# A world without Lenin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384 "2010-05-22T17:38:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/1 "2010-05-22T17:38:03Z")
That is, without Lenin triumphant. Inspired by [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=564067) (though I ran a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=348286) on the same question back in 2005). What if, in Russia in 1917, the [February Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Revolution_of_1917) had happened but the [October Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution) had not? Suppose the Germans never send the “plague bacillus” Lenin across the lines to the Finland Station; or he does get there, but his revolution simply never comes together. The most numerous political power in Russia at that time was Kerensky’s [Socialist-Revolutionary Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist-Revolutionary_Party) or SRs, which predominated in Kerensky’s government, and its main goal was land reform, i.e., breaking up landlords’ estates and distributing the land to the peasants in family smallholdings (not state-run collective farms). In our timeline, Kerensky’s government scheduled elections to a [Constituent Assembly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly) for the end of the year. The Bolsheviks, after they took power, allowed the elections to go forward, but then dissolved the Assembly after it had met for one day. The [election results](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election,_1917) were: > [@](#): > > Party Votes Percent Deputies > Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) 17,100,000 41.0 380 > Bolsheviks 9,800,000 23.5 168 > Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets) 2,000,000 4.8 17 > Mensheviks 1,360,000 3.3 18 > Others 11,140,000 26.7 120 > Total (turnout 48.44%) 41,700,000 100 703 We may suppose this reflects, roughly, the level of popular support each party would have enjoyed if the October Revolution had never happened. The SRs enjoyed 41% – a solid plurality, but not a majority. The Bolsheviks had nearly a quarter of the vote. The Cadets or Constitutional Democracts (Western-style liberals) less than 3%. Suppose the Constituent Assembly had been allowed to do what it was supposed to do, i.e., draft a new constitution for Russia? What would it have been like? Would the Bolsheviks have been brought into the new government, or remained a party-in-opposition? What about Russia’s ongoing war with Germany? Kerensky’s policy was to continue it; Lenin’s was to make a separate peace. What would the post-Assembly government have done? What about the [soviets?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_%28council%29) These self-organized workers’ councils in factories, etc. – independent of management, of the state, and of any political party – had emerged in Russia beginning in 1905 and were a big deal by 1917. Lenin came to power on the slogan, “All power to the Soviets!” But when the Bolsheviks won, the soviets were reduced to instruments of rule of their Party and the state. What role – if any – would the soviets have enjoyed in Russian society, government and economy in a Russia with the SRs predominating? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/2 "2010-05-22T17:44:14Z")
Sorry, Cadets just under **5%.** ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/3 "2010-05-22T20:21:09Z")
The provisional government was as threatened by the right as it was by the left. If Lenin hadn’t been present to push things in favor of the left, the right probably would have won instead. Maybe in a coalition with a few left wing parties that switched sides. You would have seen somebody like Denikin or Kolchak or Kornilov or Wrangel becoming the Russian equivalent of Chiang Kai-shek. The fact that I was able to name four possible leaders for a White government shows why Lenin was so important for the Reds. He was able to establish himself as the dominant leader for his side, something that nobody on the opposing side was able to do. If Lenin hadn’t been around, the Reds probably would have been a loose alliance like the Whites were, rather than a mostly united force. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/4 "2010-05-22T20:27:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The provisional government was as threatened by the right as it was by the left. If Lenin hadn’t been present to push things in favor of the left, the right probably would have won instead. But, the right had practically **no** mass base, even compared to the Cadets. It had only the people who had been important before the February Revolution – the royals, the nobles, the gentry, highborn career military officers and bureaucrats, and a very small class of industrial capitalists (the last being more inclined to support the Cadets) – who, together with all their sympathizers, probably made up less than 5% of the general population. And when Kornilov tried to move against Kerensky’s government, he was defeated and the situation never escalated to all-out civil war, not until after the Bolsheviks took power. If they had not, how could a civil war or RW coup have had any hopes of success? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/5 "2010-05-22T20:48:38Z")
According to this, in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, rightist groups (not counting religious Muslims) got only 507,000 votes out of a total of 35,333,666 cast, or less than 1.5% of the total. Presumably that roughly reflects their level of popular support. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/6 "2010-05-22T20:55:11Z")
I figure Kerensky was no idiot. He knew his government was threatened by the left and the right. And he formed an alliance with the left. So he apparently saw the right as the bigger threat. So I’d conclude that Kerensky, who was there at the time, felt that the Whites had a realistic chance of winning. It’s true that the Whites didn’t have broad support. But the Reds didn’t really have a huge base either - their support was the urban workers, the intellectuals, and the revolutionaries. Neither side had a base among the actual masses. So it was a question of whether the right wing elite or the left wing elite could present a more plausible claim to represent the people. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/7 "2010-05-22T20:58:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s true that the Whites didn’t have broad support. But the Reds didn’t really have a huge base either - their support was the urban workers, the intellectuals, and the revolutionaries. Neither side had a base among the actual masses. But that **was** a huge base among the actual masses. Not a majority, but huge. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/8 "2010-05-22T20:58:51Z")
> [@](#): > > According to this, in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, rightist groups (not counting religious Muslims) got only 507,000 votes out of a total of 35,333,666 cast, or less than 1.5% of the total. Presumably that roughly reflects their level of popular support. But Russia’s population in 1917 was about 185,000,000. Which means there were a lot of people who were outside of the political struggle. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/9 "2010-05-22T21:00:38Z")
> [@](#): > > But that was a huge base among the actual masses. Not a majority, but huge. Hardly. Russia was still a mostly rural country. Controlling the urban workers did not give you any mass support (although it did give the Reds a strong base in Moscow and St Petersburg). And the intellectuals and revolutionaries were a drop in the bucket. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/10 "2010-05-22T21:06:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Hardly. Russia was still a mostly rural country. Controlling the urban workers did not give you any mass support (although it did give the Reds a strong base in Moscow and St Petersburg). And the intellectuals and revolutionaries were a drop in the bucket. Well, for practical purposes, “mass support” = “support among those who vote or otherwise do anything at all relevant to politics,” and the Bolsheviks had that. Their October Revolution was not **simply** a coup d’etat imposed by a clique of radical intellectuals on a bewildered people. Neither was the February Revolution. Almost everybody wanted “socialism” **in some form.** More importantly, however, the vast majority of Russia’s population were peasants. Their support **was** mass support, and the SRs had it, because they offered the peasants what they wanted most: land of their own. Don’t knock it; Thomas Jefferson had very similar ideas, and there have been many instances in American history of the government offering the (white) people their own homesteads for nothing or nearly nothing. It’s called [distributism,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism) an idea which many thinkers (mostly Catholic) have supported as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. How would Russia have developed, as a nation mostly of yeoman family farmers? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/11 "2010-05-22T23:20:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, for practical purposes, “mass support” = “support among those who vote or otherwise do anything at all relevant to politics,” and the Bolsheviks had that. Their October Revolution was not simply a coup d’etat imposed by a clique of radical intellectuals on a bewildered people. Neither was the February Revolution. Almost everybody wanted “socialism” in some form. The October Revolution and the Civil War were two seperate events. The October Revolution was a coup d’etat - and having several thousand supporters in Moscow and St Petersburg was a major reason the Bolsheviks were successful. But the Civil War was a nation wide war - there weren’t enough factory workers to decide the outcome of that. Both sides needed armies And sure the Social Revolutionaries said they represented the peasants. The Communists said the same thing. And so, for that matter, did the nobility. The question was who were the peasants actually willing to follow. And historically, it’s still not clear who the peasants should have followed. Sure, the nobility had been oppressing them for centuries. But looking ahead, the Soviets weren’t going to have all that great a record either. The Soviet Union would kill more peasants in the first ten ten years of its existence than the Empire had killed in the last fifty years of its existence. Besides, anyone looking at history can’t claim that right wing dictatorships are impossible. Plenty of them have succeeded in taking power. Obviously, they must have figured out some way to get enough popular support to do so. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/12 "2010-05-22T23:50:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And historically, it’s still not clear who the peasants should have followed. Sure, the nobility had been oppressing them for centuries. But looking ahead, the Soviets weren’t going to have all that great a record either. The Soviet Union would kill more peasants in the first ten ten years of its existence than the Empire had killed in the last fifty years of its existence. Well, then, why not the SRs? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/13 "2010-05-23T01:09:26Z")
We might have seen Russia form something of a democracy led by the Social Democrats or a mild right-wing dictatorship like Pilsudski’s in Poland. Either case means no rise of Hitler through fear of communism and thus a much better world-the biggest problem in TTL would be the Japs (maybe) and decolonization but both problems probably will be solved. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/14 "2010-05-23T01:18:49Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > We might have seen Russia form something of a democracy led by the Social Democrats . . . The Bolsheviks **were** the [Social Democrats.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party) One faction of them, at any rate – the [Mensheviks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menshevik) were the other. There seems to be a widespread belief, for some reason, that Kerensky was a Menshevik; he wasn’t, he was a [Socialist-Revolutionary.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist-Revolutionary_Party) Trotsky was a Menshevik until Lenin converted/recruited him. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/15 "2010-05-23T01:34:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Bolsheviks **were** the [Social Democrats.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party) One faction of them, at any rate – the [Mensheviks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menshevik) were the other. There seems to be a widespread belief, for some reason, that Kerensky was a Menshevik; he wasn’t, he was a [Socialist-Revolutionary.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist-Revolutionary_Party) Trotsky was a Menshevik until Lenin converted/recruited him. But they ended up advocating and accomplishing violent revolution. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/16 "2010-05-23T01:42:42Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > But they ended up advocating and accomplishing violent revolution. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party always did advocate revolution (although factions differed on what form it should take). It does not make them hypocrites or dishonest, just because the name “Social Democrats” was used later by more moderate, reformist left-wing parties (including [one in the U.S.,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrats_USA) never important and now all but defunct). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/17 "2010-05-23T03:36:20Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > the biggest problem in TTL would be the Japs The JAPS?!?! WTF is WRONG with you, **Curtis**! (And you know jack about Russian history) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/18 "2010-05-23T03:49:19Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > the biggest problem in TTL would be the Japs **Curtis LeMay** , racial slurs are not allowed here. Don’t do this again. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/19 "2010-05-23T04:17:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, then, why not the SRs? They were certainly strong contenders. I’m not arguing the Whites had a guaranteed victory if Lenin wasn’t around; I;m just saying they weren’t facing certain defeat. Lenin was a key factor in the Red victory; he was able to unite the Red side. I don’t know if anyone else could have done the same. > [@](#): > > We might have seen Russia form something of a democracy led by the Social Democrats or a mild right-wing dictatorship like Pilsudski’s in Poland. Either case means no rise of Hitler through fear of communism and thus a much better world-the biggest problem in TTL would be the Japs (maybe) and decolonization but both problems probably will be solved. I don’t know. Anti-communism was only one of Hitler’s tricks. He still would have been able to fan resentment over Versailles and advocate colonizing Eastern Europe and Russia (plus his number one standby, anti-semitism). He didn’t like the Russians for being Communist, true, but he also didn’t like them for being Slavs. So he still would have had a reason for invading. I also agree that Japan would have still been expansionist - the roots of that predate the Great War. But whether they were able to act on it would depend on Germany. If Europe was quiet, the European colonial powers would have been free to threaten Japan into submission. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384/20 "2010-06-01T00:50:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > They were certainly strong contenders. I’m not arguing the Whites had a guaranteed victory if Lenin wasn’t around; I;m just saying they weren’t facing certain defeat. Lenin was a key factor in the Red victory; he was able to unite the Red side. I don’t know if anyone else could have done the same.I don’t know. Anti-communism was only one of Hitler’s tricks. He still would have been able to fan resentment over Versailles and advocate colonizing Eastern Europe and Russia (plus his number one standby, anti-semitism). He didn’t like the Russians for being Communist, true, but he also didn’t like them for being Slavs. So he still would have had a reason for invading. > > I also agree that Japan would have still been expansionist - the roots of that predate the Great War. But whether they were able to act on it would depend on Germany. If Europe was quiet, the European colonial powers would have been free to threaten Japan into submission. Even if Hitler did get into power (unlikely due to the Butterfly Effect if nothing else) he’d been surrounded by all sides: Britain, France, Poland, and Russia which would maintain a good relationship with Western European nations and not gut the officer corps like Stalin did. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-world-without-lenin/540384.md?page=2)