[albionfagan]

How do you think the history of Europe would have panned out? Let's say Germany was still defeated and the conditions of Versailles implemented..with the incorporation of Russian views of course. Would Nazism have come to the fore, it would have still have ruptured German pride but the threat of Bolshevism wouldn't have been there. Simiarly relations with the West would have been warmer and I assume Poland would have been considerably smaller...

Just a bundle of questions really, I realise it's all counterfactual but that's the great thing about history

[Smilin' Dave]

This sort of depends on how (and by who) the Bolsheviks were defeated. Are we to assume the Romanovs were able to cling to power (its a counter-factual so anything can happen...) or was it Kerensky? Or something else altogether?

[albionfagan]

I'm assuming Kerensky, I think the overthrow of the Tsar was inevitable once WW1 started and probably before. Bolshevik rule I don't think was inevitable

[Nattering Nabob]

Would Nazism have come to the fore,

I think there is a good case to be made that it would not have...wasn't much of Facism an over-reaction to Bolshevism?

Certainly many supported Facism who might not have otherwise because of a fear of Bolshevik sucess.

[Okonkwo]

wasn't much of Facism an over-reaction to Bolshevism?

Most certainly. One of the key strategies used by the Nazis in their overthrow of the Weimar Republic was utilising fear of a communist takeover (which was indeed not that far-fetched) that was prevalent in a large part of the German middle class, especially those of the religious kind.
I think that saying that there would have been no Hitler regime altogether would be taking this too far, but there would have been vastly different circumstances. Another thing: the social fascism doctrine that Stalin decreed in the 30s actually prevented the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) to join a broad anti-fascist coalition with the SPD (socialists/social democrats) and other anti-fascist movements. History would have been rather different.

[Smilin' Dave]

I think Nazism, Fascism etc. would still have arisen, but I doubt if that particular political configuration would have been as successful. Both movements had fairly deep roots (syndicalists, futurists, volkisch movement), but didn't take off until there was a red scare. Radical nationalism (rather than the implicit pan-nationalism of language, ethnicity or race) might have been the alternate radical position.

I'm assuming Kerensky, I think the overthrow of the Tsar was inevitable once WW1 started and probably before. Bolshevik rule I don't think was inevitable

Kerensky lacked the strength to hold the government together. I think continuing tension with the soviet councils and the military (like Kornilov) would have either crippled or destroyed the government. I suspect the result would be an extended series of low intensity conflicts in Eastern Europe. The loss of a single powerful local player would effect the balance and make it hard for any contestant to decisively resolve (or just clamp down on) the existing tensions. The loss of a Soviet menace might also remove a rallying point for some of the weaker autocratic regimes in the East, destabilising things further. Allied intervention might still have taken place, but more to protect assets from the ensuing chaos and maybe stake a claim/gain regional allies. Someone might even step in to prop up Russia. Thinking completely out of the box, Pan-Turkism and radical Polish dreams of rejoining with Lithuania might have been given more of a stage than in our timeline. In the case of the Turks, without Bolshevik intervention they would have had a more unstable Eastern/Northern frontier.

[R_G]

If the Bolsheviks had failed I imagine Russia may have split, or otherwise become a rather insignificant European nation. If WWII never happened, Russia today would be no better than India.

[Thunderhawk]

Thinking completely out of the box, Pan-Turkism and radical Polish dreams of rejoining with Lithuania might have been given more of a stage than in our timeline. In the case of the Turks, without Bolshevik intervention they would have had a more unstable Eastern/Northern frontier.

Perhaps a British supported Czarist regime in the East? It wasnt too much earlier that the British were trying to grab NE Asia. With a weak Russia it would leave their Eastern frontier open to Japanese hostility, and I suspect the British would rather Siberia be part of their puppet state then part of Japan.

[Smilin' Dave]

Perhaps a British supported Czarist regime in the East? It wasnt too much earlier that the British were trying to grab NE Asia. With a weak Russia it would leave their Eastern frontier open to Japanese hostility, and I suspect the British would rather Siberia be part of their puppet state then part of Japan.

I think it quite likely that a Russian successor state would eventually receive foreign aid. Even if they didn't like the Russian Bear, the European powers saw it as part of the club. Unlike say Poland, which was a 'new' state (well... not really but you get the point). Britain might have backed Russia as a way of accessing certain material resources or as a balance to Japan. Germany might have supported Russia as a counter balance to the new states emerging in the east. Not sure about France, who if memory serves was close to the Poles and Russians diplomatically.

What I can't be sure about would be whether Russia in this hypothetical would ever bounce back. Aid is good, but without the old resource base in what would now be independent (or even just semi-independent) states it might not have the capacity to develop in a sustainable manner. Suppose this also assumes Russia overcame its own internal instability.

It's an interesting what if.

[Red Star]

I am not sure of the type of fascism that would arise. Just taking the Italian example, it is true that the Blackshirts were formed with nationalist goals in mind but they gained their strength and support amongst the propertied classes by fighting the socialists on the street - socialists who also prompted the formation of the employers' Confederation of Industry for example. Of course, the effects of the First World War would have led to some sort of social upheaval in places, but it is the form of this upheaval (very much informed by the Bolshevik example) that gave fuel to the fascists.

Also, the pertinent question is indeed - did Kerensky hold onto power or did the Romanovs?

[Potemkin]

I fail to see how the Tsarist regime could have survived WWI - it was almost overthrown in 1905, and even had it survived to the end of the Great War, it would surely have faced catastrophic social and political problems which it was ill-equipped to resolve. Most likely, Kerensky or someone similar would have taken over. However, the Russian middle-class were too weak to be able to rule Russia (as events in 1917 in our time-line demonstrated), so it's uncertain how long even a Kerensky-type government might have lasted. The collapse of central authority and the fragmentation of the Russian Empire would have been a likely scenario.

It's also worth pointing out that the revolutionary movements in Germany, Hungary and elsewhere in Europe may have been invigorated by the Bolshevik Revolution, but they were not created by it. There would undoubtedly have been an attempted revolution in Germany in 1919, regardless of whether the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia or not, for example. This meant that a right-wing reaction would also have occurred in Germany, regardless of events in Russia. However, rather than turning to fringe elements like the Nazi Party, the German ruling class might have done something similar to what the British ruling class did in the 1930s - formed a 'Government of National Unity' uniting the Conservatives with a rump of the left-wing SDP. This would have blocked the rise of either the Communists or the Nazis, as it did in Britain, at the cost (or with the benefit, from the ruling elite's viewpoint) of rendering the working class politically leaderless.

The result would probably have been increased political chaos and probably large-scale famines in the East, and political stasis and increasing working-class resentment and despair in the West.