The Future of Tsarist Russia - Alternate History Tropes
Vložit
- čas přidán 4. 09. 2022
- Watch next: "Every Significant Mongol Successor State; How The Mongols Fell in 1857"
• Every Significant Mong... -~-
If you like the content please like, comment and subscribe, it helps smaller channels like mine to get noticed!
If you want to support the channel you can go to my Patreon or become a member! You will get early access to video's and will be allowed to suggest priority video subjects!
/ possiblehistory
/ @possiblehistory
Gaming Channel:
/ @deletedchannel1010
Feel free to follow or join our social media platforms:
/ possiblehistory
/ possiblehistor1
/ discord
/ possible_history0
Audio editor thanks to E4Arakon. For German versions of video's by OSP, Kraut and more check out his channel!
/ @e4arakon
Hello everyone! If you enjoyed the video please leave a like and a comment, even just commenting "hi" helps the channel out massively! Subscribe for more content like this and an alternate history video every Friday!
Can you make another one of this series?
Here's a trope that bugs me a lot:
independent confederate states of america abolishes slavery within a decade or two. The confederate constitution forbade any attempts at abolition, slavery was the bedrock of their economy and it's the very reason for the nation's existence in the first place. Imagine if the ussr adopted capitalism in 1942. That's how absurd I find the scenario.
Didn't the commies adopt controlled capitalism for some aspects or something?
I don't think the Southern leadership were particularly stupid, they would've eventually had to address the issue and the argument of industrialization discrediting the system isn't unfounded.
The idea that a society isn't going to change overtime is absurd in itself. I'm no Dixie sympathiser but there was also the cultural divide that existed between the two regions and the rift that had been forming in tow.
They'd eventually have had to at least officially done away with it.
That is if the whole experiment survives past initial victory highs
The main reasons as to why it is believed that the Confederates would end up abolishing slavery within a short few decades is simply due to the overall changing times globally.
The Confederates main thing was selling cotton, which, as it is they quickly learned they were replaceable. Beyond that, their main customer was the United Kingdom, who found themselves dealing less and less with nations of slavery without trying to push abolition.
Whether or not it happens within a couple decades, difficult to obviously know for sure but the chances of them thriving as a slaver nation in the early 1900's becomes significantly less likely. A colony is one thing, but directly at home, that was always considered another.
You don't have to ban slavery at the federal level for it to disappear - when the CSA eventually abolishes it (or the USA in an althist where the ACW never happens) it would be done state by state, just as it had been done earlier in the North. There might be holdout states as late as the 1910s (likely Mississippi and South Carolina) but overall the CSA would have likely shifted to a more balanced economy based on industrialized agriculture combined with a mix of light and heavy industry, especially in an attempt to stave off future northern irredentism. Moreover their relations with the western powers would improve as they became less reliant on slavery, and they would benefit from many of the economic connections to Europe that OTL USA did, as Britain especially would see Dixie as an important counterweight to a much less friendly Union who may turn their eyes northward.
Imagine if China adopted capitalism in the 1970s-1980s. Oh, wait..
I find it more plausible that the cotton economy collapses due to decades of mono crop cotton farming which would inevitably cause soil collapse. Without that, it would force southern leadership to reconsider if having a massive slave economy was worth it.
Fun fact: the Soviet Union NEVER produced more food per capita than the Russian empire in 1914.
True 😁
One thing you didn’t bring up with the economic section is russias birth rates. They went from a tfr of 7 to 2.3. This long term fucked Russia/ussr because this means a smaller producing, consuming base, less minds to innovate, and resources are harder to exploit. So while it’s very likely short term there is a larger economy long term it’s larger
That in and of itself wasn't the problem and wouldn't be out of place with the rest of Europe.
The problem is that they lost about 40 million people inside a single generation to the Civil War, Stalin's purges and Hitler's genocides. Without that and the economic damage caused by the Civil War and WW2 and communist bureaucratization of the economy, they'd have had much bigger population, easily 2 or 2.5 times the size of OTL.
@@lordofefrafa4396 ofc that was a major factor, but stalins purges wouldn’t have happened if the whites won. Plus the nazis would have way less ground if they couldn’t fear monger with a “judeo Bolshevik” enemy to fear monger the people with.
@@braedanquigley7500 1. Of course.
2. The Nazis were out to conquer lebensraum regardless of whatever they said about judeo-Bolshevism. In fact, if you look at the Polish Border Strip plan, Ober Ost and the aims of the Septemberprogramm, it's pretty clear the German Empire was working on a less ambitious form of what Hitler was doing. But I do agree that the Russian Empire would've probably crushed Nazi Germany much quicker than the Soviet Union ended up doing, sparing many, _many_ millions of lives in the process.
3. On the subject of German ideology, there's this YT channel called _The Historian's Craft,_ and he did several videos on the 19th century roots of specific facets of Nazism, and he came to the conclusion that they were all floating around in German culture since the mid 1800s. And if you take the Polish Border Strip into account, I'd say those ideas were well on their way to ascendancy in Germany by the 1910s. What the name of the party was or who led it didn't matter; the beliefs and course of action are substantially the same.
*1)* _Mysticism, Occultism, & Grassroots Ultranationalism in Pre WWI Germany_
*2)* _Werewolves, Atlantis, & World Ice Theory: Occultism in the Weimar Republic & Third Reich_
@@lordofefrafa4396 there are some estimates that put it at 500-700 million russians today.
@@lordofefrafa4396 It's a problem because birthrates in Russia were a rollercoaster, it hit levels below replacement in the 70s while most of Europe did so in the 90s-2000s.
Starting to learn about Russia at University. Fascinating stuff as always!
Have you heard of Scott W. Palmer? He's a professor of Russian history and he has a 23 part lecture series up on his CZcams channel about the Russian Empire. Might be useful in your studies.
"A mixed bag of progress and destruction."
Which to be fair sounds like most industrialization.
Some of them I have are:
- If Napoleon won at Waterloo there would be a huge French Empire
- America would still be a British colony if they lost the war of independence
- That Germany could have won a total victory in WW2 (like in TNO)
- That the rise of any modern superpower (eg USA/Britain) was inevitable and destined to happen for some factors
I feel like a better one is Napoleon winning Leipzig
For the #3 I agree with the inevitability of the US becoming a superpower to some extent, it's a vast country with almost every natural resource- fertile land, ports, fresh water, waterways, oil, metals etc. It was far away from other established powers and had a largely homogenous majority that others assimilated into. China and to a lesser extent India possess some of the same advantages but with 4 times the population, that's why they were the pre-industrial superpowers and are projected to regain that status. Russia also has some of the same advantages and became a superpower for a few decades but lost it for reasons.
If Napoleon wins Waterloo, he either loses another major battle, or negotiates to keep himself on the French throne. No way in hell would the other powers let him reach the power he had earlier on.
@@duckpotat9818 Russia has a 100% Chance to regain Superpower Status, however they can't since Russia quite literally refuses to change and adapt with Modern Times unlike their peers like:
China which adopted a Capitalist Economy and developed some Democratic Institutions [all while remaining Authoritarian]
India who became more independent and much more focusing with themselves to adapt with the changing world.
The EU which changed to further unite the Continent via diplomacy.
What about Russia? Have they changed? No, they're still living as if it's the 19th Century. Their Military Technology is outdated, They have an outdated foreign policy and they're still living as if they're the Russian SFSR. The only changes are a combination of Monarchist Tradition and Soviet Tradition.
I'd like the 4th one because I still hard to imagine how a world without America being inevitably superpower. While in reality, if it's not because of WW1 and WW2, America would be at least some regional power, if not, being superpower but at least in their own region like China, which is superpower but can't assert herself to be World Police because of economic and diplomatic limitation.
I like it better than a standard alternate history. This could be your big thing, the breakthrough, the staple your channel will be known for
I agree to an extent that anti Soviet bias creates rose colored effect on the Tsarist era. However, by the same token pro Soviet bias tends to completely disregard progress made prior to the Revolution. I think railroad building would have been pursued as well as modernization of agriculture and the development of ancillary supporting industries like fertilizers and maybe tractors. Ultimately the shortages that provoked the February Revolution were caused by the collapse in the effectiveness of the rail system. Food rotted in Ukraine, coal languished in the Urals and oil in the Caucuses while Petersburg starved and froze. There certainly would be incentive in any restored/preserved Monarchy scenario to invest in and reform transportation. This then has knock-on effects for steel, iron and coal development as well. I also do see plenty of foreign investment for development of oil reserves in any non-communist scenario ranging from Monarchy, to democracy to military dictatorship.
I love these new videos going over tropes.
A trope I would like to propose if that if the Confederate States won the Civil War it would be a carbon copy of the United States and rise to become a super power. Or simply abolish slavery after the war because Britain said so, even though they fought a war to preserve it. Many people simply ignore the inherited problems of the Confederacy such as the oligarchical landowning class who dominated southern politics who hated industrialization and democracy. A independent confederacy was doom to become another Banana Republic or Cotton Republic.
Agreed
A shame to see this is the only part of the series so far. Keep up the great work, these vids are incredible for such a small channel, you deserve way more subs man.
Really interesting video, I was wondering if you take any alternate histories from the comments?
He definitely will if he sees anything really good or runs out of ideas
I write everything down! But at this point I have such a giant list of ideas I cannot promise when/if it will get covered. Do defenitely drop your ideas though, it has happened many times that I saw a suggestion and immediately got inspired!
@@possiblehistory that's cool, I have multiple ideas but I am not sure which one is the best of them all and has an actually realistic ending, but I will probably write you one if those ideas in your next video
Honestly it'd be better to place a Tsarist Russia in a future setting, post soviet, post-2020s. Especially since the Modern Russian Govt likes to cosplay as a semi-Tsarist force.
I’m super excited for this series!
Can you talk about the (sometimes subtle) ways that pro-Confederate attitudes are reflected in tropes of “Southern victory” alternate histories?
2:20 That's kinda disingenuous. All it shows is that Russia isn't changing _relative to them._ You describe Germany and France as growing, yet their line is almost parallel to Russia's (just above Russia's, in the same way that America's GDP growth parallels them from above). If you look at the graph, *everyone's* GDP looks like a slightly-inclined straight line pre-1916. Russia's GDP then takes a big slump for obvious reasons when the civil war starts, and continues for a few years after the civil war. Assuming a Russian victory in WW1, that slump doesn't happen. Seems like an obvious inference to make.
2:57 Why is Russia missing from that graph? I'd love to know where it is. I'd be really disappointed if it turns out that you hunted for a graph that specifically _didn't_ include them because you didn't want us to have a point of comparison between everyone else and Russia. Even then, the graph you used has no consistent message about industrial growth: if it did, then the Netherlands, Spain and Australia would be comparable to Britain.
3:43 After 1905, it only remained so because the tsar was exceptionally feckless and backslided on the promises he made to the Duma and actively fucked around with it to get his way. Originally, he wanted no limitations at all, but then an interesting thing happened: Grand Duke Nikolai put a gun to his own head and threatened that he'd blow his head off unless the tsar accepted the limitations. That should illustrate the attitude prevalent in 1905.
4:23 A capitalist class which would only continue rising as time went on.
6:26 Except Russia has one major advantage all the others except America don't have: lots of as yet unused space and resources inside the country, and not located in external colonies. Whereas Germany's land is all filled up and any further expansion means either a great technological innovation or outward expansion, Russia and America aren't limited like this. And the Soviets made great use of this space, expanding many towns like Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg to proper cities, and creating major industrial cities like Norilsk and Magnitogorsk entirely from scratch. I see no reason why Imperial Russia wouldn't either.
Also, one thing you don't bring up at all in the video: population losses. Russian Civil War: 10 million dead. Stalin's reign: 9 million dead. WW2: 23 million dead (+5 million Poles). Each time, a significant slice of the generation was cut out, and each time the succeeding generation also had fewer children due to natural decline found in all industrial nations. The result is a *very* steep drop in population growth over time. Prevent that and you have a much higher GDP today, though (again) the GDP per capita is low.
In fact, the low population is the main reason Russia is so _empty,_ especially in Siberia where there is plenty of opportunity and the climate is not the hellscape everyone thinks it is. I know Siberia couldn't ever really match population density with European Russia, but it's still pretty undercolonized even then. Siberia makes up 7/10ths of Russian land, yet is 2/10ths of its people: that means Siberian Russia's population density is around 14% that of European Russia's. Even if it can only hold double or triple that, that's space for 60 - 100 million more people. And as Stalin allegedly said, quantity is a quality all its own.
P.S. for details on the Russian Empire's growth in terms of industry, education, etc, etc, I'd recommend Scott W. Palmer's CZcams channel. He's a professor of Russian history, and he's got a great lecture series up on the Russian Empire. For the relevant time period, check out lectures 19-23.
1. I agree, but the trope I was tackling is that Russia was closing the gap between the other powers and was modernising/industrialising to eventually get on the same level as other established economies. The graph shown everyone trending upwards in a similar way, meaning that Russia will continue to be behind unless they change something more radically (which I doubt they will do)
2. I already showed that same information in other graphs, sadly there aren't that many graphs available for the time, while I was talking about established economies I decided to show that graph which focused on established economies just to have something on screen, but you are right in that being a bad choice.
3. Exactly, so every reform would be an uphill battle, not saying there would be no reform.
4. Absolutely, but this still takes time. Once again this trope assumes that Russia becomes modernised and industrialised within decades, eclipsing the Soviet industrialisation.
5. Absolutely, the potential was obviously there, it still is today. But the question is whether or not it gets used. The Soviets went on a specific industrial and urbanisation push. They created these cities for that explicit reason as a radical economic push. The Russian Empire does have the same potential on paper, but the Russian Empire's leadership didn't have the same economic goals and weren't in the business of forcefully industrialising. When the economy gets going these same types of cities can still be established, but without the Soviets putting them there it is a question of time when/how they will start growing.
6. Absolutely agree, but like you mention big pure GDP doesn't necessarily equal a rich modernised economy, it's the GDP/capita that we want to see grow most of all. But these wars and deaths most certainly impacted the Russian economy in a negative light.
7. Like I mentioned before I absolutely agree that the potential is there, but even when taking out all the wars Russia would have to significantly upscale immigration to even come close to filling this land. The West of Russia simply had a massive head start and was already huge enough that massive resettling to Siberia wasn't necessary. But man, the beast that would be created if Russia had enough population to utilise both regions to it's full extent...
1. I'm going to direct you to a section at the very bottom of the English wikipedia page "Industrialization in the Russian Empire". There is a graph of Russian equipment production. It shows that between 1913 and 1917, Russian equipment production tripled and reliance on imports dropped from 70% of total to 20% of total.
As I'll keep saying in the next point, GDP does not tell the whole story. If you looked at Russian GDP over those years, you'd think the situation was not changing much, whereas in reality they were upscaling certain industries dramatically (as explained further in the next point).
---
2. Fair enough, my apologies. Still, my point stands: GDP growth does not correlate directly with industrial growth. For example, I'm going to pull two quotes from that same wikipedia page mentioned above.
_"Certain industries of the Russian Empire were characterized by extremely rapid growth. From 1894 to 1914, in the Russian Empire, coal production increased by 306%, oil - by 65% (growth stopped in 1901, since then no increase has been observed), gold - by 43%, copper - by 375%; cast iron - by 250%; iron and steel - by 224%."_
and
_"Despite the ordeals during the First World War, the industry of the Russian Empire continued to grow. Compared to 1913, industrial production grew by 21.5%. For example, in the same time period, industrial production in the UK decreased by 11%, and in Germany it decreased as much as 36%. At the same time, the volume of engineering production in Russia increased 4.76 times over these three years, metal processing 3.01 times, the chemical industry 2.52 times"_
This would not be indicated from those graphs you put up. It also tracks with something else: the last segment from Scott W. Palmer's 23rd lecture ( czcams.com/video/UwZaekTS4WA/video.html ), where (towards the end) he talks about how Imperial Russia's developments in technical education directly provided the corps of skilled individuals that the Soviets would later make use of for their projects, otherwise known as "bourgeois specialists".
---
3. Only in terms of political liberalization. Everything else would proceed apace until Nicholas's death of old age sometime in the 1920s, after which his son would come to throne. At that point, there's some real opportunity. Hopefully Nicholas II is not assassinated like his grandfather, because then his son would end up like Alexander III.
Incidentally, here's one thing to your rule of thumb about conservative tsars bound by an even more conservative nobility: if that were true, it doesn't explain why Alexander III was even more reactionary than his nobles. It wasn't because he was being kept in check by them, it was because he saw his father get blown apart by a bomb and reflexively hit the hammer down on anything that seemed too liberal, which unwittingly led to a massive spike in revolutionary agitation.
---
4. I wouldn't say it eclipses it, but I definitely think that (a) it is at least on par, if for no other reason than due to lack of civil war and Stalin and so on, and (b) it has far more potential in the long term, since it won't be a bureaucratized mess that stifles local growth and rots away from the inside.
For example, I don't think Russia would be forced into the awkward position of importing grain from America as the USSR was. The USSR had been put in that position due to its absolutely abysmal agricultural policies, which turned Russia from a #1 or #2 wheat exporter to a wheat importer, which is very embarrassing when you consider that the Ukrainian chernozem is among the best soils in the world for wheat farming.
---
5. Going into the 20th century, the Russian leadership was changing as well. The growth of universities and polytechnic institutes meant that more people were entering government who were actually technically literate and understood the details of what would have to be done to modernize, and they had a fundamentally different mindset from the old nobility. This directly led to rapid growth of coal, iron, copper, etc, etc that I mentioned above in the quotes. Basically, Russian government was transitioning from aristocracy to technocracy.
And remember what I mentioned about those bourgeois specialists produced by WW1-era technical education?
Guess who promoted many of the industrial reforms the Soviets did? That's right: them.
Now, I'm under no illusions that they'll carry out reforms on the same magnitude under the Russian Empire, but there will definitely be reforms and they will not just be slow and plodding as you say they'll be.
---
6. On the other hand, big GDP (regardless of GDP per capita) does mean a big tax base, which can be leveraged to pay for industry, military, etc. As a matter of fact, that was what the Russian state had been doing since the 1870s, and had led to the rise in industry from early 1890s onward.
Some seed money --> some industry --> some more money --> used to pay for more industry + educational institutions --> more money + more competent technicians --> more industry --> ...
---
7. Filling it to the brim would not be a priority, just filling up more of the useful spots. And there are plenty of those.
Man, I wish these back and forths would sometimes actually change someones opinion, instead of everyone just keeping to the same opinion that they had before the argument.
It is strange that there were no graphs without the second half of the 20th century, otherwise the sharp growth of all the fields of the Second World War spoils the display of the development of 1850-1917
1) Russia was not parallel to other powers before the First World War, it grew faster than everyone else
2) It is hard to calculate real GDP per capita in USSR, it a long story why.
I think you‘re right! The Potential of Russia was HUGE at the Time.
I‘ve read many Books from Dominic Lieven. Lieven is Historian at the Cambridge University and a Specialist for Russian History. He said that Russia would have been the dominant Power in Europe and Asia if Russia had undertook a further modernisation programm.
Other ideas for future tropes videos:
South america remaining the same
Monarchism everywhere
Big germany
Socialism is always marxist-lenist (anarchism, sindicalism etc... dont take over )
Good ideas, heck why isn't market socialism and social democracy used more in alternate history smh
@@xianxiaemperor1438 Maybe because they're fundimentally unviable ideologies? Do you guys really think Marxism-Leninism overtaking other forms of Socialism was just a coincidence?
@@xianxiaemperor1438 bc most people don't have anything but the most surface level knowledge of these topics, hence "socialism = communism".
The vast majority of people making alt-history are just hobbyists with some historical knowledge that think "wouldn't it be cool if X country did Y" and run with it.
If you aren't actively interested in political science it's unlikely you'd even know something like syndicalism exists, much less what its core ideas are.
And it gets even more complicated the further down into specifics you go- socialist movements in Tsarist Russia were a lot different than those in the US.
Democratic Socialism in Denmark isn't the same as similar movements in Balkans, though they do share the core of striving for democratic system of gov't and welfare state.
Political science is a whole ass field of academics after all. It get's really confusing really quick and no one knows everything about the topic- if they claim they do, they're delusional...
@@edim108 Yeah, excellent comment post :)
The last trope is tricky because in reality, all states ever established with socialist intentions eventually followed the guiding principle of the DOT, simply because it is the only possible manifestation of true socialism. They may have called it differently, and they may bad minor deviations in structure and especially cultural policies, but economically speaking they followed the same exact principles.
This series needs revival.
This series had a ton of potential and you should definitely bring it back - even if it's on the second channel
Great video, I can’t help with this being a response video to a whatifalthist video on Russia.
An alternate history trobe I always been confused by is a southern victory, if the south ever did gain it’s independence from the rest of the United States it seems very unlikely the United States would not keep Louisiana Arkansas and basically everything west of the Mississippi, these areas were basically indefensible to the Confederates and for the most part worthless to them while being essential to Midwest trade.
It just seems like a confederate rump state that will be under constant pressure from the United States both on land and at sea would just make for a bad time. Anytime the Confederates would try taking a Caribbean island the superior American Navy would show up and force them out.
It also seems far more likely in such a situation that greater social democracy would take root in the USA without the authoritarian south to drag the rest of the country down.
Just a few issues I’ve always seen with the Southern victory trope
Here's a fun one - what if America backed down during the Suez Canal Crisis?
Russia without revolution.
The data on GDP per capita are quite strange in the video, if you look at the Maddison 2020 database, there are such figures about the Russian Empire:
1885 - $1379 in 2011 prices.
1913 - $2254 in 2011 prices.
The Russian Empire began its modernization at about the same time as Japan, Japan began in the 1870s, Russia in the 1880s. We can compare Russia with Japan:
1885 - $1729 in 2011 prices.
1913 - $2431 in 2011 prices.
Thus, it can be seen that Russia was catching up with Japan (this despite the fact that fertility in Russia was much higher) And we can compare Japan with the USSR of 1936 (this date is taken on the grounds that Japan entered the war with China in 1937 and the estimate of the country's military GDP may have distortions):
USSR 1936 - 3174 dollars in 2011 prices.
Japan 1936 - 3986 dollars in 2011 prices.
The USSR did not achieve significant success. While the Russian Empire was rapidly catching up.
If we look at what was happening in the economy of the Russian Empire before the First World War, then there was explosive growth, the rate of capital savings was 18% of GDP, this was the highest rate in the world, industrial growth in the period 1907-1913 was 9% on average per year, this is also the largest indicator in the world. During the First World War, Russia made a huge leap, if in 1914 the production of shells per month tired England 3 times, then at the end of 1916, production in Russia exceeded the figure of England. The production of machine tools increased significantly in the period 1913-1916, the chemical industry also increased significantly. In 1916, 6 engine-building factories were laid, the total capacity of which was to exceed 40 thousand engines per year after construction, automobile factories were laid, there was a plan to build a replica of the Ford factory in Nizhny Novgorod.
It is also important to take into account the population factor. The population growth of the Russian Empire was fantastic, if in 1890 the population of the Empire was about 120 million, then in 1914 it was about 170 million. The fertility rate was about 7 in 1913. During the Civil War, it fell to 3x, then returned to 6 in 1927, then from the beginning of collectivization it fell again to 3x in 1932 and rose to 4.5 by 1937. In the 30s, the population became impoverished, the USSR caught up with the Russian Empire in calorie consumption only in the 1960s.
In addition, in the period 1917-1940, the USSR lost about 20 million people: 12 million killed in the Civil War, 7 million during the famine of 1932-33, 2 million supermortality in the gulag, about 700 thousand more killed during the repression.
Thus, after 1917, a demographic breakdown took place in Russia, along with a natural decline in the birth rate due to urbanization and increased literacy, the birth rate fell due to the sharp impoverishment of the population. Plus, about 20 million people died for unnatural reasons. If at the beginning of 1914 the population of the Empire was 175 million, then by 1940 the population of the USSR was about 190 million (approximately within the same borders as the Russian Empire), if the increase in the period 1890-1913 was more than 50 million, then in the period 1917-1940 it was only 15 million.
Without the revolution, the population of the Empire in the period 1913-1940 would not have grown by 15mn, or even by 50mn, the estimate of demographic losses in this period is about 60mn (this is taking into account the factor of natural decline in fertility), thus the population of the Empire by 1940 would have been more than 250mn.
Also, the view of Stolypin's reforms in the video is not complete, after the abolition of serfdom, serfs, although they became free, but they did not receive land, and even after the cancellation of land payments in 1905, the peasants still did not receive land, the fact is that instead of the landowner, the community now ruled, the peasants equally owned land, and if the land is shared, then it is not someone's, then there is no point in investing in it, there is no point in buying machinery or fertilizers, anyway, the land is shared and not yours. In 1905, the harvest on the land of peasant owners was 40 percent higher than that of communal peasants. Stolypin began a reform that allowed peasant communities to allocate land from communal land or move to southern Siberia, the Far East or Central Asia after receiving a plot of land there. In the period 1907-1913, about 25 percent of the communal peasants left the community and received land. By 1930, the reform should have ended, all communal peasants would have received land. The country was turning into a country of owners, and considering that the average size of the land of free peasants in Russia in 1913 was 13 hectares, this gave the peasants a lot of opportunities. For example, the bank savings of peasants in the period 1900-1913 increased 5 times!
Also after the revolution, hundreds of thousands of educated people left Russia, many of them achieved amazing results, for example, Sikorsky founded a company in the USA that we know, but few people know the Republic Aviation company, this company was founded by two migrants from Russia, and the same company produced one of the most massive aircraft of the Second World War - P47 Thunderbolt. The creator of the GDP indicator, Nobel laureate Simon Kuznets, also fled from the USSR, or Nobel laureate Vasily Vasilyevich Leontiev, also fled from the Bolsheviks. And many more outstanding people fled from the Bolsheviks, mainly to the USA. Without the revolution, most of them would not have left the Empire. They would have served here, there would have been no repression against scientists and intellectuals.
What prospects would Russia have without the revolution? I have a few assumptions:
- By the middle of the 20th century, Russia would most likely have caught up with the United States in terms of total GDP.
- Under the influence of big capital, Russia would have become a constitutional monarchy already in the 20s of the 20th century, in fact, it was simply inevitable.
- A person would have flown into space much earlier, I think in the early 50s.
- The standard of living in Russia would be much higher than in the USSR, the level of GDP per capita in Western Europe would most likely be reached somewhere in the 50s-60s.
- The Cold War would have started back in the 30s, since the power of the Russian Empire would have allowed it to start competing for the oil of the Middle East. Which most likely led to a conflict with England and the USA.
- The competition between the USA and Russia would be much stronger than that between the USSR and the USA. Because economically, the USSR has never been on an equal footing with the United States, and the Russian Empire without the revolution would have overtaken the United States in the middle of the 20th century.
Damn, what a good read it was, I mostly agree on what you stated.
My subjective viewpoint on your assumptions, is that they would have taken a bit longer roughly 2-10 years, because of the rebuilding of the aftermath in WW2, Corruption/Nepotism, inequality issues and alot of factors.
If anything goes well or that the leader in charge is competent and not succumb to authoritarianism then your assumptions are valid for my perspective.
But besides that Russian empire without the revolution is an absolute behemoth, likely to take the mantle of "The Third Rome" or "The Second Byzantium", toe-to-toe with the USA or if not surpassing it.
I seen estimates that without the revolution, Russian empire in the present day, would have the population ranges from 500 million to 825 million at the highest possible interpretation.
@@VIRTUALHORIZON-001 Thank you for your assessment, it's nice to read such a review.
I think an important fork for Russia was serfdom, the peasants were freed without land, this pushed them to radicalism later.
In fact, it is strange that they did not do this, the debts of the nobles to the tsar were huge, and as a rule, the collateral for the debts was land, almost all the land of the nobles was mortgaged.
Instead, the peasants were freed, but the land was not given, but offered the right to buy land for a loan. And the peasants did not have a personal plot of land, their land was a share in the community, and every few years the community redistributed the land. It made no sense for the peasants to invest in land, because it would still be redistributed in the community in a few years. In such communities, yields were low, and it seemed to the peasants that the problem was a lack of land, and that more land was needed, this radicalized them. Although in fact, the productivity of free peasants (who lived free from communities on their land) was 40 percent higher, and their productivity grew faster than on the lands of the community.
If the authorities had managed to carry out the Stolypin reform earlier, the peasants would have become farmers, and the farmers would never have allowed the Communists to come to power, because they understand the importance of private property. And if the Communists had not come to power, there would have been no Fascists and Nazis, because both of these regimes are a reaction to the communist revolution.
With regard to the USA, I think the USA, faced with a much stronger rival than the USSR, would act much more actively, I mean their domestic policy would be even stronger, and they would also be stronger, competition generates progress. It's just that the USSR could never compare economically with the USA, and technologically it was close only in the 60s.
I think you‘re right! The Potential of Russia was HUGE at the Time.
I‘ve read many Books from Dominic Lieven. Lieven is Historian at the Cambridge University and a Specialist for Russian History. He said that Russia would have been the dominant Power in Europe and Asia if Russia had undertook a further modernisation programm.
@@GeneralCurtisEmersonLeMay Dominic Lieven is quite famous in Russia)
Russia would be powerful even if it could not significantly reduce GDP per capita from the US, because of the huge population growth, In the early 20th century the population of Russia was almost twice that of the US. And given the huge birth rate, the population gap would have widened.
Perhaps a deterrent to industrial growth would have been the fact that the Tsarist government was giving away land and resettling peasants in new territories (Far East, Central Asia, Eastern and Western Siberia). After all, industry requires urbanization.
very interesting the points you raised. I believe russia would still industrialise but compared to most predictions i would argue it would be more akin to IRL relatively small growth then in their stories. mostly because i think most people inflate the situation at hand. Russia historicaly speaking is alergic to reforms it drags its feet until its too late. Just look at the tsars and their reformations and before anybody shouts at me. Look at the USSR in the last of its years it was dying and only started changing things when it was far too late.
This channel will be an important part of my life
should make another video for this series.
I think the major hinge-point as to whether Tsarist Russia successfully modernizes or not is if Alexander II is assassinated or not. OTL he was, and that greatly weakened, if not killed entirely, the impetus for reforms amongst the traditional elite.
The only thing his assassination prevented was liberalization of the monarchy.
Industrialization went along as planned, as his successor explicitly directed.
For information, see Scott W. Palmer's youtube channel. He's a professor of Russian history and has a 23 part lecture series on Imperial Russia on his channel. Relevant lectures: 14-17, especially 15.
I love the ball on the thumbnail
nice video
16:28 I think it's more possible that the Germans instead of making new puppets they would help expand the existing ones in the east. For example making a separate Kingdom of Karelia would be weird as the German King of Finland is titled as the King of Finland AND Karelia, this was also around the same time of the "Heimosodat" with the effort to create a Greater Finland.
Now I see where Paradox took their ideas from for Vic 3
As Russian I strongly agree with that part that describes "Soviet economic growth". Communists often show statistics of gdp without any understanding what that numbers even describe
Love what your doing. This is whatifaltthis was doing back in the day. Please PH keep this kind of content coming
I'm quite late here, but I love your videos. I've been reading a lot of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Marx now in my mid 30s (also late haha), and it becomes quite clear that a radical revolution in Russia was almost inevitable, and that the long term failure of Socialism in Russia was just as inevitable
Great video, although in my own video on the Russian Revolution, I point out how Russia's aristocracy had lost most of its land under Tsar Nicholas II's reign, and therefore, she was heading more and more towards being a nation of essentially kulaks, meaning that through slow and steady progress, Russia's industrialization would have taken longer, but been far more sustainable in the long-run
If tsarist russia survived then middle aged women would have an unlimited supply of drama shows staring a random Nobel family in tsarist russia.
Tbh I really don't think the comparison to India and China makes sense imo. As China and India barely industrialised compared to the Russians, and assumingly without ww1, they could continue to develop their industry as they had before. Also I'd like to say that if Germany were to win, the entente powers would probably face massive pushback by the civilian population and maybe even fall into a revolution like the Russians had, as the population that time were a lot more bloodthirsty than of our own. Though other than that I agree, Russia was the first Western power to lose to an Asian power (Japan) and from then to the beginning of ww1 there was little attempts to reform the army. Not to mention Nicholas was pretty lackluster of a Tsar, but I'd still say that Tsarist Russia would still end up being much better than the Soviet Union, there'd also be no Holodomor so that's also good.
If Russia were to survive/Germany were to win so many things would need to change that the things that happen later on in our world wouldn't even fire, but if things went as they did then yeah Tsarist Russia is probably fucked, even if I'd hate it.
Would love to see Althis tropes on either the Confederates, KMT China or Napoleonic France.
I think it would greatly depend on alt WW2 and how would (in alt 1940's) less industrial Russia end after it.
@Libor Kozak That's if we're working on the assumption that Russia would be less industrialized at all, which is unlikely considering that the same people that got Soviet expansion of industry started were all trained in Russian universities during WW1, and were headed into government and technical positions prior to the revolution breaking out.
Alt-WW2 is either much shorter or slightly less shorter.
Much shorter if Czechoslovakia is made a Russian protectorate at the Versailles conference, in which case Hitler is never getting the Czech armaments factories needed to produce his panzers and stave off economic collapse in Germany.
Slightly shorter if Czechoslovakia isn't guaranteed by Russia and he also somehow manages to pull off a Barbarossa (highly unlikely).
@@lordofefrafa4396 exactly, plus the new tsar will doubtfully be anymore incompetent than Stalin, who was dealt with the worst hand possible and still came out stronger (thanks to the lend leases).
In this timeline I bet that a Russia with a more competent ruler and have more time in controlling their Western territories will be more powerful than the Soviet Union ever could be.
10:08 Canada left the chat
Well, the birth rates would be higher and the purges fewer. But like you say I doubt they would economically grow like crazy. I would think of them kinda like Brazil.
I think Russia would have been better off by the 90s 00s 10s and 20s, but they wouldnt be as dominant in the short and medium term.
false, russia would be an economic giant without the bolshevist curse
Russia is already richer than Brazil, even with Poland level of gdp per capital and three time the population it would already be a giant. No need for it to be in crazy levels of gdp per capita
@@kirilll7806 Russia were economic giants under the USSR (2nd largest economy) it was the collapse of the USSR that brought Eastern Europe to the dark ages
@@pixel8397 this dark age happened in the first place because communism is a bullshit ideology that is not capable of building a proper economy, or quality of life in the nation, just a tiny bit of exposion to market economy and democracy ruined ussr, *a superpower*, and why do you say the collapse of ussr brought a dark age? Im pretty sure for the rest of the warsaw pact the communist regime was a dark age too
Cool
You are failing to account for in the former case of Russia it’s economic growth at the time before the war and the affects of compound growth upon an economy. On top of this the demographic catastrophe which the Russians faces during this time period is potentially averted which does a lot to aid it as a country as it now has several millions more people than it otherwise would’ve.
What happened to the series?
One thing Americans seem to forget is how very lucky we got; if Lenin, for example, had fled not to Switzerland, but instead..Cuba? One can imagine tens of thousands of African-Americans becoming intensely interested in his message. One can almost imagine an alternate history, where an exhausted Lincoln does not seek reelection, and the South secedes, but remains stagnant, due to its backwards institutions. America's loss is the gain of France and Britain; France never leaves Mexico, and Britain openly arms the western Natives against the approaching waves of Yankee settlers.
Tension rises across the plains as blue-clad troops push against the best cavalry since the Mongols fell on China. War is sparked by Britain demanding American settlers leave the island of British Columbia (renamed George Washington Isle some five years later.) All is not well among the British Alliance, though. The Confederates workforce, never quite recovered from the Civil War, finds themselves awash in Mexican workers, fleeing France. And down on the farm, the slaves begin to whisper about the failures of capitalism, about the need for the workers to take control. Welcome to 1917.
What if the USA had been more involved in helping Russia to modernize in the 19th century, how might this have changed things?
A Tsarist Russia would have implemented reforms after 1917. Even if they defeated the Bolsheviks, the leadership would have realized that changes were necessary to prevent further unrest.
Nice to see someone else acknowledging war exhaustion would be too much to outright intervene with the Bolsheviks.
Plus, didn't Germany and the USSR get along functionally before '33-'36? I know it's because Brest-Litovsk was undone, but there can be a way for gratitude to stick for being given the opportunity to rule Russia.
While difficult to predict on the rise of Hitler, without the USSR to use as a threat, assuming he still came to power after ww1, tsar Nicholas II would have been an ally of Hitler. They shared a same view on Jews, Nicholas's father instituted the greatest purge of Jews seen until the holocaust. He would have entered into a defence pact with the Germans in the hopes of needed economic boosts (sort of like out own Nazi Soviet pact).
Nicholas was dead set against reforms, believing in the divine right of kings. He stymied and disbanded the parliament at every chance. A monarchial democracy like Britain would have been impossible in Russia, and given Alexei would probably have been dead by 20, the Ivanic line of the Romanovs would probably have ended with Nicholas (since his daughters could never come to the throne on their own name).
realistically just sending some german generals or field marshals would have done a lot to help the whites even if it wouldn't win the war and i think in the even of a german victory there would still be some freikorps sort of group that would be able to do a good bit against the Bolsheviks if supplied by germany even with these though I couldn't be certain that it would cause a white victory and it may just prolong the civil war a bit
I know this is an older video, and you most likely won't see this comment, I'd like to address your thoughts on the second trope, in which the German State is undermined by war with Bolsheviks after victory in the first world war.
You comment on how much more devastating the war would be for the german economy and for german society as a whole, and thus the idea of going to war with the Bolsheviks would be an idea that Berlin wouldn't explore.
There are two flaws with this argument however, the first one is ideological. In which the german government would be absolutely terrified of the revolution spreading to the rest of Eastern Europe and even their own territory. They're the Imperial Overlords in that region and have an obligation to defend their new Empire and consolidate their holdings. Bolshevik Russia is a clear threat to their territorial and strategic integrity that needs to be crushed early or resisted in some way.
The second is the weakness of the Bolshevik government in this time period, the Soviet Army, while large and fairly well equipped, suffered from an enormous, debilitating deficit of several things that a military force needed in that time period.
1. Heavy weapons. Machine guns and large, heavy artillery was something that the revolutionaries distinctly lacked, and that could not be produced very easily.
2. Well trained soldiers and Capable officers, the Soviet military forces in that time period were not a professional military force. They were revolutionaries, and while they were motivated, they could not in any way stand up to a disciplined, trained army with combat experience. Early into the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks suffered hard at the hands of the White Armies despite politically being the more centralised force. Keep in mind, trench warfare and frontlines was also not a prominent aspect of the Russian Civil War, with both the white and red armies using the flat geography of Russia to their advantage to maneuver. Decisive battles were the deciding factors, not attritional conflict. Therefore the German Army would not sustain too much damage in the long term by fighting by crushing the Bolsheviks, unless by some miracle, the Revolutionaries manage to steel their teeth and grind it out with enemies surrounding them at literally every side.
Hi!
W kaisereich map 12:12
I love these videos about Russia. You are great! Just keep doping what you are doing, and eventually you will get notice by the algoritam
By the time America joined, the German colonies except tanzania had fallen.
🎉
Voor het algoritme.
Dank u zeer
And then it never happened again
They saved Hitler's brain
for the algorithm
What about some form of Kerensky' or similarly ideologically oriented government? How would slower(, but (as I think) in the end more natural and prosperous) industrialisation affect Russia in "WW2"? And how would the lack of obvious evil in form of bolshevics affect Russia's enemies in "WW2"?
I would love to see episode about Dunkirk and the possibility of capturing British considering how overextended Germans were and Britain peacing out or even helping or joining Barbarossa, or on the other hand redeclaring the war after some Stalingrad or Kursk like great German defeat either with or without American support.
Hi
command
Zheltorossiya
What if Russia was a liberal democracy?
The brutality and licentiousness of dictators are always circumscribed by the tolerance of the Ruled.
Hello
How would a semi-feudal economy industrialize faster than a country motivated by fear of the west and ideological drive to industrialize figuratively, or in a few cases, literally, at gunpoint? What, would the Tsar try to run a planned economy that moves people *even faster than Stalin did* to the cities to become industrial workers? Establish literacy programs for those workers to try to turn them into worker-citizens rather than peasants that made up most of the population in 1917?
Like, aside from somehow just.. not doing the civil war.. How exactly is the Tsar supposed to beat Stalin at his own game?
Russia was pretty backwards and its leadership were intent on maxing out its success *while remaining pretty backwards.* The idea that suddenly the Tsar can outdo the Bolsheviks in this regard when they are under no such constraint seems silly.
When we talk about the Russian Empire, we are talking about missed opportunities, or rather, about the lack of time and a series of terrible events.
hi
,,Give us 20 peaceful years….and you will not recognize Russia anymore‘‘
- Pjotr Stolypin (1909)
.
hi.
Zorn
"3rd largest economy in te world"
"still thinks it wouldn't industrialize faster with the tsar"
lol
How does being the third largest economy in the world impact whether the Tsar or the Communists would create faster industrialisation? Sure the pure was large, but the population was as well. But looking at both agricultural/industrial/services percentages as well as gdp per capita Tsarist Russia was way behind, and having a large GDP on paper doesn't necessarily make industrialisation easier.
@@possiblehistory good point really. Also my mistake it wans't the 3rd but the 4th. Anyways... to me the economic policies of the soviets were terrible for russia. Even if it had become an authoritarian regime which is the most likely scenario it'd still be in a better shape than in otl. Even during the tsarist times many in the goverment like you mentioned were urging for change so to me it was inevetable the industrialization of russia... but the way how the soviets did it made the economy work like a frankenstein. Anything ele would have worked better.
@@salmonjoseph9970 You're forgetting about Lebensraum, if Russia wasn't industrialised by the Soviets, albeit haphazardly, before WW2 it is very likely that the Genocide of Slavs and war on the eastern front would happen on a larger scale and Russia would face even heavier losses, possibly exceeding 50 million on top of the damage to the little industry that existed there. It likely wouldn't recover till the 70s or 80s similar to India and China.
@@duckpotat9818 Just one small problem: there was already substantial industrialization going on at the time, and the same people that got Soviet industrial efforts started had been trained in Imperial Russian universities during WW1. So Imperial Russia would not just be a hapless victim of the Nazi menace.
In fact, the Nazis are probably going to break at the first stumbling block (Czechoslovakia) because it's very likely that it would be a Russian protectorate after WW1. And if the Russians fight over it before the Nazis can get their hands on Czech war industry and stave off economic collapse in Germany caused by the rearmament, the Nazis are doomed before they can even get the Holocaust started, much less Generalplan Ost.
@@lordofefrafa4396 also with the imperial/white russia the nazis are not going to exist in the first place, as there is a lack of some huge menace ideology to scare people. Even if germany is going to have a reactionary movement its going to be fascist, similar to italy
There is simply no way nazis can actually exist or rise to power in this world
It’s funny that approximately the same forecasts were given to Soviet Russia at one time. They said that it would take them decades to reach the level of leading countries. And then the USSR became a superpower, winning the war. I have no idea where this constant assessment of Russia comes from as some kind of backward, unsuccessful, obviously losing player. At the same time, from which comes an eternal threat in one form or another, with which everyone needs to fight. For some reason, everything connected with Russians always comes in a negative way. Starting from the gray color filter in films and ending with politics. Is the Russophobia that Russians talk about really exaggerated?
Russia has, no matter the regime, always suffered from nepotism, corruption and authoritarianism.
It can change for the better but would require a seismic shift in culture and civic traditions.
If I could randomly live in any country, in any time, and randomly whether I was rich or poor, Russia and China would never, ever, be my choice.
Yea, Let's compare GDP per capita of European metropolises and 1/6 of the land👍🏻 + population of RE increased by 40 million in the 20 years before WW1, it's like the whole population of france
Russia wasnt the most developed country, but its growth rate, uff. RE developed faster than ALL countries in the world, while Russian workers worked less and rested more, in comparison, for example, with Japanese
Wow, soviets did industrialization😱. Killing only a couple of tens of millions along the way, well, this is a big success
I repeat, Russia was developing at a frantic pace, and now imagine that after the war they would also carry out industrialization...
7:45 man, any country in the second half of the 20th century grew faster than it did at the beginning of the century, in general, everyone started to grow faster. But before World War I, Russia grew faster than anyone else. Against its background, the successes of the USSR simply go out.
11:30 I agree with you, it was necessary to strangle the opposition more, so that in 1917 the bald ignoramus would not make a revolution. Not executing those terrorists was a giant mistake.
How did Lenin get to Russia? Through Finland, which was a haven for all terrorists due to too much autonomy.
14:54 ... Russia ... suffered from a lack of food ... a country that fed all of Europe ...Ok, this is 1918, revolution, etc., it would be better to show what happened in 1917
True.
Professor Dominic Lieven said that if Russia had continiued Stolypin‘s Reforms, Russia would have become a Superpower. A Power that in the World only the United States could match. Maybe the British Empire (35 Million km2) if the British Empire holds together. But not any other European Country.
@@GeneralCurtisEmersonLeMay This is what the Germans were afraid of. They wanted to unite the countries of Europe to compete with the US, Russia and Britain
@@meta671games You’re right. Many think that Germany did this because of Imperialism and Aggression. But Germany did only what Britain did. To collect Lands across the oceans in order to compete in the 20th Century with Russia and the US.
The Germans had no bad Intentions.
I do not hate the Soviet Union!
That’s not a very moral opinion to hold.
Hi
hi
Hi
Hi
Hi
Thanks for the Heart!
Hi
Hi
Hi
hi