Russia in and after WW1

[arya126]

Well this thread is basically asking: Could Russia have held out longer in World war 1? After all, if they could have held out even a year longer, then germany would have been defeated anyway.

Also, I am assuming that its former allies of France and Britain declined to send troops to help them defeat the communists in their civil war because A) it was still during WW1, but B) after WW1 they were no longer allies in the minds of the west because Russia pulled out early?

So in retrospect, wouldnt it have been better for Tsarist russia to hold out one more year in WW1 in order to get eventual foreign aid against the communist revolutionaries?

If this all happened, russia had managed to hold out for another year, french and british aid was sent to Russia, and Tsarist Russia survived, then what would the world be like today? How would WW2 have been changed, the interwar period, etc.? Would the revolution have happened again (likely) and would it have succeeded again like in RL? Or would the revolution be out of Russia after being put down once?

And would Britain and france have been bothered to send support to Russia after WW1 even if they didnt pull out of the war? If they do, then do they send the men in military formations already from WW1, or would they merely send supplies and equipment left over from the war, etc? Do you think America would have sent anything?

 

[LightSpectra]

I don't think you fully grasp what the situation was like for Russia by the end of summer, 1917. First of all, the July Days meant that the government had essentially shut down, which meant the ability to supply the army (which was already suffering from severe munitions shortages anyway due to poor pre-war preparations on behalf of Vladimir Sukhomlinov) became near impossible. Second, the catastrophic results of the Kerensky Offensive also meant that morale had crashed to the point where officers couldn't give orders to their soldiers. So the enormous concessions at Brest-Litovsk wasn't just good will towards the Central Powers or whatever you think it was; it was the Germans dictating how much they'd tolerate Russia keeping its hands on.

The Russian army had collapsed by Autumn, and what eventually became the Whites and Reds were built from scratch (and a few fragments from the former imperial military).

So in retrospect, wouldnt it have been better for Tsarist russia to hold out one more year in WW1 in order to get eventual foreign aid against the communist revolutionaries?

Your chronology is mixed up. Tsar Nicholas abdicated in February, and the provisional government (Russian Republic) continued the war from there. The October Revolution of 1917 is when the Soviets took over, as a result of the breakdown of the provisional government during and after the Kerensky Offensive in July. The Soviets were the ones who signed the armistice that withdrew Russia from WWI; that was part of the Bolsheviks' political platform ("peace, bread and land").

 

[Dachs]

First of all, the July Days meant that the government had essentially shut down, which meant the ability to supply the army (which was already suffering from severe munitions shortages anyway due to poor pre-war preparations on behalf of Vladimir Sukhomlinov)

/me does a double take

I'm shocked that you, of all people, aren't bringing up Norman Stone's line with regards to war production in general and munitions in particular.

 

[LightSpectra]

/me does a double take

I'm shocked that you, of all people, aren't bringing up Norman Stone's line with regards to war production in general and munitions in particular.

Assuming you're talking about his 1975 book about the Eastern Front, I don't take any secondary sources regarding WWI older than 1991 as being factually reliable. (And that'll be true for the Western Front by 2018 when the French archives have been fully opened.) My previous post was going by this article:

In addition to its many other structural problems, Imperial Russia never developed an adequate infrastructure to supply its armies with the materials needed to fight a modern war. Entering World War I as the least-developed great power, its factories could neither compete with those of its enemies nor equal those of its allies, at least not in proportion to its wartime responsibilities. Chronic mismanagement in the top echelons of the government prevented Russia from reaching its full potential. Such related factors as weak war finance, poor railroad construction and maintenance, and political instability damaged the ability of Russia to build and stockpile armaments all the more.

Source

 

[Dachs]

Assuming you're talking about his 1975 book about the Eastern Front, I don't take any secondary sources regarding WWI older than 1991 as being factually reliable. (And that'll be true for the Western Front by 2018 when the French archives have been fully opened.)

That's foolish. What's right is right - doesn't matter when it was written. Plenty of stupid things have been written in scholarly articles and books since the end of the Cold War and plenty of quite solid foundational stuff was confirmed by the opening of archival material after the fall of the Wall and the demise of the USSR.

Indeed, the article you mentioned has two opposing arguments, and the one that disagrees with you employs Stone's work as a key buttress - while the one that backs you up employs tired, old characterizations like "Sukhomlinov = Bad Idiotic Incompetent Fuddy-Duddy, Polivanov = Modernizing Reformer of Quality and Merit" (something Stone himself notably exploded).

 

[LightSpectra]

That's foolish. What's right is right - doesn't matter when it was written. Plenty of stupid things have been written in scholarly articles and books since the end of the Cold War and plenty of quite solid foundational stuff was confirmed by the opening of archival material after the fall of the Wall and the demise of the USSR.

If an older text's thesis is confirmed by the opening of the Soviet archives, then post-1991 literature will reflect that. If I'm reading something from prior to that era without double checking it, then its accuracy is indeterminable.

Indeed, the article you mentioned has two opposing arguments, and the one that disagrees with you employs Stone's work as a key buttress - while the one that backs you up employs tired, old characterizations like "Sukhomlinov = Bad Idiotic Incompetent Fuddy-Duddy, Polivanov = Modernizing Reformer of Quality and Merit" (something Stone himself notably exploded).

"Tired characterizations" are they? I know of at least two modern historians that still accept the traditional view of Sukhomlinov.

 

[Traitorfish]

So in retrospect, wouldnt it have been better for Tsarist russia to hold out one more year in WW1 in order to get eventual foreign aid against the communist revolutionaries?

Setting aside the fact that Tsarism had already been overthrown by the time of the October Revolution, the Allied powers did just that. It didn't work because the Allied forces were poorly coordinated, lacking unified objectives and any over-arching strategy, because they lacked the capacity, will or home support to fully commit to the White cause, because the progress and eventual conclusion of the war meant that there was no longer the same pressing need to re-open the Eastern Front, and because Lenin could fly, breath fire, and shoot lasers from his eyes. Give or take some of the details, which I'm sure Dachs and LightSpectra can correct me on.

 

[aelf]

and because Lenin could fly, breath fire, and shoot lasers from his eyes. Give or take some of the details, which I'm sure Dachs and LightSpectra can correct me on.

The correct phrase is "consume his enemies with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse".

 

[Dachs]

If an older text's thesis is confirmed by the opening of the Soviet archives, then post-1991 literature will reflect that. If I'm reading something from prior to that era without double checking it, then its accuracy is indeterminable.

If post-1991 literature has covered everything in the archives - ha! - that might be a good line to take. Stone's book, while obviously flawed in some respects, is still one of the few places that puts a lot of relevant information in the same place.

"Tired characterizations" are they? I know of at least two modern historians that still accept the traditional view of Sukhomlinov.

Then they are wrong.

The correct phrase is "consume his enemies with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse".

Best line in the entire movie.

 

[W|M]

What would have happened if the Kerensky Offensive hadn't taken place?

 

[Traitorfish]

The correct phrase is "consume his enemies with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse".

 

[Ajidica]

What would have happened if the Kerensky Offensive hadn't taken place?

Short Answer: Not much.
Slightly longer answer: It would have harmed the Bolsheviks a bit, as alot of their support came from retreating soldiers and/or deserters from the Kerensky Offensive.

 

[History_Buff]

I'd say full-blown Allied intervention was never in the cards. If we assume the western front wraps up late in 1918, then Britain and France are already exhausted. Not merely in terms of morale and manpower, but in cash reserves.

Neither power was about to ship large armies to Russia, and then pay them to fight the reds. As much as they liked to play the Bolshevik-bogeyman card when it came to shaping Europe the way they wanted it, neither Britain nor France thought it was that big of a threat. They certainly recognized that having the Bolsheviks take over Russia was less dangerous than dragging out the way by intervening in Russia.

 

[Traitorfish]

As much as they liked to play the Bolshevik-bogeyman card when it came to shaping Europe the way they wanted it, neither Britain nor France thought it was that big of a threat. They certainly recognized that having the Bolsheviks take over Russia was less dangerous than dragging out the way by intervening in Russia.

That's true after 1919 or so, but in the first couple of years, at least until the German Revolution was concluded in favour of the Weimar government, there was a genuine terror among Western European governments. The British government even placed Glasgow under military occupation at one point, after a large trade union demonstration turned into a riot, because they genuinely believed that it could have escalated into full blown insurrection. It's simply that, as you say, they were powerless to substantially intervene in Russia, so they just had to try and contain it as best they could.