Capitalists of the World, Unite
From Alternative History
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The German railroad car smuggling Lenin into St. Petersburg is intercepted by Tsarist forces, and Lenin is executed along with his compatriots. Without Lenin, the Communist rebellion in Russia never becomes organized enough to garner widespread support and falls apart. Tsar Nicholas II maintains his tenuous grasp on power long enough for the provisional government to bleed both Germany and his own country dry. Germany, having advanced across much of the Russian front but pressured from the western front sued for peace in 1917 on slightly more favorable terms. Battered and bloodied, Russia began to pick up the shattered remains of her once vast empire, slowly ceeding control to quasi-democratic elements within the country.
The western democracies meanwhile, relieved of the damage of the 1918 offensive, resumed their industrialized assent. Without the spiritual and logistical aid of the Soviet Union, socialist and communist movements in the west faltered. However, without the 'Red Menace', the general fear of communism began to subside.
[edit] POD
In March of 1917, the German government agreed to a secret plan with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. They would smuggle him from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in a special rail car in exchange for a promise to withdraw from the Great War should his Bolshevics come to power. Unfortunately, Tsarist spies in Germany got wind of the plan and his car was intercepted outside of Riga. Lenin and his compatriots were executed as German agents.
[edit] Generalities of the timeline
The timeline is marked, most notably, by the absence of the Soviet Union, by the relative strength of Germany post-Armistice, and the widespread destruction of eastern Europe. Without the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, German forces could not be redeployed for the 1918 western offensive. Consequently non-European nations such as the United States saw little or no action.
Lacking the moral and organizational support of the Soviet political movement, Socialist oriented parties in the west turned elsewhere for support. With a newfound parity in Europe, the process of industrialization began in earnest with the uneasy peace begins. With the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, a savaged Russia was left picking up the pieces of a fragile government. A weak coalition of liberal aristocrats, wealthy land owners, and emerging industrial barons held sway over the new Russian Republic.
Meanwhile, a growing sense of parity occurred in the industrializing nations of the West as labor unions and trade guilds tried to advance their gains in an increasingly prosperous world.
[edit] The Great War
[edit] Союз Российских Республик
[edit] Rosa Luxemborg's rise to Power
In the 1920s, Germany was plagued with hyper-inflation caused largely by exorbitant reparations demanded by the Allies. In this timeline, Rosa Luxemborg was not forced to carry out a revolution that was an expected failure, which was only done because many in her party were inspired by Lenin's Russian success. With the populace seeing the results of oppressive Capitalism, and not being part of the "Red Scare" that the rise of the USSR would later cause, they followed the Communist Party. Luxemborg's Communism was far more democratic than Lenin's autocratic form or Stalin's dictatorial form. Plus, Germany being a capitalist and developed nation, with plenty of resources to redistribute made the change all the more desireable. Luxemborg's Communist model proved successful and improved the situation of Germany, but the rest of the West was wary, and began planning for war.
[edit] The Western Hegemon
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