World War 1: If Only ..

[Phanerothyme]

Well, no. If you posit that migration cannot take place and everyone descended from the UK must remain within it, it's pretty easy to do the numbers.

 

Rubbish.

 

Migration didn't happen, and the UK instituted child licences, enforced by law to circumvent a dangerous ovepopulation problem.

 

The idea of child licences spread throughout the Anglophone world, triggering a massive depopulation and ultimately a continental guerilla war, as lean and hungry barbarians from the east took over much of Europe and the USA.

 

Only Australia held its borders and emerged in the 21st century as the pre-eminent technological superpower.

 

Don't you remember?

[Phanerothyme]

Or maybe there was a plague, it's all so hazy!

[mapleboy]

Well if the Germans hadn't put Lenin on a train and sent him east, you've got to ask yourself what the 20th century might have looked like. Of course you can never come up with anything like an accurate answer but it's interesting to speculate nonetheless. Isn't that how diplomacy partly works, "If we do this then X might happen, whereas if do something different, the result is more likely to be Y." You partially get your answers from looking at history. So asking "what if" is a valid exercise both beforehand and afterwards, to evaluate possibilities.

[Harleyman]

I remember reading somewhere that there was more communists in the USA than there was in Russia. The Bolsheviks just happened to be in the right place in the right time, the right time certainly was the collapse of Tsarist Russia post WW1.

 

I also agree with Harleyman, the Tsars time had come to an end, but I doubt very much that without the turmoil of the defeat whether Russia would have turned communist.

 

After the Tsar was deposedt the Socialist government (Duma) headed by Kerensky ran the country until the Bolsheviks seized power not so much by widespread revolution but more by a series of very efective take overs of key government buildings and military installations in Moscow and St Petersburg and quickly arresting members of the Duma and either shipping them off to Siberia or shooting them. There was in fact a widespread purge of socialists over the next few years which got even worse when Stalin gained control

[Harleyman]

From what I've read there was widespread support in Britain for going to war with Germany. Bunting, flags, brass bands and patriotic songs sent thousands of young men off to France.

After the battle of the Somme the horrible reality sank in.

[Chris_Sleeps]

the Socialist government (Duma) headed by Kerensky ran the country until the Bolsheviks seized power

The Soviets were openly socialist, and it was these that took power in the October Revolution. The original Government, which was essentially in charge but too lost to really control anything without the Soviets, was largely Liberal and largely middle class. If 1917 had turned a few different ways at a few different points they'd have a completely different story to tell.

 

The fact that Lenin ever came to power is an absolute miracle when you study his odds. He was in exile largely, his party were vastly outnumbered by the Mensheviks, and out of them Trotsky was a key component of what passed in Petrograd.

[Frank Sidney]

We'd never have had the last series of Blackadder, which was the best...

[Harleyman]

The Soviets were openly socialist, and it was these that took power in the October Revolution. The original Government, which was essentially in charge but too lost to really control anything without the Soviets, was largely Liberal and largely middle class. If 1917 had turned a few different ways at a few different points they'd have a completely different story to tell.

 

The fact that Lenin ever came to power is an absolute miracle when you study his odds. He was in exile largely, his party were vastly outnumbered by the Mensheviks, and out of them Trotsky was a key component of what passed in Petrograd.

 

 

You could also say that the rise of Hitler and Nazism was also a miracle considering Hitler's earlier circumstances.

Like in Russia the social conditions in Germany at the time were ripe for a take over and the opportunities were realized and seized accordingly

[Chris_Sleeps]

You could also say that the rise of Hitler and Nazism was also a miracle considering Hitler's earlier circumstances

I would indeed. Hitler was a lot more cunning though, I feel. Just my interpretation. Soviet Russia needed a Civil War to cement power, whereas Hitler did it within a democracy.