If the White Army won...

[Tovarisch]

What do you think would have happened if the white army had won the Russian civil war?

I have some ideas

1. The white army finds a Washington-esque leader who manages to not execute a single person, while also forming a socialist democratic parliament and giving food and land to the peasants. If it's too good to be true though, it probably is, so the chances of this happening would be 1 to 10000000000000000000000.

2. The largely anti-semitic white army turns Russia into a fascist state and turns against all Jews and non-Russians. Millions of Jews, Uralic people, and Polish people are brutally killed and suppressed. Labor unions are banned, famines strike Russia, and peasants and workers are even worse off then under the Tsar. When WWII comes around, Nationalist Russian Republic joins with fascist Germany and Japan to f*** the entire world, including America.

3. The white army finds a cousin or nephew of Czar' Nicholas II who takes the throne undoes all of the progress made in 1917 and executes all communists who fought for the red army. Peasants and workers get nothing except famine. Waste of a perfectly good revolution.

What do YOU think would have happened?

[ColonelCossack]

Maybe the second, but I have no clue because I don't understand the politics of the Whites. Possibly the Third, or a mixture. Not the first though I don't think. But there's already a group for such things;
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=231

[Revolutionair]

Kill some reds, kill some Jews.

I don't know about Russia joining Japan in WW2 (assuming WW2 would still happen), nationalist('fascist') China was attacked by Japan. Why would a nationalist Russia be spared?

Fun fact: when nationalist China was attacked by Japan, Germany was still gifting it supplies and training.

'What would happen if the Catalan revolution would have prevailed and spread to France and inspire an anti-fascist revolution in Italy' is a more interesting question.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I don't see the point in writing "what if's..." and false, alternative history. These "what if"-scenario threads are tiring and too many.

The largely anti-semitic white army turns Russia into a fascist state and turns against all Jews and non-Russians. Millions of Jews, Uralic people, and Polish people are brutally killed and suppressed. Labor unions are banned, famines strike Russia, and peasants and workers are even worse off then under the Tsar.
I could be a troll and say... Didn't this actually happen? :laugh:
jk jk <3

[Blake's Baby]

What would have happened is a brutal counter-revolution.

On the upside, people wouldn't call it 'communism'.

[Bronco]

I'd imagine something similar to the Provisional Government would be re-established, they would need both financial and political support from the likes of the UK and USA who had given them assistance in the War so their system of government would probably try and replicate that of the West. I can't see Tsarism ever having been re-implemented again.


Maybe the second, but I have no clue because I don't understand the politics of the Whites. Possibly the Third, or a mixture. Not the first though I don't think. But there's already a group for such things;
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=231

That's because the Whites had no real politics, aside from anti-Bolshivism. They were a loose collection of Liberals, Conservatives, ultra-Rightists, and even Menshiviks and Social Revolutionaries, only united in their opposition to Communism, they were an incredibly motley army at the best of times which was probably a key factor in their eventual defeat

[Jimmie Higgins]

Whenever reactionary forces need to turn back a popular upheaval it gets ugly because there is really no other way to stop popular revolutionary sentiment. They may have needed to grant some reforms for land or whatnot just to try and settle some of the population, potentially creating a wedge to then isolate their opposition. But ultimately repression would need to be used to show who's boss. But who knows when it comes to specifics of a "what if" situation.

And yes, much of this did happen in Russia - because there was still a counter-revolution in my view, just an internal one rather than external.

[Искра]

If the White Army won...

http://thecimmerian.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/0ungern2my.jpg

... he would rule the world.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Stop being a bad boy and stealing from Cimmerian.com

[Ocean Seal]

Hopefully we would have a counter-counter-revolution.

[Omsk]

I dont like answering hypothetical questions,and this is especially hard to answer,as the revolution,victory in the civil war and the creation of the USSR were very important historical events in the 20th century,and it would be impossible to determine how would things play out if,as the thread suggests,the Whites won.

I can only go far enough and say that it would probably effect the revolution in Germany on a huge scale.European communists would probably launch more revolutions,in France,Poland and the Baltic states and Finland.

This should be moved to chit-chat.

[Seth]

It's difficult to tell, but for certain, if someone would go back to that time and give the whites some crucial intel so they win or whatever:

-It would have altered the entire 20th and early 21st centuries in general.

-Marxism-Leninism either wouldn't exist, or it would be a relatively minor tendency like Luxemburgism or left communism. For example there's no "Bela-Kunism" because Bela Kun's revolution failed (rosa's politics overlap with others so she's more well known). This means Trotskyism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, and all the little sects of post-Lenin Leninism would never have existed. No USSR, no Warsaw Pact, no Cuba, no China, no Albania, etc. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and co. might have because obscure, and people like Che Guevara and the Black Panthers would have just lived normal lives.

-Anarchism as you know it may or may not have been more prominent. Most likely if the Reds lost in Russia the Blacks would have lost too. In Spain it would have been awesome because the fascist block would very likely have never come into existence as it did in real life in reaction to the USSR, hence no aid to Franco from them, and as part of the above, no PCE.

-As part of the above, no fascism, no holocaust, no World War II. No Cold War. No Israel, Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. The "Arab Cold War" might have happened on a smaller scale between nationalists and conservative monarchists backed by the west. It wouldn't be called that. We might still call World War I the "Great War."

-Russia would have been ass and probably would have collapsed within ten years or so anyway. That power vacuum might have caused problems.

[Psy]

It's difficult to tell, but for certain, if someone would go back to that time and give the whites some crucial intel so they win or whatever:

-It would have altered the entire 20th and early 21st centuries in general.

-Marxism-Leninism either wouldn't exist, or it would be a relatively minor tendency like Luxemburgism or left communism. For example there's no "Bela-Kunism" because Bela Kun's revolution failed (rosa's politics overlap with others so she's more well known). This means Trotskyism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, and all the little sects of post-Lenin Leninism would never have existed. No USSR, no Warsaw Pact, no Cuba, no China, no Albania, etc. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and co. might have because obscure, and people like Che Guevara and the Black Panthers would have just lived normal lives.

-Anarchism as you know it may or may not have been more prominent. Most likely if the Reds lost in Russia the Blacks would have lost too. In Spain it would have been awesome because the fascist block would very likely have never come into existence as it did in real life in reaction to the USSR, hence no aid to Franco from them, and as part of the above, no PCE.

-As part of the above, no fascism, no holocaust, no World War II. No Cold War. No Israel, Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. The "Arab Cold War" might have happened on a smaller scale between nationalists and conservative monarchists backed by the west. It wouldn't be called that. We might still call World War I the "Great War."

-Russia would have been ass and probably would have collapsed within ten years or so anyway. That power vacuum might have caused problems.
The problem is that Japan was able to crush its communist movement early on yet still continued to shift to the right as the crisis of capitalism worsened in the 1930's. World War II would not have been avoided, as its roots was not a fight against fascism instead at its core was the capitalist ruling classes turning on each other with military conquest to save their own dwindling rate of profit.

[Seth]

The problem is that Japan was able to crush its communist movement early on yet still continued to shift to the right as the crisis of capitalism worsened in the 1930's. World War II would not have been avoided, as its roots was not a fight against fascism instead at its core was the capitalist ruling classes turning on each other with military conquest to save their own dwindling rate of profit.

The difference is that Japan was an autocratic society anyway. But my point is, without the USSR, fascism would likely not have taken root in Germany and Italy. Without an expansionist, fascist Germany, World War II as we know it wouldn't have happened. At very best there would have been a Pacific War with Japan, i.e. not a World War. And Japan probably would have gobbled up more of Asia than it did IRL.

[Psy]

The difference is that Japan was an autocratic society anyway. But my point is, without the USSR, fascism would likely not have taken root in Germany and Italy. Without an expansionist, fascist Germany, World War II as we know it wouldn't have happened. At very best there would have been a Pacific War with Japan, i.e. not a World War. And Japan probably would have gobbled up more of Asia than it did IRL.
Yet there still would have been a major crisis of capital and military adventurism still would have been seen as the solution.

[Blake's Baby]

The difference is that Japan was an autocratic society anyway. But my point is, without the USSR, fascism would likely not have taken root in Germany and Italy. Without an expansionist, fascist Germany, World War II as we know it wouldn't have happened. At very best there would have been a Pacific War with Japan, i.e. not a World War. And Japan probably would have gobbled up more of Asia than it did IRL.

We're discussing what would have happened if the Whites had won. What you're talking about seems more like 'if the Russian Revolution hadn't happened'.

If the Whites had won, Germany and Italy would still have felt thelselves disadvantaged over the terms of the Versailles Treaty (yes I'm aware Italy was on the winning side) and they would still have developed nationalist ideolgies to try to 'catch up' with Britain, France, the US etc, so WWII would have happened anyway.

The sides may have been different though.

[Искра]

Stop being a bad boy and stealing from Cimmerian.com
Hahahaha I just realised what are you refering to. Anyhow, I posted photo of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg... he was a such a badass.

From best comic ever:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JfGG7fU-Ro4/Rc9QO9WaL0I/AAAAAAAAAMA/3Qa6sONR338/s400/medium_mn_unger.jpg

Btw. WW2 would happen with or without USSR. It was an imprialist war just like WW1 and it happened because imperialist forces needed more markets. Russia, on the other hand, would probably be Czarist ancien regime and in the begining of war it would side with Germany to divide Poland, but later it would still end siding with US and Britain, because interests of Russian ruling class are in conflict with German.

[Red Rebel]

The Russian Civil War by Evan Mawdsley is probably one of the better historical accounts of the civil war. I guess two main scenarios would've happened either the social-democrats (Kadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, ect.) or a military dictatorship (Kolchak or Denikin) would've seized power. I'm inclined to lean towards the latter. A bourgeoisie civilian government wouldn't have been able to keep the lid on the revolutionary upheval or the war torn country. I'd venture to guess that Kolchak would've been the only person likely to stabilize the country temporarily.

Russia would've been an ally to the UK, France and USA because they would've had to prop up the regime. WWII would've gotten hazy because the League of Nations would've been different if Russia was allowed to be in it and industrialization/modernization would not of happen to the same scale; however, the end of Tsarism would have revolutionized the country reguardless. I highly doubt the Tsar would have survived with any political power.

Either scenario we would've seen white terror though.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

The Russian Civil War by Evan Mawdsley is probably one of the better historical accounts of the civil war.

No, I was told this and read it when I found a cheap copy. It's superbiased and makes little pretense to objectivity. Mawdsley actually refers to the Soviets as Sovdepiya, an anti-communist pejorative, throughout the book, from the opening pages onward.

He sounds a lot like Roman von Ungern-Sternberg.