Post 1905 Sanity Options For Czarist Russia

[Kevin C. Smith]

Kind of riffing off the recent spate of "Sanity Options" threads...but, assuming a POD after the 1905 revolution (i.e., the establishment of the Duma and the 1906 constitution), what-realistically-could the Imperial government have done to avoid overthrow in the future? Some things, obviously, are beyond seeing at the time (shoot Lenin before he goes into exile), or simply not possible (industrialize to Germany-level by 1914), or miss the point entirely (preemptively abdicate in favor of Worker's Soviets in 1907). Nicholas may have to roll all natural 20's, but what were the options that could realistically have been on the table to roll for?

And, if there have been any threads in the past covering this, please let me know!

 

[MLK JFK LBJ Beatles]

DO NOT joined WW1

Just sit still and eating popcorn

 

[Lalli]

Nicholas II manages to talk Serbia to accept terms of Austria-Hungary or then speaks Franz Joseph to step back (it was just 1 or 2 demands what Serbia couldn't agree) so it could be possible.

But Nicholas II himself is big issue there. He was just too reactionary for his time and couldn't understand that there must be real reforms. So you should take him off from picture.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Kill Nicky and put his brother as a regent who was more liberal, avoid involving yourself with large scale conflicts as much as possible and when war still erupts (it's very unlikely WW1 is delayed for much longer than a decade at best) handle the situation better than Nicky did (not too difficult for anyone except for him).

 

[Imperador Pedro III]

Kill the Bolsheviks instead of imprisioning them in Siberia.

 

[naraic]

Have a consistent policy in the Balkans.

Backing Bulgaria through the 1900s before threatening them during the balkan wars was a bad reversal.

If you want to fight WW1 you need to carry the Balkan allies you want into the war.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

Shoot Rasputin.
Shoot Lenin.
Shoot Rasputin again, just to be sure.

 

[Lalli]

Kill the Bolsheviks instead of imprisioning them in Siberia.

Shoot Rasputin.
Shoot Lenin.
Shoot Rasputin again, just to be sure.

Killin Lenin/Bolsheviks not help much. They were ratherly symptom of existing problem not cause. Amd about killing of Rasputin is not any point. He wasn't guilt for collapse of the empire.

I ratherly just kill Nicholas II soon after the revolution and allow his brother Michael becoming regent for Alexei II. He was conservative but still pragrmatic enough to allow Duma operate mostly on its own instead happily dissolving that every time when is not happy for its decisions.

Russia too should prepare WW1.

 

[James Ricker]

DO NOT joined WW1

Just sit still and eating popcorn

Better yet,do not mobilize the army in 1914 and trigger Germany to do the same.
That can buy the diplomat some time

 

[Imperador Pedro III]

Better yet,do not mobilize the army in 1914 and trigger Germany to do the same.
That can buy the diplomat some time

And what are the implications if the Germans do mobilize first and gain the upper hand?

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Better yet,do not mobilize the army in 1914 and trigger Germany to do the same.
That can buy the diplomat some time

The Russians mobilized before officially announcing it IOTL too and the Battle of Masurian Lakes shows how well it went.

 

[Seandineen]

Kind of riffing off the recent spate of "Sanity Options" threads...but, assuming a POD after the 1905 revolution (i.e., the establishment of the Duma and the 1906 constitution), what-realistically-could the Imperial government have done to avoid overthrow in the future? Some things, obviously are beyond seeing at the time (shoot Lenin before he goes into exile), or simply not possible (industrialize to Germany-level by 1914), or miss the point entirely (preemptively abdicate in favor of Worker's Soviets in 1907). Nicholas may have to roll all natural 20's, but what were the options that could realistically have been on the table to roll for?

And, if there have been any threads in the past covering this, please let me know!

No meeting with Rasputin. Keep the Tsarina happy, but out of government. As far as policy goes, Peter Arcardivich's reform plus stern measures against terrorism, was holding the dam. Keep him alive.

 

[Chadwick Lightningrod]

Dump Serbia and align with Bulgaria.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

A few admonitions to sit out WWI but that is almost a decade after 1905. Is there nothing to be done in the meanwhile? Politics? Development? Reforms?

 

[Kurd Gossemer]

Dump Serbia and align with Bulgaria.

This, Bulgaria was arguably the only state worth anything in the Balkans besides Greece and keeping them large at the expense of their neighbors benefits Russia in many ways, mainly that if Bulgaria keeps Thrace, they can directly threaten Constantinople and basically have a dagger always pointed to the Ottomans, Romania would be squashed between the two of them, Serbia is too poor and Greece wouldn't be able to match Bulgaria when it comes to the army.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Use antisemitic propaganda to get the population focused on hating the jews instead of hating Tsarism and Orthodoxy. Do the same for muslims.

Sure, it'd mean you get protofascist russia but if you want a surviving czarist regime, good luck getting it without going down unpleasant paths.

 

[Polish Eagle]

Use antisemitic propaganda to get the population focused on hating the jews instead of hating Tsarism and Orthodoxy. Do the same for muslims.

Sure, it'd mean you get protofascist russia but if you want a surviving czarist regime, good luck getting it without going down unpleasant paths.

...but they were already doing that.

Black Hundreds - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Białystok pogrom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Russian authorities tried to blame the pogrom on the local Polish population in order to stir up the hatred between two ethnic groups (both of which generally opposed the Tsar). However Jewish survivors of the violence reported that the local Polish population had in fact sheltered many Jews during the pogrom and did not participate in it.[11] Apolinary Hartglas, a Polish Jewish leader and later a member of the Polish Sejm, together with Ze'ev Jabotinsky, managed to obtain secret documents issued by Szeremietiev which showed that the pogrom had been organized well in advance by Russian authorities who had actually transported railroad workers from deep within the Russian Empire to participate.[7][11] A commission set up by the Russian Duma charged with investigating the pogrom held both the local police and the central authorities to blame for the tragedy.[11][17] In 1908, on the initiative of Constitutional Democratic deputies in the Duma, some of the perpetrators of the violence were tried but the trial was widely criticized for handing out light sentences to those convicted and for failing to bring the real organizers of the pogrom to justice.[14]

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Use antisemitic propaganda to get the population focused on hating the jews instead of hating Tsarism and Orthodoxy. Do the same for muslims.

Sure, it'd mean you get protofascist russia but if you want a surviving czarist regime, good luck getting it without going down unpleasant paths.

They were already doing that and it didn't work. They didn't do it with Muslims but trying to pogrom Muslims would have terrible consequences.

 

[Lalli]

Use antisemitic propaganda to get the population focused on hating the jews instead of hating Tsarism and Orthodoxy. Do the same for muslims.

Sure, it'd mean you get protofascist russia but if you want a surviving czarist regime, good luck getting it without going down unpleasant paths.

They tried but it didn't work like stated. Russia would need true reforms not more pogroms. And I don't think that it would be acceptable to promote pogroms or other hate crimes on this site.

 

[Polish Eagle]

They tried but it didn't work like stated. Russia would need true reforms not more pogroms. And I don't think that it would be acceptable to promote pogroms or other hate crimes on this site.

There's a difference between promoting pogroms and speculating about whether they'd be amorally effective in achieving a certain goal. For example, one can say that, if the USSR had reorganized itself as a unitary (rather than federal) state and ethnically cleansed the Baltic countries, Ukraine, etc. and recolonized them all with settlers from Moscow and other Russophone cities, the breakup of the USSR would have been much harder. This would, it should go without saying, be a very monstrous and evil course of action.

The problem with using pogroms for this purpose (aside from morality) is that, first, people weren't so stupid as to not realize it was a top-down manipulation (as noted, Polish Jews, Poles, and the Duma itself all figured the trick out very quickly), and second, the Jews really aren't the long-term problem for the Tsarist state--for all the later White propaganda about Jewish Bolsheviks, Nicky the Idiot had undermined his support even among the gentile population quite effectively by 1917.