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Old 03-20-11, 12:52 PM   #14
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Stowaway
 
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I really doubt the assassination of Lenin would have made any significant difference to WW1. The timeline in the article is too late, by late summer 1918 the German Army was teetering on the edge of rout in the West. With several million troops still in the Ukraine and Western Russia imposing the Brest-Litovsk treaty provisions, it's unlikely that the fledgling Red Army would have abandoned the fight against the Whites that was just getting into stride. Even a total collapse of the Bolsheviks and replacement by the Whites would not have allowed the new regime to act militarily against Germany before the latter asked for an Armistice from the Allies and American's.

As for the Civil war, by late 1918 Lenin was already ill and there was a certain Georgian revolutionary waiting in the wings to take power. You could probably bet that the removal of Lenin would have opened the door to a struggle between People's Commissar for Defence, Trotsky and Commissar for Nationalities Stalin with his military croney's Voroshilov and Budenny (sp?).

Stalin was more ruthless than Lenin when it came to imposing Party dogma and defence of the Revolution but placed his acquisition and maintenence of power above everything else. It's difficult but not impossible to see the Civil War turning out differently had he been in charge from the start.

It is nice to see though that British foriegn policy is finally getting a warts and all assessment since for too long English language histories have tried to paint it as being shiny clean and totally honourable.
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