or wherever. Any group viewed as disproportionately Bolshevik, which is basically everyone not "Russian" in the expanded sense (incl. Belorussians, Ukrainians, etc). This purge won't last too long, though - nothing like the Soviet comical levels of terror. No economic blunders either. Still, it will sour foreign relations with the other powers who are now decided moralists.
What is going to happen is that the rebuilding process will happen faster, and all those half-assed "reforms" of the Tsarist days will be supercharged. The combination of being true winners, but the conservative lethargy and their, well, conservativeness "poisoning" it will produce a weird sort of right-wing progressivism. I imagine Russia in this case would go into some weird form of technocracy to the fullest extent, as this was en vogue across the world at the time. It's good to remember that pre-revolution Russia was a hotbed for all sorts of strange ideologies, such as Cosmism. That's not to mention the fact that there would be no White emigration; all that talent will remain in the country - you'll have a Red emigration instead. And that's the tricky part.
See, the White emigres were pretty important in curtailing the spread of Communism, which was popular across the world - Western countries didn't want to fall into a situation similar to Russia, and the Whites were good examples of what happens, resulting in the many Red Scares... But now, that might just become inversed. Soured by the purges of minorities, leftists and whatever boogeymen Petrograd identified, combined with the Red emigres probably resuming their political activity, you might just get... Communists getting to power in elections, even. If not, a higher chance of revolutions.
Then there's the WW2 question. Germany will still be revanchist, perhaps even more so - but without Hitler to rally everyone into a frenzy, who knows what would happen? My personal bet: with the heightened popularity of the left across the world, and a big vacuum, the Strassers fill it. What happens afterwards is anybody's guess.
There are other unresolved questions: Poland (Russian, but probably at this point extremely unruly) and Turkey. Austria-Hungary is a lost cause, probably ending up the same way it did, except now, basically everything but Austria and perhaps Hungary will instantly fall within Russian influence. The Balkans will as well, no matter what they think. And this raises the question of Turkey. It's going to be quite a a mess this time, because unlike the other powers, the Russians will not take no for an answer. It's going to be the first post-war crisis nearly instantly. If they leave the Turks alone, they will loose their Balkan allies, especially Greece and Bulgaria (though Bulgaria might as well be forcibly integrated into a giga-Yugoslavia). Whereas at least the British would like to keep Germany around for if nothing else to act as a counterweight, at that point nobody gave a damn about Turkey, and wanted to carve it not much unlike the bird. A curious scenario indeed.
Basically, all in all, this ends up being a gigantic Russia wank. Even more so if the Bolsheviks fleeing the place manage to start revolutions across Europe. You just end up with Russia being a poorer, less developed US with much faster growth.
On the other hand, this is very much a post-1900 question.
Guys like Kerensky made it clear they wouldn't seek a separate peace deal with the CP, everyone except the Bolsheviks accepted that the war effort had to continue.
The Petrograd Soviet made it clear to the Provisional Government that they would not accept any expansion as they refused Imperialism so there is no way they're putting 1945 borders on Germany, they would have to accept to "only" return to pre-1914 borders with maybe an "international zone" around the Bosporus and Dardanelles.
By the point the Bolsheviks took over the country was ruled by Socialists in the Petrograd Soviet and in the Provisional Government itself (Kerensky was socialist). The Whites arrived in a position of prominence only after the October Revolution, after arresting all socialist in the Provisional All-Russian Government (the continuation of the Provisional Government) and declaring Kolchak "Supreme Leader of Russia".
Without Bolsheviks you would have social-democrats and social-revolutionaries running the show, the conservative parties were effectively dead by that point.
While Kolchak and co. were very conservative they won't send everyone to Siberia, they would have a very bad treatment of Jews but they aren't crazy, they don't desire to ethnically clean Russia from Ukrainians, Poles etc.
There still would be a lot of persons who emigrate due to bad post-war conditions in Russia and the nobility will still want to flee from Russia under the socialists, not to talk about the violence against them by the common people who want their revenge after decades of suffering, while immigration will be less than IOTL, it will still be significant.
After some fighting it will fall in Russian hands, IOTL 1919 Poland was much stronger and Russia much weaker and despite that it was on the verge of collapse, here the Russians will go after it immediately meaning it cannot consolidate its armed forces, aren't weakened by a destructive civil war and don't have other fronts to worry about.
Czechoslovakia while probably having good relations with Russia will not be firmly in the Russian sphere, they still have good relations with Italy, France and Britain.
Bulgaria is not in the Russian sphere and Greece always was outside the Russian sphere; and Romania didn't join Russia until 1917 which shows they aren't that much in the Russian sphere.
Imperialism was refused by the socialists, the only thing that it can try (and even then it isn't certain) is getting the Straits to be internationalized. A war between Turkey and Greece is still very likely, ITTL the Turks lack support from the RSFSR but the war could go either way.
Russo-Bulgar relations are already very bad so they are far from being allies but I don't see Bulgaria being forced into Yugoslavia.
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No the civil war inevitable without a victory in 1916. These was significant public opposition to the war. The Army will fight it because the Generals were unanimous in continuing the war. This will erupt into civil war.
There will definitely be a treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This forum forgets that Ukraine signed a seperate peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk. The Ukraine independence movement ensures that there will be a Ukraine in the Russian civil War. Then Russian military may not even operate on the Eastern front because of being too inside the country.
As Russia practically stop fighting the Central Powers rather fighting itself. It won't get anything from Central Powers. But it will have pay back loans to Western allies to remain part of global finance.
Rosa never stood a chance. Communists had too little public support. Unlike Russia German military opposition doesn't have problems of mass desertions and almost total lack of public support
White regime were unsustainable because of mass desertions and almost total lack of public support. They just don't military capability to rule Russia.
Emigres were irrelevant to Red scare. October Revolution just terrified the establishments in the rest of the world. All of them hated communism. Communists can't come to power in elections because the established parties will make concessions before things go too far. Revolutions are even less because opposition to communism out the Soviet union wasn't changed must by emigres and Communism too despised across the society regardless. If anything October Revolution inspired more revolutions across Europe.
But Bolshevik support was critical for the survival of Turkish military
All political parties in Russia apart from the Bolsheviks supported continuing the war which is what caused their downfall.
The RCW was a consequence of the October Revolution not the February one, despite all the flaws of the Provisional Government and Petrograd soviet they never had two separate armies that fought among themselves.
What Ukraine does or does not is irrelevant, the government in Petrograd was determined to continue the war and will not negotiate peace with the CP, the Bolsheviks were the only ones willing to because it was what allowed them to arrive in power and even they delayed signing peace as much as possible (with a very bad strategy that forced them in OTL peace deal).
Despite all the problems the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet were determined on continuing the war effort against the CP, having a separate peace deal like the Bolsheviks is very unlikely.
I still have doubts on the overextended Greeks to be able to establish long term control over Anatolia, the Turks won't surrender anytime soon. However they do have a better chance.
......won't be a thing.
Political disorders, where the Constituent Assembly does *not* solve all the national problems everybody hopes it would, will certainly be a thing.
Internecine political and social violence in Russia in the remaining wartime months and the postwar will be a thing.
Some episodes of armed uprisings here or there in the remaining wartime months or earlier postwar months are a possible thing.
....but not really a nation-spanning civil war, nor a takeover by a fresh armed faction.
Political disorders, where the Constituent Assembly does *not* solve all the national problems everybody hopes it would, will certainly be a thing.
Internecine political and social violence in Russia in the remaining wartime months and the postwar will be a thing.
Some episodes of armed uprisings here or there in the remaining wartime months or earlier postwar months are a possible thing.
....but not really a nation-spanning civil war, nor a takeover by a fresh armed faction.
You don't seem to know the left SRs
Kornilov disagrees with you
Doesn't if they are not on the Eastern Frontlines
Greeks weren't the only ones in Anatolia it was partitioned and the Turks can't fight the colonial powers without Bolshevik support
Look at the Mensheviks:
or at how willing Kerensky was to reach a peace deal with the CP.
He tried to do a coup d'état, he did not start the Russian Civil War, the Russian Civil war started after the October Revolution
??
The Greeks were the only ones who were really willing to send their armies in the heartland of Anatolia to fight the Turks.
That's also means it won't be the last coup d'état
I mean Russian military doesn't matter if it isn't on the Eastern front lines
Not really, guys like Brusilov weren't keen at all to coup the government and one thing that the Kornilov Affair showed is that the Petrograd Soviet is more than capable of fending off any coup attempts by the army, who enjoys basically zero support from the common soldiers.
It's obviously in a far from ideal position but it still is present on the Eastern front lines, and fact is that the Russian military isn't the only one who wanted to continue the conflict, had it been the case the Russians would've signed peace after the February Revolution.