A World War II without either Nazis or Communists: How realistic does this scenario look/sound?

[Futurist110]

I thought about a realistic way to create a World War II without either Nazis or Communists and I think that I might have come up with a magic formula for this. Anyway, how does this look/sound? :

Anton Denikin wins the Battle of Oryol in late 1919 and subsequently manages to conquer Moscow. St. Petersburg also falls once the Bolsheviks withdraw from there in an unsuccessful attempt to prop up Moscow. Anyway, once both Moscow and St. Petersburg fall, the Whites win the Russian Civil War and conquering the rest of Russia is simply a matter of scooping up the remaining pieces for them. Sometime over the next 15 years, possibly during the Great Depression, Russia experiences a slide into Fascism, with some Russian general and/or politician promoting a Russian version of Fascism that advocates for a giant Eastern Slavic state with a big tent/friendly attitude towards those minorities who are perceived as being capable of successfully assimilating (Tatars, Bashkirs, et cetera) and a hostile attitude towards those minorities who are perceived as being incapable of successfully assimilating (such as the Jews, who would have also been tarnished by the support of some or even many of them for the Bolsheviks as the lesser evil during the Russian Civil War). This Fascist Russia aggressively industrializes similarly to what Joseph Stalin did in real life and also rapidly builds up its military. By the 1940s (you decide when exactly between 1940 and 1949), Russia is ready to fight and to seek to undo the existing territorial order.

Fascist Russia sparks a pro-Russian uprising in Bessarabia and/or Bukovina sometime in the 1940s. This results in Europe being put on the brink of war and in a 1938 Munich Conference equivalent being convened, where Bessarabia and northern Bukovina are transferred to Russia as part of an agreement between Russia and the other Great Powers. Seeing its situation as being hopeless, Romania capitulates. But this doesn't permanently satisfy Russia's appetite. A year or two later, Russia sparks a pro-Russian Belarusian uprising in eastern Poland (the Kresy) sometime in the 1940s, which it then uses as an excuse to invade and outright annex the Kresy. This triggers an Anglo-French declaration of war against Russia. When the Polish government still refuses to make peace, Russia proceeds to conquer Poland all of the way up to Warsaw. Germany, which is led by an authoritarian right-wing military junta in this scenario as opposed to by Hitler (who was killed in the 1923 Munich Beer Hall putsch in this scenario), sees a golden opportunity to settle its border dispute with Poland once and for all and proceeds to invade Poland from the west and to reconquer all of its (Germany's) lost territories, with Germany expanding up to its former 1914 borders in the East (other than the Memelland, which remains Lithuanian, of course). The Anglo-French do not declare war on Germany in response to its aggression against Poland since they are currently busy with Russia.

After they declare war on Fascist Russia over Poland, the Anglo-French send a lot of their own forces to Poland's ally Romania through the Turkish Straits. (Romania also eventually declares war on Russia in order to protect its Polish ally.) In response to this, Russia gives Romania and Turkey an ultimatum: Romania must expel all of the Anglo-French troops that are stationed on its territory and Turkey must refuse to allow additional Anglo-French troops to move into Romania through the Straits. When both Romania and Turkey refuse to obey these Russian ultimatums, Russia declares war on both of them. I would presume that Russia can successfully conquer all of Romania, but I don't know just how successful it's actually going to be against Turkey, especially if the Anglo-French will be able to significantly prop up Turkey in this scenario.

Also, Russia decides to have a little fun: Specifically, it promises Afghanistan that it would be able to expand as much to the south at it would like at British India's expense if Afghanistan will enter the war on the Russian side. Russia also implies that it is not going to promise to respect Afghanistan's territorial integrity if Afghanistan will reject this Russian offer of alliance. Anyway, Afghanistan accepts this offer and proceeds to invade British India with Russian military assistance. So, a new front in this war has been opened up.

I don't know if the Russians and/or Anglo-French are actually going to be willing to open any new fronts in this war in Persia, but it's certainly very possible. My question is, of course, whether there would be anything that Russia would actually be capable of doing that would bring the US into this war on the Anglo-French side. Japan might still cause trouble in China and/or the Pacific, but I don't think that Russia would actually be willing to endorse Japanese aggression against the US for the very simple reason that it does not want to fight the US. Still, might FDR--or whoever his equivalent is in the US in this scenario--look for some sort of opening to not only aid the Anglo-French against the Russians, but also to serve as a casus belli for the US to itself declare war on the Russians?

Any thoughts on all of this? And what might the post-World War II peace settlement actually look like in this scenario? I'll be honest--I'm not sure that the Anglo-French can actually inflict a defeat on the Russians in this alternate World War II without direct US military involvement/intervention on their side in this war. But what exactly do you personally think about this? Thoughts?

 

[Futurist110]

For what it's worth, I would expect Hungary and Bulgaria to both ally with Russia due to their hunger for Romanian land. This could occur at the time of the Bessarabian crisis in this scenario. So, Russia gets Bessarabia and southern Bukovina, Hungary gets Northern Transylvania, and Bulgaria gets Southern Dobruja.

 

[innonimatu]

Looks like kind of a 20th century Crimean War. go for it, if the purpose is to make a civ scenario.

Some pieces look a bit strategically unlikely to me.
Why would this Russia attack Poland before finished the carving of Romania with Hungary and Bulgaria. Think Czechoslovakia, where both Hungary and Poland carved out pieces also after Munich.
And why would France and Britain sent troops to a Romania encircled by hostile powers? Strategically unsound. Hungary in particular would necessarily be revanchist and seen with extreme suspicion by the victors of WW1. Now if France and the UK brought in Yugoslavia to the alliance, they had a covered flank and alternative access to the sea. Would have to look at rail links between the two though...

War against the Raj from central Asia? Insurmountable geographical obstacles to any modern army, wouldn't even provide a distraction for the british. The Middle East straight south from the caucasus would be a better bet, attacking Persia if necessary. Cut off the british from the oil there.

 

[Lexicus]

The main issue I can see with this is (aside from the plausibility of some of the points of divergence such as the Whites winning the civil war) that it completely ignores Japan, and in the real timeline the Soviet shadowboxing with Japan in the Far East was highly significant, even to the point that the Soviets did not transfer their Far Eastern forces to defend Moscow itself until their intelligence network in Japan had assured them Japan was going to attack the Western countries rather than campaign into Siberia.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If the purpose of the Russian attack on Poland was merely to gain territory it lost in the 1920 war (assuming that
war and its result still occurred in the parallel timeline) why would Britain and France go to war with Russia?

If the war with Russia was prolonged, the British Empire might win by deployment of nuclear weapons around 1948.

 

[Wastl]

The main issue I can see with this is (aside from the plausibility of some of the points of divergence such as the Whites winning the civil war) that it completely ignores Japan, and in the real timeline the Soviet shadowboxing with Japan in the Far East was highly significant, even to the point that the Soviets did not transfer their Far Eastern forces to defend Moscow itself until their intelligence network in Japan had assured them Japan was going to attack the Western countries rather than campaign into Siberia.

Yeah, Japan would definately have to be included in the picture. Though it is hard to say how their attitude towards a fascist Russia would have been. Historically, they did prop up some White Russians during the civil war. Their army moved up all the way to Lake Baikal, and tried to establish a buffer state in the region. With the Whites winning the war in this case, it would be the question whether they would get into disagreements with Japan over who should control the region, or whether the two would be friendly towards each other due to Japanese help in the civil war.


The latter is a myth though. The majority of Siberian forces moved throughout 1941 came in summer, with another wave in autumn. Virtually all of them were wiped out by the time the battle of Moscow had started. There were a handful of newly raised divisions from SIberia fighting near Leningrad, but that was about it. The information gained through Sorge didn't really do much, because Stalin didn't trust him.

The forces that helped halt the German advance on Moscow were actually freshly raised troops from mostly west of the Urals, not Siberians.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

The "Asian Front" could be the dog, rather than the tail in this scenario.

 

[Zardnaar]

WW2 in some version would still happen due to German revenge/reconquest desires and various nationalism issues caused after WW1.

May not have had the genocidal elements etc if historical WW2.

If Russia avoided the civil war it's probably even more powerful in this timeline.