What if the Whites Won the Russian Civil War? | Alt History

An alternate history of Russia in which the White Army win the Russian Civil War and crush the Communists!

If you want a video explaining the logic behind the scenario tell me in the comments down below!

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[Plysn]

Honestly, I can't come up with the reason of Germany committing such a suicidal act. If they had the backing of the Uk and Italy, I might believe it, but it's just unbelievable by themselves.

[coopereddie]

You can restore the whites in no step back hoi4 and eventually the tsar

[voxbour]

There would be no way for Poland to ally with Whites, because both Reds and Whites directly opposed Polish Independence.

[jamessparkes]

This is the first alternate history of Russia that I've seen that isn't hypocritically pro-western and actually makes logical sense. Good job

[Cesme]

I like this video but the one things that I have an issue with is that Russian industrialization was not included. Russia was a largely rural nation after the civil war.And would have need to massively industrialize in order to compete with the western powers .

[phantom]

Meanwhile in another universe: What if the Reds won the Russian Civil War?

[MEMKI]

Ah world without communism.... What a dream

[Dark.Phoenix]

Germany would've probably united by 1990 under Prussian rule, like in our timeline wiht West and East Germany. Königsberg would probably stay under Russian rule because it was a Baltic state originally tho.

[alifaiman]

I'm actually jealous for those who live in this exact timeline. It's not as messy as ours 😢

[joaopedro]

My English is not very good, so I used Google Translate. That video was interesting, but the setting is also extremely upbeat and fanciful. It is strange that no country reacted to Russian expansion (Crimean War) and that the White Government/Monarchy prevented the famine, with the Russian Empire being marked by mass famines and political persecution (not unlike the Soviet Union).

[KenKenston]

Проблема в том, что непонятно какие именно "белые" победили бы. Потому что белыми называли вообще всех, кто против большевиков: бунтующих матросов в Кронштадте с которых началась эта революция, Колчака, Деникина, социал революционеров, которые интернационал пели, анархистов, бунтующих крестьян и тд.

[ivanserov]

Well, the video is certainly good, the plot is here, map, music-everything fits

But history...well, as a man from post-soviet space, I will try to make some things here

1-Death of Lenin would surely be tragic, but it wont be like Kaiserreich scenario, mostly because it was the centralized AgitProp which ran the propaganda and news for the soldiers so the Red Army while perhaps would collapse, would do it much much later than 1920

2-A number of new allies.
Definetly not Finland, hello Karelian uprising of 1921
Ukraine-Pavlo Skoropadsky regime was not by any means pro Russian and stood for Ukrainian independence, just like regimes in Belarus and especially the Baltics

3-Poland
Closed within the borders of the XVI century, cut off from the Black and Baltic Seas, deprived of the land and mineral wealth of the South and Southeast, Russia could easily pass into the state of a second-rate power, unable to seriously threaten the newfound independence of Poland. Poland, as the largest and strongest of the new states, could easily secure a sphere of influence that would extend from Finland to the Caucasus Mountains—
- Y. Pilsudsky

Point 2 and 3 combined to the new annexations made by Russia

4-Constitutional monarchy
A good half of Russian white generals supported the idea of the Republic and fought for the constitutional assembly.

5-Tsar Nicholas and grand Knyaz Mikhail
Both would be dead, Nicholas shot with the first signs of Whites victory and Mikhail Alexandrovich would be abducted from the hotel and killed.

6-Resurgent Germany in 1925.
In 1925. Resurgent.

7-Panslavism was mostly approved only by Russia and Yugoslavia, Czechs, Poles, Bulgarians and for some reason here-Greeks had none of that. Even if due to religion or hate for Turkey(Which would also lose more of its north east because of Russian intervention and of course-supporting Armenians, and Ataturk having harder time fighting without his only supplier-Soviet Russia)
Greece was stuck between England who for all times did not wanted Russians close to Medditeranian and Russia.
Also yes, Finland declared its independence with the abolition of Russian monarchy, so why is it in Russian alliance.

8-They would not neglect Russian agricultural base
1500 tractors for entire Russia by 1913, most of them are used as cargo transport that is what I call a neglect of industry.
No mechanization, no fertilizers, a third of land is still in the hands of aristocracy, and neither the tsarist government, nor the provisional seemed to care, and it was one of the first reasons why peasants rebelled.

9-Preventing soviet era famines
They would still face the famine of Transvolgan region neverthenless.
And now would have the repetition of famines of 1840.1842.1873, 1880, 1883, 1891, 1905 and 1911 and what leaded to them-epidemics(thanks to no mass vaccinations which the Soviets irl enacted), no literacy programs for spreading methodics(Thanks comrade Lenin for LikBez-liquidation of illiteracy), hoarding of grain by the Kulaks(Forced confiscation of grain started in 1916 for the exact same reason)
And the fundamental land problem which collectivization solved. Peasants are not farmers, peasants send to the market only part of their products while the rest feed their families. When father dies, his land is splitten between the sons. And what happens next-correct, more men, same amount of men-the amount of products to the market drops.
You can counter argument me by presenting Stolypin reform-but no, the reform was one of the fuels for the peasant riots as it tried to break apart their many-centuries old communal farming and made them vulnerable to kulaks who most peasants hated.

10-Kulaks as political opposition
I see that Whatifalthist content made it here. Which is very sad because its simply wrong.
Lets start with definition of who were the Kulaks, no not the most hard working-such honor belonged to Serednyaks or Middle peasants.
Kulaks got a lot of their wealth through banal usury, and lending their land and quipment at high interest rates or corvee works.
Why Soviet government started collectivization only in 1927-the answer is simple. Bread preparation programmes for the cities and exports failed because....right, Kulaks never agreed on state-imposed prices and simply held grain until the price would rise.
Plus, the collectivization allowed for massive mechanization of agriculture.
Most of peasant lands were of small square, 2-3 hectares. Kulaks-more but not astronomically high. Peasants did not had the money to properly buy any agricultural equipment, price is simply too high. And cant use it properly-most of the land plots are too small. Collectivization simply did what was done in the west just at a much higher speed-concentration of assets.

11-Slightly slower
No, it will be a lot slower, to get the necessary rates of industrialization, Russian Empire will have to do what it did in 1900s-Export grain but starve
"We wont eat enough, but will export!"
-Alexander Vyshnegradsky, minister of finances.
The Russian Empire ranked 5th in the world according to the index of industrial production. This is what supporters of the monarchy are mostly proud of. Production really developed. But this is due to the backwardness of the country, where the vast majority are peasants. The late development of industry gives a high growth rate in any country.
One of the main factors-effect of low base. Where even slight increase of production would result in high percentage increase. And while economy progresses those percent numbers are more and more complex to achieve.
Example: To double yearly production of cars from 100, we would need to add in 100, then 200, then 400, then 800 and the numbers would grow leading to lower and lower growth by percents.

But there are subtleties in the development itself, which are not always mentioned by the apologists of tsarism. Yes, the resources necessary for the development of industry were extracted. Mining was one of the successes of the Russian government, but the trouble is that the resources were mainly used not for development, but for sale. Most often they were mined by foreign companies.
The Swedish company "Nobel" not only extracted oil on the territory of RE, but also used its own equipment, with the help of which production increased many times, but clearly not in the interests of Russia. This was beneficial primarily to foreign capital. Investments in oil production are an illustration of the influence of foreign capital on the Russian Empire. From 1910 to 1914 . Britain invests 134.6 million rubles, and domestic investments for the same period — 9.58 million rubles (Vavilin I. Foreign capital in Russia. L.: Priboy, 1925. p. 67).

It was foreign capital that monopolized the extraction of individual resources. British and French capitalists were engaged in the production of platinum, their share in the Russian Empire was 90%. Foreign capital actively participated in almost any production and extraction of resources. And RE became a sales market, a source of resources and cheap labor.
Domestic industry developed poorly. Basically, equipment and machinery were bought in the West. In many spheres from engineering to chemistry estimate Russia's dependence in terms of production capacity from 70 to 100% (Rozhkov N. Russian History in comparative historical Coverage (fundamentals of social dynamics) Leningrad - Moscow, 1926-1928, vol. 12, pp. 166-167).
Therefore, when they remember "prosperity", do not forget that the lion's share of everything that was mined simply went to the west, because foreign corporations owned the production. There was still development in isolation from them, and impressive, but this is clearly not the 5th place among all countries of the world.

12-Much wealthier population
Where do I even begin...with 40% literacy? With 27% child mortality before 1 year? With medium life expectancy of 35 years? From child labour which took 17% of all labour force?
10.000 people-1.3 doctors
Pay for 1914-most prosperous year was only from 10-25 rubles for 60 hours work week. England by comparison-41 for 52 hours.Germany:31 for 56, US:72 for 53.
No centralized healthcare, and only a nascent central education system which was for most people outside of Moscow and petrograd simply too expensive.
"If we recall how much of the national income comes annually to the treasury, how much is absorbed by the clergy and other social groups that are not involved in the production of material values, we cannot but come to the conclusion that the share of the main creators of the national income accounts for an even smaller share of it."
-Rubakin. Russia in numbers.1912

13-Social programs
Labourers of Lensk mines would like to hear that story.

13.5
Both you and Whatifalthist forgot about one little detail in 1929 which caused entire world economy to collapse and Russian would collapse too.
Not only because of global integration, but because the Reds succesfully cancelled all debts of Russian Empire, and I mean all of them-national debt, civilian debts and the Enormous War Debt.

14-No purges
I mean those generals already lost to Reds which didnt had many experts, while Whites got the cream of Russian officers.
But I give you a credit for starting the war earlier and with aid of allies, because otherwise if things went down OTL, Russia would end up behind the Urals.
15-Intimidate Moldova
Hello ww3, Romania is guaranteed by France and England

16-Chinese Republic
Hello warlordism, but neverthenless-far better than Mao.

[cocindaucocindau]

It is funny how in this scenario the Russian Empire takes half of the World and dosent even stop after, but yes it is fiction. Something like this, even if the Reds had lost, would never happen, and the Whites would have a colossal debt to the Western Allies even in the Civil war, not even mentioning new power hungry Nations to fight against, which truly desired land in the East, as for example, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia. Then Japan and the lands they occupied in the Civil war, plus the Japanese Imperialism, and the will to expand. Then Fascism in Germany, which was based not only against Communism, but against all Slavic Nations seen as Eastern Hordes. And many factors, which would have reduced White Russia into ashes even before the 1950s. Not to even mention the Effects after the Civil war, the great Depression and the Crushing debt to the Americans, French and English for Aid and support in the Civil war.

[yourlocaliino]

First time seeing this channel. Really like how you utilize maps to create a short, logical explanation as to how an alternate history may come about, rather than creating a thirty-hour verbal dissertation on why Myanmar sucks and could have been annexed in 1230 B.C by the Scottish Empire without any really solid reasoning.

[aguywithahelmet]

The end result looks slightly like 1984…

[jancerveny]

Right after watching this video, I immediately gave like and subscribe.

As Czech and patriot, I have always considered the question of whether Czechoslovakia should defend itself against Germany in 1938, when United Kingdom and France refused to help.

I know that the vast majority of German tanks in 1938 were obsolete PzKpfw I. Furthermore, most of the German air force consisted of obsolete biplanes. And most importantly, they only had supplies of fuel and ammunition for one month.

Half of the German army and up to two-thirds of the German generals regarded the attack on Czechoslovakia as stupidity.

Czechoslovakia had a numerically weaker army, but our men were perfectly armed and trained, and especially determined to defend their homeland to the last breath, just like the Finns in 1939.

Although it is said that in the event of war, Poland and Hungary would attack us - that is just a myth. Hungarian regent Miklos Horthy was afraid of Romanians and Polish leader Ignacy Moscicki was afraid of the Soviets.

The Romanian army was much larger and stronger than the Hungarian. It even had dozens of our tanks LT 35, which at the time were among the best in the world.

Although the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Poland at the time, Stalin threatened to repeal the pact in the event of the Polish attack on Czechoslovakia. This would be an ideal opportunity for Stalin to reconquer Poland, which belonged to Russia 23 years ago.

Therefore, I am convinced that we would successfully defend ourselves and the German army would be exhausted by their attack. If Hitler did not make a truce with Czechoslovakia in this case, he would be in danger of being forcibly removed. Then, sooner or later, there would be a civil war in Germany.

[CAProductions]

I would prefer this world over the present world.

[EmoPineapple]

My only issue with this is that there were barely any monarchists in the White army, most were trying to uphold the republican regime and the legacy of the February Revolution. There were quite a lot of socialists as well.

[joestephen]

Idk about Pan-Slavism - the idea never had a huge amount of support outside of the Balkans (beyond small intellectual circles in the Bohemian lands), and unlike shown here would never have been accepted by non-Slav Greece or Finland. Apart from this, Poland had never subscribed to Pan-Slavism, having been partitioned thrice by Russia and very roughly Russified in the 19th Century, with Russia brutally suppressing the 1831 and 1863 uprisings.

Also, do you think they would have attempted to reassert control over Finland militarily?

[someone-whrb]

one problem in this scenario is russia splitting konigsberg with poland makes no sense. in our timeline the reasoning behind taking east german lands was the deportation of germans west as revenge for the holocaust against slavs. however in this timeline with the nazis apparently dying in 3 years, and not being able to even take poland they wouldnt have been able to genocide as many people as they did in our timeline meaning there would be no revenge from russia