Post by The Horny GoatOn Thu, 28 Sep 2017 08:25:57 -0700 (PDT), Alex Milman
Post by Alex MilmanPost by WolfBearAlso, what I am thinking of are things such as much greater economic and military cooperation between Russia and these various Eastern European countries. Indeed, think of the close economic and military relations that the U.S. managed to build with Western European countries in the decades after the end of World War II in our TL.
Analogies with post-WWII is a dangerous thing. Clearly Russia may have economic and political ties with at least some of the newly-created European countries.
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia would be obvious candidates, Rumania and Greece were allies in WWI and Bulgaria was not at war with Russia (probably Boris III would be friendlier to Russia than his father). I suspect that out of that list only Czechoslovakia would make a meaningful economic partner.
One of the great 'what ifs' is whether Stalin would ACTUALLY have come
to the aid of the Czechs either in Oct 1938 or Jan 1939 if the Poles
had allowed them to cross their territory to do so. He said he would
but Stalin was known to not always follow through.
At the time of Munich the SU (was not present at Munich but had a treaty with Czechoslovakia) indicated willingness to cooperate with France and Great Britain if they decided to come to Czechoslovakia’s defense. Not sure if Stalin offered any help in the early 1939 or if he offered an unilateral help at any point. It is rather difficult to figure out what is and what is not a legend.
Personally, I have serious doubts that in 1938 he was ready to go against Germany alone. If he was, then an intensive search for the French-British alliance does not make too much sense and reverse of the foreign policy (M-R Pact) even less so.
Post by The Horny Goat(The Poles of course were worried that once they let Russia through
"temporarily" there would be a new meaning for "temporarily" that
wasn't what they expected.)
Of course. Plus they did have their own interest in the spoils: they wanted (and got) a highly-industrialized Teschen (Zaolizie) area.
Post by The Horny GoatPost by Alex MilmanPost by WolfBearAs for Poland, Poland would, in large part, be dependent on Russia in order to help it protect the Polish Corridor from a revanchist Germany.
Immediately after WWI there would be no "revanchist Germany" and, based on what everybody knows about the Polish leaders circa 1918, they would be as hostile to ANY Russia as they physically could. To start with, there was a territorial issue because Polish ambitions were going far beyond the "Polish ethnic majority" principle (which would create an immediate problem with Russian-held Lithuania).
In OTL there was a regional power vacuum (both Germany and Russia were pretty much out of circulation) which allowed to expand to the areas of the Polish ethnic minority like Western Ukraine and Belorussia and even more controversial Danzig Corridor. If Germany is defeated but Russia is still in one piece and is one of the victors, what are the limits of the Polish ambitions and what are the limits of Russian willingness to settle issue down?
Given the parameters of this scenario I would expect *Russia to be
considerably stronger than in OTL in 1919-20. Thus any move by the
Poles against Russia is almost certainly not going to end well for
them.
This is extremely tricky issue.
In the case of the surviving and victorious Russia the whole situation with Poland would be anything but clear. During WWI Germany and A-H created a puppet "Kingdom of Poland" based on the former Congressional Poland but it happened in 1917 (meaning - did not happen in ATL). Judging by Wiki, Polish Legions fighting on the side of the Central Powers amounted to approximately 25K in 1916. Creation of the puppet Kingdom of Poland by Germany happened AFTER timeline of this ATL and, anyway, soon after it was created there was a political crisis (Oath crisis). By that time Polish "army" amounted to approximately 10K. Nothing to talk about if Russia does not disintegrates.
Now, short of the <whatever ATL Russian government> suffering from an unusual amounts of common sense and brain power, the most probable action of a <more realistic> government would be to restore the former border "as a matter of principle" regardless the problems attached. Which means "bye-bye Polish state".
There could be a new one created from the territories taken from the defeated Germany and A-H but it is not clear to me why, in this ATL, anybody would bother to "reward" Poles. Unless, of course, as a way to punish further G&AH. The main problem (unless Russia voluntarily gives its Polish territories away) is that such a state would have very peculiar borders, something like a crescent excluding all modern Central Poland (even if the victors a generous enough to present Poland with the lands it got in OTL by the end of WWII at German expense).
The problem for Russia would be not in the existence of the Polish state but in having Poles as the subjects: with the existence of ANY Polish state they'd be a major pain in the posteriors and I'm not sure that the pain would be much lesser without such a state (if anything, experience of the Russian Empire was illustrative enough).
Now, what if <unusually wise> Russian government decides to give "Russian Polish" territories to a new Polish state? Not sure if this improves relations significantly because (a) there are numerous Poles in Lithuania (especially in Vilnus area), (b) there are Polish minority in Galicia (which presumably goes to Russia) and (c) there is Polish nationalism (as preached by Pilsudski & Co) which considers Russia something of an "eternal enemy" and is looking back to the early XVIII century (in most modest form) for the "proper" borders. It is highly unlikely that any non-Bolshevik Russian government (except for ultra-nationalist dictatorship) will be engaged in a mass expulsion of the ethnic Poles from the Russian territory (like was done after WWII to the Germans who lived on what became Poland) so there is a never-ending political problem and the more liberal government is the greater the problem. :-)
Post by The Horny Goat(In this scenario if Bela Kun still comes to power you may have the
Russians clamping down on Romania given that in OTL the Romania army
was the main anti-communist force in Hungary)
Rumania was Russian ally in WWI so I don't think that its annexation would be realistic (anyway, it was too poor to make it worthy of an effort).
Post by The Horny GoatPost by Alex MilmanWhat you wrote implies degree of a sanity that is much greater than one demonstrated by Pilsudski & Co so .....
And THAT is the $64,000 question.
We all know that right?
Actually, this is a purely rhetoric question and the answer is known. :-)