I don’t think you can separate it like that given just a few months passing in between. Once they had power, they were pretty single-minded about reinforcing it and leaving nothing to chance.
“They tried to make their own reign stable” isn’t really an argument against them creating a power vacuum, no more than the Tsarist obsession with autocracy as a means of stability counts against the Tsar’s incompetence leading to a power vacuum.
Almost a year passed, in which Russia remained cohesive enough to maintain participation in WW1 and have radical, nationwide elections.
I mean, didn’t Spain and Portugal do something similar with South America?
Fighting very separate polities.
If they were actually fighting together you’d have a point, but what happened is that they drew a line on a map through Poland, independently expanded to it, and then didn’t cross it for a little while.
‘Independently expanded to it’ is a funny way of saying “Invading within two weeks of each other, causing the sudden dissolution of the Polish war plan, then meeting in the middle and having a joint victory parade”.
Oh, you meant the US. Sure, Soviet blood, American steel.
And without Britain staying in the fight, the US wouldn’t have gotten involved in Europe at all. And without Britain staying in the fight, a massive amount of air power would have been available for Operation Barbarossa.
Do you really think the provisional government would have just lasted if Lenin had stayed home, so to speak? From where I’m standing it seems someone else from some faction somewhere would have started their own coup.
Yes, WWII was a joint effort. I probably should have said “the most decisive contribution”. I’m sorry, my bad.
Do you really think the provisional government would have just lasted if Lenin had stayed home, so to speak? From where I’m standing it seems someone else from some faction somewhere would have started their own coup.
The previous coup attempt against the provisional government failed because there was no mass appetite in the population for a coup from the right, and the Bolshevik coup only succeeded at the cost of - again - sparking a civil war. The Mensheviks and SRs were both onboard with the provisional government; neither of them were likely to attempt a coup. Most of the right-wing elements had been stripped of power, and the military refused to follow a right-wing putsch attempt. If Lenin had stayed home, so to speak… what faction does that leave to attempt a coup?
It hardly seems ridiculous to think that the legislature that everything since the overthrow of the Tsar had been working towards - complete with arguments and concessions with competing factions - finally assembling after the long-awaited elections might have forged something lasting had the Bolsheviks not closed it down by military force, yes.
See, there’s just no parallel for that, across all the centuries of history I know. A totally autocratic government being replaced by a strong democracy. The West has tried to manufacture it once or twice, and that’s miserably failed. Meanwhile, Napoleon was the eventual endpoint of the French revolution, and the American revolution wasn’t actually a big change from the existing colonial structure right off the bat - both Britain and America expanded democratic rights over time afterwards.
If we’re wishing away the Bolsheviks, Trotsky would have had to find someone else to facilitate his ambition; that’s it. Maybe he’d get Stalin’d by them again, or maybe he’d hold on as dictator. Or maybe it would be someone else completely. You say Kornilov’s thing didn’t stick because he was too right-wing, and I don’t know enough to contradict that, but nobody launches a coup because it’s hopeless. One was going to stick.
“They tried to make their own reign stable” isn’t really an argument against them creating a power vacuum, no more than the Tsarist obsession with autocracy as a means of stability counts against the Tsar’s incompetence leading to a power vacuum.
Almost a year passed, in which Russia remained cohesive enough to maintain participation in WW1 and have radical, nationwide elections.
Fighting very separate polities.
‘Independently expanded to it’ is a funny way of saying “Invading within two weeks of each other, causing the sudden dissolution of the Polish war plan, then meeting in the middle and having a joint victory parade”.
And without Britain staying in the fight, the US wouldn’t have gotten involved in Europe at all. And without Britain staying in the fight, a massive amount of air power would have been available for Operation Barbarossa.
Do you really think the provisional government would have just lasted if Lenin had stayed home, so to speak? From where I’m standing it seems someone else from some faction somewhere would have started their own coup.
Yes, WWII was a joint effort. I probably should have said “the most decisive contribution”. I’m sorry, my bad.
The previous coup attempt against the provisional government failed because there was no mass appetite in the population for a coup from the right, and the Bolshevik coup only succeeded at the cost of - again - sparking a civil war. The Mensheviks and SRs were both onboard with the provisional government; neither of them were likely to attempt a coup. Most of the right-wing elements had been stripped of power, and the military refused to follow a right-wing putsch attempt. If Lenin had stayed home, so to speak… what faction does that leave to attempt a coup?
It hardly seems ridiculous to think that the legislature that everything since the overthrow of the Tsar had been working towards - complete with arguments and concessions with competing factions - finally assembling after the long-awaited elections might have forged something lasting had the Bolsheviks not closed it down by military force, yes.
See, there’s just no parallel for that, across all the centuries of history I know. A totally autocratic government being replaced by a strong democracy. The West has tried to manufacture it once or twice, and that’s miserably failed. Meanwhile, Napoleon was the eventual endpoint of the French revolution, and the American revolution wasn’t actually a big change from the existing colonial structure right off the bat - both Britain and America expanded democratic rights over time afterwards.
If we’re wishing away the Bolsheviks, Trotsky would have had to find someone else to facilitate his ambition; that’s it. Maybe he’d get Stalin’d by them again, or maybe he’d hold on as dictator. Or maybe it would be someone else completely. You say Kornilov’s thing didn’t stick because he was too right-wing, and I don’t know enough to contradict that, but nobody launches a coup because it’s hopeless. One was going to stick.