A what if from Oberon - Page 2

CCIP · 03-26-06, 07:26 PM

I think the revolution was going to happen, but not neccesarily the Bolshevik one. The tzar's government was, one way or another, edging near collapse and under increasing pressure to modernize based on the western model. The Bolsheviks were really underdogs until fairly late in the game. Communist efforts gained nothing in the failed revolution of 1905; their support base was really very limited - they needed somewhere to get support. It was WWI that let them gain that support, on the one hand with Bolshevik agents "spreading the word" among demoralized soldiers at the front, on the other hand at home in the factories with workers strained by war measures and while the government, facing a military crisis, is looking the other way. Thus my regards to Lenin from the other thread, because he really seized and exploited all possible advantages afforded to him by this otherwise bleak situation - where the Bolsheviks were really at the bottom of the pile.

Otherwise, the war was just a final nail in the coffin of the declining Russian monarchy. Any other serious crisis besides the war (and there was plenty of opportunities for that) would have resulted in its collapse, and replacement by a far more moderate regime than the Bolsheviks (again, see March revolution and Kerensky's government).

03-26-06, 07:26 PM	#16
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	I think the revolution was going to happen, but not neccesarily the Bolshevik one. The tzar's government was, one way or another, edging near collapse and under increasing pressure to modernize based on the western model. The Bolsheviks were really underdogs until fairly late in the game. Communist efforts gained nothing in the failed revolution of 1905; their support base was really very limited - they needed somewhere to get support. It was WWI that let them gain that support, on the one hand with Bolshevik agents "spreading the word" among demoralized soldiers at the front, on the other hand at home in the factories with workers strained by war measures and while the government, facing a military crisis, is looking the other way. Thus my regards to Lenin from the other thread, because he really seized and exploited all possible advantages afforded to him by this otherwise bleak situation - where the Bolsheviks were really at the bottom of the pile. Otherwise, the war was just a final nail in the coffin of the declining Russian monarchy. Any other serious crisis besides the war (and there was plenty of opportunities for that) would have resulted in its collapse, and replacement by a far more moderate regime than the Bolsheviks (again, see March revolution and Kerensky's government). __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)