AHC: Vladimir Ulyanov/Lenin as a tutor to Tsesarevich Alexei
- Thread starter Valena
- Start date
Lenin's older brother Sasha would need to avoid getting involved in radical politics and consequently getting executed. Vladimir Lenin ends up as a liberal reformist.
Original Vanderlip-esque proposal succeeds, USA buys Kamchatka Peninsula and Lenin becomes an American by default. As he gets older he studies Econimics and Political Science at Fordham, eventually earning a dual degree before going to Columbia Law School. At Columbia he finds a deep desire to return to his Russian roots and becomes involved in building bridges between his mother and 'stepmother' countries. By chance he meets a Russian diplomat and one thing leads to another...
There was a old timeline some years ago where Lenin became a member of Tsar Alexei's cabinet. Their TTL selves made a very effective team, hard not to root for them really 
Very interesting but:
1. In OTL he did not get a good education (was thrown out of an university, IIRC) so that should be different.
2. His Russian language was well below the level expected from tsarevich’s tutor (not to mention his tendency to be very free with the expletives
)3. AFAIK, with the exception of German, he was not very good with the languages, especially French
4. Not sure in which science he excelled (but perhaps a course of a cheap political demagoguery would be extremely useful for any Romanov because in that area they were totally lost with the known results).
So he could teach:
A. Political demagoguery
B. How to deal with the political enemies (execute them without bothering with a trial and other nonsense)
C. How to mobilize national resources for a military effort.
BTW, you touched a very interesting subject of how Tsarism could deal with the revolutionaries. Besides the obvious option of trying to hunt them down and kill as the rats without bothering with the procedures, there was an alternative proposed by A.K.Tolstoy in «Порой веселой мая»: «Повесить Станислава всем вожакам на шеи» (for the anglophones, “Give all the ringleaders the state awards”).
This first one is easy to change, just don't have Lenin get "radicalized"
For the second one, Lenin did speak excellent Latin and Greek, a useful part of a high class child's education. He studied law, something important for a ruler to learn.
Overall, if Lenin's brother is not executed or better yet is not a communist to begin with, Lenin is on his way to get a degree in law with some other pretty solid academic knowledge under his belt. His father was a teacher, so Lenin could, through passive influence or pressure, pursue a career in education, becoming a law professor. He would likely be a liberal due to his low class origins. Lenin would still be an Atheist, which would be frowned upon, but was a common form of eccentricity among intellectuals. If he became famous enough in the empire's intellectual circles (publishing more moderate books on legal reform could help with this), his atheism and foul language might be excused (or he may simply be asked to not bring up religion and try not to swear in the palace), it was not uncommon for monarchs to have weird or rude intellectuals in their court if they were good enough at what they did. In fact, their bizarre or taboo behaviours were often seen as a bonus since they were a welcome break from the other more pretentious scholars. Brutal honesty paired with a foul mouth was the most desirable variant of this. Lenin would likely show his understanding of politics and his public speaking skills as well, and could ofc teach Alexei this as well.
And yeah, I second that.
On a separate note, if Stalin passed seminary school and was a successful priest, he could end up as a spiritual advisor or tutor to Alexei (He's only 8 years younger than Lenin so he should not be too young for the job). He would be a sort of second Rasputin. That would be an interesting TL as well...
The main problem with almost everything of the above is that it has nothing to do with OTL Lenin.
Foul mouth was, perhaps, welcomed on students’ meetings but it was not acceptable in the academic writings and definitely was out of question in tsarevich’s tutor. Not sure if OTL Lenin, even if given an opportunity, would pursue the academic career: his writings are rather pathetic in all aspects except one, a great grasp on the current situation and solution of how to deal with the immediate problem. Public defender (area in which a cheap demagoguery and fast reaction were essential) was much more his style and from that profession there was a direct road to Duma and politics.
Older brother indeed should avoid any contact with radicals. But Nicholas II hardly would accept someone liberal-reformist as tutor of his heir. If then you don't make him more liberal or at least open-mind.
Perhaps Alexander II is not assassinated and he manage make couple reforms more. Alexander III reign would be pretty short if he even ascends to power. At least him is not going destroy all reforms what Alexander II did altough things would be stagnatised.
Few considerations:
1. There is no reason to assume that, absent the general background and his brother’s example, Vladimir would necessarily grow as more than an average liberal.
2. There is absolutely no reason to assume that he would chose an academic career and even less so that he would excel in any area making him a suitable candidate as tsarevich’s tutor: standard curriculum involved languages, religion, history, geography, some military education (mostly paradeground drill) and, as I understand, some rudimentary knowledge of the legal system and economy (not too much of it, judging by Alexander II).
3. Continued reign of Alexander II was a luxury that Russia could ill afford because thanks to his (and his brother Constantine’s) views and actions the country was facing both economic and political ruin. Russian industries were not developing being killed by the low tariffs on imports (seemingly progressive idea applied without bothering to think) and the budget deficit was steadily growing. Agriculture was in a bad state for many years after the Reform because, even with the available subsidies, most of the peasants still had been using the obsolete methods. The military reforms were right thing to do but the war of 1877 - 78 demonstrated a lot of flaws in what had been done. Constantine was, of course, a progressive figure but as an Admiral-General he wasted huge amounts of money building, as someone put it, “collection of the ships but not a navy” (to be fair, his successor was even worse). Russian foreign policy led to the international humiliation. Russian “society” (educated classes) was in a complete turmoil not being able to digest the existing reforms but demanding more and seeing its main purpose in life in opposing the government as a matter of principle. Not only would the juries let free not quite successful political assassins but after assassination of Alexander II there were voices for pardoning the assassins as a way to gain “public trust”.
4. There is no reason to assume that a railroad catastrophe which triggered Alexander III health problems was inevitable.
5. “Stagnation” is hardly a good way to describe the reign of Alexander III. He introduced quite a few reforms which triggered development of the Russian industry, turned the money-consumed railroads into the profitable enterprises, started cutting the deficit and, the 1st time in the modern Russian history provided soldiers with the simple and convenient uniforms (which survived through the revolution and all the way to the fall of the SU). He managed to put expenses of the Grand Dukes under at least some control and cut their number. He managed to restore to a great degree law and order and, unlike his predecessor and successor, managed to keep Russia out of wars while maintaining its high international prestige. Well, of course, there were no “reforms for the sake of the reforms” but, let’s face it, contemporary Russia needed slow changes even if the educated classes wanted “everything” (which none of them could clearly define) just now without thinking about the possible impact of these “social jumps”.
Maybe a longer-lived Alexander II could result in a more reformist-minded Nicholas II?
Repeating the same actions expecting the different results is a sign of insanity and this is quite applicable to the reign of Alexander II who by the end of his reign had Russia in a state of a political disarray and economic stagnation. So how exactly more of of the same would make his example more attractive? Anyway, Alexander II would be succeeded by his son, not grandson and, taking into an account that Alexander Jr. was quite pissed off with his father’s treatment of his mother, it is quite unlikely that he would let his father to play a big role in bringing up his children. Not that in OTL AII displayed any noticeable interest in doing so or that his example was too inspirational.
Then, and this is just a curiosity, why “reforms” are by default considered as something unquestionably positive? They can be quite ruinous and in the case of Russia there were numerous illustrations to that fact including those related to the reign of Alexander II.