Russia Resplendent A KR Russian AAR

The Republican Era

The Republic of Russia


The flag of the Republic


The Coat of Arms of the Republic


Capital
De jureetrograd
De facto:Moscow

Constitution
Federal parliamentary republic under a liberal democratic constitution adopted in 1917, bicameral parliament of a lower elected chamber (the State Duma) and the appointed upper house, the Senate. universal male suffrage and ''weighted'' landed suffrage in federal elections.


Alexander F Kerensky, 2nd Minister President of the Russian Republic.
Appointed July 1917​

Ever since the disastrous Russian involvement in the Weltkreig, Russia has been hounded by instability and anarchy, the abolition of the Monarchy and the Tsarist regime have seemed to have foreshadowed the 'time of troubles' that would envelop the nation and the floundering provisional Republican government. The attempted implanting of liberal democracy into the Russian universe has all the marks of failing horribly. Having only achieved one federal Duma election and a poor showing of regional elections and no presidential elections in its history the credentials of the democratic experiment in Russia where far and few between. Almost as soon as the Tsar had left the throne and the Provisional Government instituted civil war with the radical syndicalist and Leninists erupted over supreme political authority over Russia. While a loose alliance of 'White forces' bound many potential rivals to the republican state, the war was long, ruthless and bloody. Vast areas of Russia were devastated and many other regions completely escaped Russian sovereignty to form various independent realms. The attritional nature of the war and numerous strategic defeats by the communistic ''Red forces'' led by Lenin and Trotsky, the majority of the White forces united by the 'congress of Omsk' seen it was only with German intervention that the war could be won. As such by 1919 the Whites petitioned their former enemy the German empire to help oust the radical syndicalist and Marxist forces.


The human cost of the brutal nature of the conflict and its resulting famine

Through 1919-1921 with German support the White forces managed to reverse the turn of the conflict and regain the initiative and push the Bolsheviks back when during the Autumn of 1921 seen White forces under Petr Wrangel managed to reclaim Moscow for the Whites, soon after this was followed by the surrender of the majority of the Bolshevik forces to the German intervention forces. Despite this the war would carry on (mostly in the Whites favour) until 1923 but without German troops and arms as the last remnants of the red threat were eradicated. But the damage had been done, the conflict had split Russia several ways and left tens of millions dead and many more displaced.


The de facto European, Caucasus and Central Asian borders of Russia following the end of the civil war and areas occupied by ''MittelEuropa''

In 1924 Admiral Kolchak, a prominent figure in the White camp attempted a coup against the Kerensky led regime, while a failure in which the majority of conspirators were killed, Kolchak was able to flee to his power base in Vladivostok and with the support of various local elites eager to settle into some form of stability approached the Japanese empire to petition for its support and aid in forming a viable state, which was to become ''Transamur'' or officially Republic Beyond Amur. And such the decrepit Russian nation lost its Pacific frontiers.


Admiral Alexander Kolchak, self-declared Supreme Ruler of Russia

Despite the victory over the Marxists and more revolutionary threats to the Republican state, law and order have been elusive in Russia since the abdication. Official government control exists little in urban centres apart from Moscow and Petrograd, and its non-existent in the countryside. Banditry is rampant, conspiring factions exist behind every title of power and little is there to tie ideologically the officers of the army to the republican regime. In 1928 in an attempt to create some common ground and good will towards to the standing institutions the federal government granted an amnesty to all Red figures from the civil war, but it did little to stem the tide of insurrection.


Crime and Punishment on the Volga, a suspect bandit is sentenced to death on the accusations of the local peasantry. A far cry from the fair trial by peers set out in the constitution.

In government for much of the 20's and early 30's was a shaky coalition of the Social Liberal Constitutional Democrats and the left wing Social Revolutionaries, the only thing appearing to hold the government together is the charismatic influence of Kerensky.


They are indeed


Stating how the nation should be governed, not the way it should.

On the 4th of January 1936 while attending an early morning official presidential visit to church to mark the approaching Christmas a lone gun man emerged from the huddled crowd as the President left the church. Five shots rang out in quick succession, the president was hit once in the head, twice in the chest and a forth in the left leg, a priest was hit in the head and died instantly. The attacker was in turn killed in a volley of shots from the presidential bodyguard which killed four bystanders and injured another seventeen, upon inspection the attacker was identified Alexey Stakhanov, a miner and committed member of the Mensheviks. The president survived the attack however quickly lost consciousness and by the time medical help arrived he was pronounced dead.


Alexey Stakhanov, he would become a hero among the radical syndicalist and Marxists for his small yet incredibly influential role in history[1]

By noon the confusion and rumours had begun to swirl, several high ranking SR's accused the Kadets due to dire recent relations over the kadets belligerence on land reform legislation, as such the Kadets by the evening had formally withdrawn from government. However the wheels of power had already began rolling in a different direction.



Destiny was pulling Russia, but would Russia respond?


​

The Republican Era

The End of the First Russian Republic


Russian federal troops being deployed onto the streets of Petrograd during the week after the assassination

Kerensky was far from being a popular president, but he was one that symbolized some form of stability and political leadership, his death had thrown the Russian political landscape into anarchy. On the day after the assassination when servants informed the veteran conservative politician and figure head for the aristocratic faction in the Senate, Boris Sturmer, he remarked ''Pandora has opened her box, and upon is its name, Russia'', then as soon as he finished he collapsed and died of a heart attack.


A man who lived to see the world change beyond recognition is claimed by it

Technically with the death of the president and the withdrawal of the Kadets deputy Minister President Pavel Milyukov, the SR deputy party leader Pyotr Sturve assumed the office of Minister President. With the lack of a loyal majority an new election would have to be called in the long run, but for the mean time the emergency protocols of the state would have to be instituted to ensure the security of the state and the retention, albeit in word only, of law and order. As such he schedules an emergency meeting of the Duma and council of Ministers for the tenth of January to enact the state of emergency.


Pyotr Sturve, the third Minister President of the Republic

The day of the birth of our Lord our saviour was a tense and perturbed day for the nation, the sense of great unease and foreboding not felt since the day days of 1919. Patriarch of Moscow Mikhail Pol'shii after conducting the standard services fit for the birth date of Christ in Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to the great and good of Moscow and the legions of faithful outside who had come to celebrate and remark the date. Upon finishing the divine service the Patriarch began a furious tirade against the Republican regime, the vices and evils of Kerensky and the immortality of Russia since 1917, drawing a line from the fail of Rome to the schismatic heresy due to the immorality of the city, then the fall of Holy Constantinople to the heathen due to the immorality and lack of piety of the city. He warned that God has now brought his wrath upon Russia for its sins and warned unless the nation rediscovered the teachings of Christ and the will of God they too would be lost to fate that befell the previous centres of Christendom, he called for a most pious crusade to reclaim and save most Holy Russia from its fate. His calls held great credindence and inspired the faithful; the Patriarchs cries for crusade were basically calls for revolution, hardly needed at this trying time.


The Fervent Patriarch, Mikhail Pol'shii

By the eighth of January things began to break down, rumours grew since the assassination of a Byzantine Bolshevik conspiracy in motion, almost since the moment of the shots rumours spread and grew into cries that a peasant army led by Trotsky himself was marching on Moscow to reap revenge upon all within the city. The fears had grown so deep food stop moving into the city and the people were growing hungry and resorted to the direst of means to sustain themselves.


Horses, dogs, cats all animal life became a rarity with in Moscow during the week of the assassination

The day of the tenth finally arrived and the majority of the Duma had begun to assemble in the Duma for the emergency session, events had moved rapidly and any delay could be catastrophic. However troops had taken to the streets across major urban centres across the nation, key public industries and buildings had now been manned and secured by the army, on Red Square the army enforced a strict cordon against any non-officials required to meet in the Duma. (Since 1929 the Duma had been meeting in the former GUM department store due to an anarchist started fire put the Tauride Palace out of commission. It appears the first actions of restoring order had begun as the military enforced order, the speed was astonishing. The days before the army was still confined to barracks and was hardly on friendly terms with the government, but in the face of oblivion they appeared to have been spurred to action.


Military troops being brought into Kazanksy railway station

At eleven in the morning the acting Minister President took the podium to begin the proceedings when suddenly a commotion was heard to the rear of the chamber. The doors burst open as armed troops moved in and took up positions along the upper terraces of the chamber and the exits. It had become clear to most of those in the chamber that a coup had begun; seemingly oblivious to this fact Sturve demanded an explanation from the officers appearing to lead the troops. They refused to answer.


Troops riding towards Red Square to participate in the ''New Year’s Coup''

For an hour and twenty minutes the politicians sweated it out under arms until a figure entered the room dressed in ornate Generals dress and flanked by numerous high ranking officers. Field Marshall Anton Denikin promptly entered and took the podium above the interned crowds, he quickly and bluntly announced that the nation was facing a severe crisis and external and internal threats to its survival, he would not permit this to happen and as such in the best interests of the Russian nation the army will now take over the running of the state and that the Duma and Senate where now dissolved. The first Republic had officially ceased to exist.

The Russian State


The adoptive Flag of the Russian State




Field Marshall Anton I Denikin, first President-General of the Russian state, position seized January 10th 1917


Coat of arms of the Russian state

Capital
Moscow

Constitution
None, rule by President General Decree and military rule, transitional military dictatorship established January 10th, 1936

Anton Denikin had not been a conspiring man by nature, en fact it was only on the evening of the assassination he called his general staff into his office to see if they would support his bid for power, receptive to the rumours of a syndicalist takeover of power was in the works and the thought the cabal of officers Wrangel had surrounded himself that had gained a reputation of aspirations of power, Denikin never having any real loyalty to the Republican regime, seen it as just waiting for usurpation by more radical and destructive forces of power. Denikin seen Russia in the greatest threat it had been since 1919, and he was in the position to save it. The week between the assassination and the coup he and his cadre of supporters the ''Denikinites'' planned furiously for the coup, on the seventh he began his plan and a test for the main show. When he received assurances that the officers of the Omsk military district would support him, he ordered them to take Omsk and lock the city down. Over the coming days major population centres, Tsaritsyn, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaketerinburg would fall bloodlessly to the coupists. The fatal flaw was a deep rift had grown between the army and the government, chronic neglect, underfunded and ideological divide between the officers and the regime resulted in the entirety of the army defecting, when even Wrangel seen the writing on the wall and stepped behind Denikin it was over, the regime was little loved nor respect and could find no one to come to its aid, let alone could it, as it was paralysed without knowing it when the army usurped the rail network and major utilities, despite the fact the vast majority of the regime were interned on Red Square. On the tenth when the grand finale called and the death knell of the Republic sounded the garrisons and nearby army regiments mobilized and quickly and mostly bloodlessly took control of Moscow and Petrograd. Potential agitators where interned, dissenters imprisoned and the Syndicalist and Mensheviks that hadn't gone to ground were quickly rounded up by army detachments and executed. Now reigned military government, Russia's experiment with democracy had failed.


The army parades on Red Square on the tenth just after Denikin dissolved the Duma





​

Return of the Silnaya Ruka

Consolidation of Military Rule


The Military Governorate of Petrograd Headed by Lieutenant General L Kornilov

By the eleventh with the state more or less completely under military control, there came the need to secure the new orders support of the people. At mid-day President-General Denikin addressed the nation via radio of the change of power, the threat of Syndicalist take-over of power, the impotence of the old regime and the need for the army to restore the nation and that when conditions permitted he would hand over the rule of the nation to the legitimate factions.[1]



President-General Addressing the Nation via Radio and News Reel

While few in Russia had access to radio or the news reels to hear the message army were dispatched to any population centre of note to announce the new order and ensure their compliance. However it was one such ''information unit''[2] that would fall prey to those who resisted the coup. On the thirteenth as a small detachment made its way to conduct its operations in the peasant community of Letki in central Russia they were ambushed and completely destroyed by unknown attackers. As no word was received over the coming days a company of troops was sent to investigate were they found the remains of the unit on the road leading to Letki. Approaching the village they sighted red banners fluttering in the winter air above the village and immediately reported back, the local regiment was mobilized as the company dug in and waited for reinforcements as it then came under sustained assault. For two days the army and the rebels would do battle which would level the village, when the battle ended from interrogation and discovery of a mass grave that the rebels were Neo-Bolsheviks who styled themselves as Stakhanovites and who had fled Moscow and Kazan when the army purge began and took over the village. They had killed the peasants who wouldn't join them and sent word out to other groups to begin a general insurrection. In retribution the rebels were executed, the peasants who sided with the rebels hanged and the village torched to the ground.


The Grim Toll of the Battle of Letki, the village was wiped from the earth

Just as the battle of Letki was beginning, Bukharin, having just returned from the Union of Britain (were the various Syndicalist philosopher’s had been meeting) announced the next stage of Socialism was Totalism or total socialism. The divergence from the trade union based Syndicalism, totalism sought totalitarian control of the nation, and everything would be controlled by the state as everything would be part of the state. The radicals to the left remain an ever present threat.


Ominously the Neo Bolsheviks Responded

Some of the first actions of the Denikinite regime was to institute ''Vozvrashenie sobstvennosti''[3], essentially this involved the restarting of the economy and essential industries and services via effective nationalisation of them if there was any hesitation from the private owners. As such in-regards to the food industry, the army would arrive at various Landed estates and order the landowners and peasants back to work the fields, in the event of resistance, the army would take control of the assets and bring in their own labour to work the land. Ineffective often as the labour was not trained in its use, but the policy had promising results. For the hungry masses of the urban centres the arrival of food handed out free by army units won much respect and approval, in the country and those who fought against the policy lost out and caused resentment of the peasants who had seen similar things under the ''war communism'' of the civil war, and resented their stocks going to feed the urban dwellers with no compensation. Those who complied and worked their industries ''for the good of Russia'' where often gifted by the local military government with the ownership of the industries and assets of those who wouldn't comply. In the larger more heavy and key industries such as power, oil, medical supply and automotive industry this would lead to near monopolies of the sector and the rise of several oligarchs. Also military labour committees were formed to select the individuals who would essentially be conscripted into work the various industries.


Forced Labour repairing roads in Petrograd

Another key part of the overall policy was the stockpiling of foreign currency and gold. The Rouble counted for little on the international markets before 1936, the assassination seen it fall to become truly worthless, the effects of this would be world-wide. The German Empire had granted numerous loans to the Republican Government, when the military assumed power one of its first actions to inform the German that it would honour the loans, but only at the exact cost as was lent and not pay interest. While this irked the German banks to no degree, as the value of the Rouble fell through the floor the new Russian government would only pay the amount of Roubles as was being paid before the assassination. As one Rouble essentially became worth 0.000001 of its previous value over the spell of week on international markets and exchanges, the Russians would still act as thou the Rouble maintained its pre assassination value in-regards to loans. In the area of trade, official government trading ceased exporting currency and instead trade commodities for commodities or currency.


The now worthless Republican Rouble

To further sooth the opportunists of Wrangel and his cabal of officers, Denikin promoted him to Major General and gave him military governorship of the Moscow Military Governorate hoping as well as a cabinet position as chief of the Army hoping that would quell his vanity and ambitions. Denikin needed Wrangels army corps loyalty and the faction of the officer corps that were loyal to Wrangel to ensure stability.


The ever unpredictable and ambitious now Major General Wrangel

Denikin was never a man for politics, he had his political views but he was not nor ever was politically minded, he was a soldier by trade and he seen that events forced him once again to take a political stance, he could run the army and had his ideas but the day to day running of a state was not one of his better abilities. Another issue was that the new state was almost fully a military institution now, as such there needed to be civilian face and say in government, as such having often been considered a natural member of the conservative faction he approached the head of the faction, the Patriarch Pol'skii. Pol'skii had become a hugely popular figure in the previous days with his zealous devotion and preaching’s about saving Holy Russia from the pits of sin. He had become leader of the conservatives with the death of Sturmer, and the Patriarchs appointment would no doubt quell a large degree of discontent on the streets. As such the firebrand Patriarch became the First Minister of the Russian State and the official head of government.


Surely this couldn't backfire?

With this new action, several civilians had entered the government reducing the overtly military appearance of the executive. However Denikin still retained supreme executive authority and control over the armed forces.


The First cabinet of the Russian State​

Fleeting Stability
Same Solutions to New Problems


Breadline in Petrograd to collect the state Issued ''Krasie''Bread, dubbed after Nikolai Krasnov

In the weeks after the change of power things began to settle into normality, in the Russian sense. State control of the major public needs had ensured an efficient system of heating, food and other essentials were making its way to the cities, the workers began returning to the their workplaces and law had begun to be enforced, albeit arbitrarily by the military run courts, and even began to seep into the surrounding countryside’s of Urban centres. However in contrast to this the black market and the Russian Mafia had also entrenched its operations, in some areas they acted almost as an alternative government, enforcing their own brand of law and order. And in the deep country banditry, pauperism and anarchy were still rife.


The Infamous ''Kazan family'' the Criminal Clique that Controlled anything that made Profit in the City of Kazan

With the economy for the meantime starting to creak back into life, Denikin being a man of the army, his life dedicated to the service. As such it was hardly surprising his dissatisfaction with the neglect and deprivation the military was left in. First was the army, impressive on paper at over 120 divisions and supposedly more than a million men armed, however the truth was less grand. Overstaffed with officers, or rather chronically undermanned with NCO's and enlisted soldiers. Almost two decades of war, civil unrest, secessionist movements and coupist officers have left it horrendously under-equipped and what weaponry it did have was grossly obsolete compared to the armed forces spouted by neighbouring powers. Morale is non-existent, pay is below subsistence and it is hardly in the condition to ensure territorial integrity let alone project power beyond Russia's de facto borders.



More a Rabble than a National Army

The air-force was in equally dire condition, barely any machines airworthy and those that are, are woefully outdated. Russia has some colossally bright minds in the field of aerospace aviation, if their potential could be tapped for state use the air-force might one day be a force to be reckoned with.


Impressive in its day, horrifically outdated now

The navy was probably in comparison the most neglected of the service branches. It suffered heavily during the Russo-Japanese war and the Weltkrieg, what survived the war was scrapped or left in dock to rot and rust away as the crews of the once might ships were converted into land infantry. The officer corps is almost extinct, those that weren't killed in the Kolchak coup fled with him beyond the Amur. A far cry from the dreams of Peter the Great.


Could only Defend the Coast if the enemy collided with it, a Long way off From the Force Projection Russia Deserves

Denikin no doubt with a slight of bias determined the navy and air-force needed too much effort to bring up to combat effectiveness and it would take years. And most pressing the security of the state at this time was internal unrest or border excursions from the breakaway states. As such the army would be the focus of his attention. As such Denikin began a series of far reaching reforms of the army that he envisaged would one day extend to all branches of the services. The first measures were to address the undermanned lower ranks, army pay was to rise tenfold, still relatively low but it put it above subsistence level, pensions while mostly token were brought in for those who had served more than seven years. This was intended to create the embryonic phase of a professional vanguard of the army, alongside this national service for three years was to be instituted. More a measure for the short term need for cheap labour rather than to arm them for national defence. While for the full effect of these beginning reforms to be felt would be years off, they bore fruit early. Thousands began to sign up to escape the bleak existence of poverty and destitution in the cities and peasant villages.


The First Recruits of Denikin's New Russian Army

Next was the need to arm these men. The fabled Mosin-Nagant rifle had become something of a global icon. The weapon of the revolutionary, the tyrant, the bandit and the downtrodden, the standard infantry and cavalry Rifle of the Imperial Russian army and that of the Russian Republic. Production finally halted in 1926 when the Republic began to cut down the military budgets to the bone. However the reputation had been set before that. With the unrest that enveloped he Russian Empire from 1917 onwards vast stocks fell from state hands, pilfered by bandits, dropped by deserters, taken by defectors. The rifles became common ownership in the later 1910's and early 1920's. As Russia collapsed the arms flooded into the hands of the secessionists, and the stockpiles the Germans handed out to the Whites during their civil war intervention when they were replacing the rifles of their new Eastern European client states with the German Mauser series of rifle meant the Mosin-Nagant was often more common in some areas of Russia than people. As the civil war slowly ended the rifles disseminated across Russia's borders into the Middle East, China and further afield. Fuelling conflicts, revolutions and tyrannies the world over by 1936 the rifle had become somewhat uncommon in Russia and the army had not nearly enough to arm its new intake of recruits, so after a decade of slumber the great machinery at the Tula Arsenal once again clambered into life to produce the fabled rifle once more for the Motherland.


The Famous/Infamous Bolt Action Mosin-Nagant Cambered to the 7.62x54mm Round

It was until the tail end of February 1936 for the effects of the events in Russia to take its toll internationally. On the 19th of February the local subsidiary of the German Reichsbank in the Baltic Duchy suddenly rank out of credit and funds to honour its commitments. Over the course of the next week a similar state of affairs was repeated in Finland, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, all of Mittle Europa, all banks and nations that were pegged or deeply influenced by the German Reichsmark and bank suffered financial crashes. Then on the 26th of February the German Central bank fully collapsed and the Reichsmark tumbled.


Desperate Germans attempting to withdraw their Non-existent Savings from their Local Banks

The esteemed Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov died when he received news his fortunes stored in German banks disappeared. While the crisis was hardest felt in the German influenced world, it also caused market fluctuations in the Commonwealth and was another heavy burden on the long aligning US economy. The Syndicalist nations more or less were shielded from the event. Russia would not be so lucky, on the 29th of February several major German employers and industrial investors based in Russia announced they would be shutting down operations. The effects were devastating for the Denikinite government and its hopes of reforms and economic revival. The repaying of German loans with worthless Roubles was one of the major causes of the crash but not the only one. The movement of credit, loan repayments and reparation money all had their part to play, but Russia was the largest contributor.


Is this Redemption of Syndicalism, or the Wrath of God?​