AHC: Bolshevik Russians end up as co-belligerents of the Ent

[raharris1973]

Here’s the challenge- after signing a peace with the Germans, or dropping out and armistice-ing and trying to reach a treaty, the Bolshevik Russians end up as co-belligerents of the Entente, fighting the Germans again.

Posting on this topic was inspired by @crueldwarf’s remark here:
Crueldwarf said:
There is no way for Germans in late 1917 or early 1918 to advance on Moscow. Petrograd is possible but it would both require serious commitment (that German Empire was ill-posed to afford) and will do nothing to actually topple Bolsheviks. In fact the most likely result of continuing German advance on Petrograd and failure of the peace talks would be a flip of the Bolshevik rhetoric toward patriotic defense and Lenin actually going along with Entente demands. Which would probably lead to Entente actually supporting the Bolsheviks against the Germans.

[michelvan]

To manage that, you have to murder the entire top of Bolshevik party (Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky etc.)
Why ?
They all wanted peace with Germany just like majority of the Russians and terminate the War. 

and to get co-belligerents of the Entente, you have to remove the Bolshevik from power, 
letting provisional Government of Kerensky continue his plans for War
good POD is failed 1917 July uprise in Russia, were Lenin take refuge in Finland.

[stevep]

   I think the Bolsheviks, having failed on a no war not peace policy in 1917-18 and then made an humiliating peace with Germany in early 1918 would be forced to fight if Germany for some reason broke the treaty and attacked again but I doubt the Germans would have spare resources to do that and with the Bolshevik having destroyed the morale of the army they would probably struggle to put up much resistance, at least in western Russia against any such German attack.

[Max Sinister]

When the Bolshies hesitated to make peace with Germany, the Germans occupied Ukraine and took that too. Moscow's out of reach I guess, but Petrograd?

[raharris1973]

Sept 28, 2022 17:11:07 GMT Max Sinister said:

When the Bolshies hesitated to make peace with Germany, the Germans occupied Ukraine and took that too. Moscow's out of reach I guess, but Petrograd?

Petrograd definitely shouldn't be out of reach. People rightly say that for the Germans, occupying, administering, and feeding Petrograd's civilian populace would be a logistical and administrative nightmare. Let alone occupying Moscow beyond that.  Yet Ludendorff advocated turning against the Bolsheviks, occupying Petrograd, and setting up an anti-Bolshevik puppet government in June 1918, well *after* the Brest-Litovsk treaty.  One could say that means Germany cannot seize those cities, but that is not strictly true. The Germans can seize the cities, refuse to feed them, seize food and shelter for themselves, and deal with people's unrest and rioting that affects their forces by killing civilian populations or chasing them away from German cantonments on pain of death - thereby introducing WWII-level mass genocidal atrocities in 1918. It wouldn't be because of a premeditated Generalplan Ost, it would just be because surliness about being dominant over terrain, and a ruthless approach to managing scarcity.
 
How hard or easy is it for the Germans to find White Allies in Russia? Among non-Russian ethnicities, like the Finns, it should be pretty easy. What about among ethnic Russians? I suspect many Russian officers and people will put class interests and anti-Bolshevik, anti-peasant vengefulness above ethno-national patriotism and collaborate with the Germans. Others will have a hard time doing that and hold their nose and work with or under the Bolsheviks to resist the Germans, or resist the Germans independently.

But as everybody was saying, war-weariness is real. The Bolsheviks have a serious problem and erode one of their main achievements and promises by getting back into war again. It hurts them with their most natural supporters and the people they need, the soldiers Soviets and Red Army. [Although how concentrated were these guys anymore and how dispersed were they back to home villages trying to claim land in the division of estates?]. Being resistant to the Germans helps the Bolsheviks some with people who are *not* their natural allies, leaders/intellectuals of other Socialist parties, bourgeois and officers professing patriotism, the Allied powers who were all offended by Brest-Litovsk and its humiliating cessions. But the everyday people needed to fight the war are less impressed.

The Bolshevik Central Committee has to figure out how to manage that, while the Germans need to figure out what it wants to get out of the use of military force in the east, and its cost-benefit in terms of grain collection, beyond simply wrecking any force that stands up to oppose the German forces.

In May-June the German military still should have the capability to advance to, and take Petrograd and Moscow by blasting away any opposing armies. But it can't administer or feed the populations. It could have that capability, compared to the Bolsheviks, possibly as late as August of September. Would advancing Germans just run over all Bolshevik territories until they encountered Allied backed White territories to the east, or would retreating Red Army forces themselves be able to shove opposing White and Green and Black forces out of their way to make room for themselves?

Back to the Bolsheviks' problems - I imagine the Bolsheviks will hope to keep their government intact, even if it has to retreat, and keep a loyal armed force going, hardly ever risking large shares of it in pitched battle, and it would try to manipulate the situation to derive maximum military labor against the Germans from others like the Czech Legion and intervening allies. That is going to leave the resistance to the Germans very fragmented and inefficient and sub-optimal.

OK- say it all breaks in desertions, the Germans, being the strongest force at least through the summer of 1918 months coerce the people who want to live to be their mercenaries and camp followers and puppets, and to all public appearances, it looks like the Bolshevik government has disappeared from European Russia. Ex-Red Army forces have scattered and are just doing what it takes to survive.

Under these circumstances, how thoroughly are the Germans and any Russian hirelings going to be able to comb the Russian countryside to arrest and execute the Bolshevik leaders, and any other leaders of any stripe of anti-German resistance? How effective a puppet administration will the Germans set up in occupied European Russia? What parts will the Allies be able to hold against the Germans? Given all the doubts we should have about German logistical, and thus administrative capacity and care, as we move from May to June to July on through November 1918, what will things look like then? It would probably be an environment of mass death, so that in itself should kill off many Bolshevik leaders and supporters (and other anti-German resisters), but would Bolshevik leaders survival chances really be below average for Russian urban dwellers?

The Germans will lose eventually. Do the the Allies just send a General MacArthur-like figure to issue orders to the German-occupiers to hand over the strings to the Russian puppet government, and assume control themselves? Or does Russia break down into a military-politcal free-for-all once more?

If the latter, will former puppets of the Germans be particularly liked? If living, what's to stop Bolshevik leaders from resurfacing and competing against other Russians for political power, successfully, against other factions who all seemed politically inept by comparison. Why should we assume reactionary warlords or old-style strongmen would have a particular advantage? Are rightists more durable and evergreen while left movements burn themselves out more?

[stevep]

   I think things depends on the circumstances.  If a peace has been made - such as the historical one at Brest-Litovsk - and the Germans break it then the Bolsheviks can claim a need to fight for national defence, although the damage they have done to the army before this and what their probably doing to the society is going to greatly restrict the capacity for anything but guerilla resistance in many areas.  [Although the status and loyalty of much of the German army could be somewhat uncertain?]  Plus how much can Germany commit to the east without cancelling or fatally weakening the planned western offensive, unless they decide - which seems to be totally out of character for their leadership - to sit on the defensive in the west and assume they can withstand later allied offensives.

  Its a totally different issue if no formal peace is signed - i.e. they continue with Trotsky's idiotic plan of no war, no peace, not opposing the Germans militarily.  In that case Germany will continue advancing because they need to secure stability in the east so they can transfer forces to the west for their last gasp offensive.  This is likely to be fatal to  all sides as the Bolsheviks are increasingly discredited and driven from their support bases in the big cities, the population who are likely to suffer badly as raharris1973, suggests and the Germans who will have forces increasingly drawn deep and deeper into a Russian morass. 

  Either way the Germans would look for allies and collaborators.  Their more likely to find Slavic/Russian ones in the latter case as the Bolsheviks have clearly failed Russia while many other Russians will look towards anyone who can provide some stability and protection so some puppet states will be set up.  How much stability they will have after the German collapse will depend on the circumstances.  For those who aren't too clearly tied to German minorities or a pro-German stance they could have some staying power and may also get some western support.  Although the west would have to decide whether it would rather support independence movements, including say for Ukraine or a central Russian state as I suspect most supporters of the latter would also seek to regain at least the Orthodox lands of the former empire.

  Its not impossible for the Bolsheviks to survive and still come out on top given their ruthlessness and especially if any collaborators are too closely tied to the German occupiers.  Doubly so if the Germans are brutal against any form of opposition as they could well be.  However the dangers of them coming out on top would be significantly less if they oversaw an even greater loss of Russian territory and destruction of the centre of Russian power than OTL.

[Max Sinister]

The Whites hate the Bolshies, but they'd hate to be nothing more than German flunkies as well.

[lordroel]

Sept 21, 2022 11:57:56 GMT raharris1973 said:

Here’s the challenge- after signing a peace with the Germans, or dropping out and armistice-ing and trying to reach a treaty, the Bolshevik Russians end up as co-belligerents of the Entente, fighting the Germans again.

Would that make the White Russians co-belligerents to the Central Powers.

[raharris1973]

Oct 12, 2022 3:43:05 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 21, 2022 11:57:56 GMT raharris1973 said:

Here’s the challenge- after signing a peace with the Germans, or dropping out and armistice-ing and trying to reach a treaty, the Bolshevik Russians end up as co-belligerents of the Entente, fighting the Germans again.

Would that make the White Russians co-belligerents to the Central Powers.

That would be up to the leaders of the different White faction's Armies I suppose.

[lordroel]

Oct 12, 2022 8:09:00 GMT raharris1973 said:

Oct 12, 2022 3:43:05 GMT lordroel said:

Would that make the White Russians co-belligerents to the Central Powers.

That would be up to the leaders of the different White faction's Armies I suppose.

I assume that if one White Russian faction sides with the Central Powers there might be other White Russian factions who do not, the Russian Civil War already a mess in OTL will be a lot more a mess here.

[raharris1973]

Oct 12, 2022 13:50:40 GMT lordroel said:

Oct 12, 2022 8:09:00 GMT raharris1973 said:

That would be up to the leaders of the different White faction's Armies I suppose.

I assume that if one White Russian faction sides with the Central Powers there might be other White Russian factions who do not, the Russian Civil War already a mess in OTL will be a lot more a mess here.

I think that is a fair assumption