Re: Russia in Ill Bethisad

 --- Padraic Brown skrzypszy:

> > Well, before launching any wild ideas, I should
> > first re-read carefully what
> > exactly happened in Ill Bethisad during World War I.
>
> We just had a thread on the Great War a while back.
> Did you catch it?
No, but I have read the whole stuff afterwards. Very interesting. I just don't
really understand this A-bomb thing on Lódz. Why would the Germans drop such a
weapon so closely to their own territory. Besides, as I understand it, not the
Republic of the Two Crown was the main enemy. In their place, I would rather
have dropped the bomb on London or so.

> > In general, I would say that the great turning point
> > in Russian history is
> > 1917, and not 1905. Plenty of possibilities. I'll
> > think about the matter and
> > post tomorrow, because it's really getting late
> > here...
>
> Good! We look forward to it!
Well, if I am informed correctly, the primary purpose of Ill Bethisad is not to
alter history, but rather to modify it at certain points and see what would
have happened as a result (and perhaps as secondary purpose it provides a home
to a number of a posteriori conlangs). How deep those "modifications" will
reach, and how predictable their outcome will be, is of course dependent on the
moment in history where you draw the line; it would be much easier to tell what
the world would look like if Kennedy hadn't been shot, than what it would look
like if Alexander the Great had been shot at 16 by an angry shopkeeper who
caught the poor boy shoplifting.

Let's assume, that Russian history *here* and *there* has been more or less the
same until the beginning of the Great War in 1914. I've been reading the thread
on Conculture about it carefully, but couldn't find much about Russia. I
presume, that the political map of Europe by the time the Great War started was
more or less the same *there* as *here*.

*Here* we had the Central alliance, composed of Germany, Austro-Hungary,
Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, fighting against the rest, in particular
France, England, Russia, and Italy. Although politically Russia had a lot in
common with the Central powers, for various - mainly geopolitical - reasons it
ended up in the allied camp. But although Russia really did its best in the
struggle with Germany and Austro-Hungary, partly because of the czar himself's
incompetent military leadership Russia eventually had to surrender.

This is where it starts to be interesting. *Here* the conditions of the peace
treaty of Brest-Litovsk were at least partly undone after Germany and
Austro-Hungary lost the war after all. But in Ill Bethisad the War ended in a
stale-mate, as a result of which the pre-war borders were restored. Now, we
could assume that this were the case only in the west. In that case Russia
still would have been the scene of a civil war between:
- the former provisional government that was liberal/social-democratic
  in signature and led by Kerensky;
- the Bolsheviks, who had seized power *there* exactly at the same time
  and in the same manner as they have *here*;
- the pro-czarist White forces, led by generals like Denikin and Kolchak;
- the so-called Green forces, consisting of several loose formations
  without a clear political agenda.

I see three possibilities for an alternative history here (I mean: *there*!):

1.
The civil war carries on and on and on, and after eight years, when the country
is completely bankrupt and ruined, they finally give up; the country is then
divided into numerous bigger and small states of various political signature,
since every general got his own state.

Well, this doesn't really meet you criterious of 70 years of ideocratic rule,
so let's skip it.

2.
History goes on the way it did *here*: the Bolsheviks maintain their power and
consolidate it all over the country. But Lenin does not die prematurely.
Instead, at the age of 78 he benevolently hands over power to the relatively
young, talented and ambitious Bukharin. Before that, Stalin had already been
expelled from all power he had in 1927, before he disappeared completely;
Trotsky, until his death in 1940, had been Lenin's loyal prime minister.

My opinion about this possibility: possible but boring. And the outcome would
probably have been more or less the same anyway, on the long term. So let's
forget about this one and carry on with option nr. 3, definitely my favourite:

3.
With the help of German regiments that had gotten their hands free after the
peaceful end of the war in the West, the pro-czarist White army succeeded in
gaining power over the Bolsheviks. The entire leadership of the communist party
and the Red Army was either executed or had to escape the country (mostly to
the neighbouring countries in Central Europe, where they would fruitlessly try
to mobilize support for their lost cause during the next decades); a few or
them went underground.

The generals' initial intention had been to restore the power of the czar, but
the royal family had lost much of its support because of the fiasco in the
Great War, for which they were held personally responsible. Besides, the czar
and his family had been wiped out by the Bolsheviks anyway (in a strange way,
the generals were grateful to them for that fact). So they started to looked
out for acceptable replacement. But soon they found out that the czar's next in
kin was a certain Jack Romanov, a poor flower salesman in Brooklyn NY whose
grandparents had crossed the ocean about seventy years earlier. Neither Jack,
who had repeatedly showed left-wing sympathies, nor his feeble-minded younger
brother Bobby, were acceptable candidates for the generals.

At this point, they decided to keep the power for themselves and to rule the
country by a junta-like collective body, the White Council.

During the first years of their leadership, ideology didn't play an major role,
apart from phrases about "rebuilding Russia" and "restoring our national
pride". But the country was still heavily damaged as a result of two wars;
people suffered hunger; and the popularity of their left-wing opponents grew
steadily. The generals were realistic enough to realize that revolutionary
spirit was still in the air, and that the catastrophal year 1917 could easily
repeat itself. Thus, in an attempt to gain popular support (and to avoid a new
civil war) they founded the Union for the National Rebirth of Russia (_Soyuz
Narodnovo Odrozhdeniya Rossii_, SNOR).

The program of the SNOR was ardently nationalist. The generals portrayed Russia
as the poor victim of the rich West (not only Germany, but equally France and
Kemr) and announced a huge pay-back to those who had brought misery to Russia.
Russia's broken national pride had to be restored by the violent requisition of
every lost territory and severe punishment of those who were considered guilty.
Ultimately, they wanted the Third Rome to become the ruler of a huge territory
between the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian Oceans. In their messianistic
propaganda, the Russian nation appointed by God as the saviour of the world.
Non-Russian national minorities on the other hand were accused with numerous
charges, including collaboration with every possible enemy and profiting from
the country's national resources more than they should (i.e. taking from the
Russians what does not belong to them); they were considered a serious threat
to Russia's national awakening and therefore severely oppressed.

Another important factor in the SNOR's ideology was Russian Orthodoxy. Even
more than the language, it was considered a vital constituent of the Russian
national spirit, and as such heavily promoted. The Russian Orthodox Church
could highly benefit from this situation and became an ardent supporter of the
regime, even though a patriarch had to be killed first to achieve that purpose.

In the beginning, the generals Denikin and Kolchak only raised their eyebrows,
when the young, illiterate farmer Josif Vissarionov showed up in their ranks.
They had a really good laugh as he tried to obtain a minor position in their
government - but nevertheless gave it to him. Twenty years later their laughter
would eventually be over, when they had to confess all possible crimes -
including communist sympathies and cooperation with Western secret services -
in one out of many show processes that lead to as many death penalties.

It was Vissarionov who eventually found an opportunity to regain many of
Russia's lost territories in the cooperation with the - previously much hated -
Germans.

Should I go on? The SNOR was became more and more populated with people who
completely did not believe in the party's original ideas and used them only as
a façade to hide their blind pursuit for their own personal interests. From the
late sixties onwards, corruption grew to inconceivable proportions. The
government lost any feeling with the people, and didn't even notice the growing
popular discontent. Finally, after seventy years, the regime collapsed as a
result of its own incapacity to mobilize popular support; it left a
desillusioned, lost country and an incredible economic chaos.

Well, you asked for it! :) What do you think?

By the way, I am still not entirely clear with the Republic of the Two Crowns,
Ill Bethisad's equivalent of Poland. Was it already there before the beginning
of The Great War, or could it have been emerged as a result of Russia's defeat?
Besides, how do you explain Low Saxon to be its main language?

Perhaps my Romance-Polish language Wenedyk could play a role here as the native
language of Poland, as an alternative for Polish?

Have fun,
Jan

BTW I think I will cross-post this to Conculture as well...

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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