The Eagle's Crown: A Russian Kaiserreich AAR

Chapter I: Beginnings

Russia in 1936 was a contradictory nation if there ever was one. A land with excellent potential, but squandered resources. A land of resilient people, but a weary populace. A proud nation, but also a defeated one. While Russia in 1936 may have looked to be a backwards, nonthreatening nation, she would soon awake to show the world her true potential; and it would all be caused by one man and his son: Cyril Vladimirovich, and his son, Vladimir Kirillovich, the Grand Duke, and within' a few short years, Emperor of Russia.

By 1936, Kerensky's provisional government, well-meaning as though it may have been, had become an inefficient and troubled mire of political problems. It barely had any control outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and it was doing a less than satisfactory job of keeping order and rooting out continued Bolshevik guerillas. For almost 20 years, this government ruled Russia, following the Russian Revolution and the execution of much of the Tsarist royal family. Winning the ensuing Civil War by just a hairsbreadth due to German aid, they were forced to give up Poland, Lithuania, Livonia, Courland, Estonia, Belorussia, and the Ukraine to Germany, who soon transformed them in German puppets. At the same time, other nations broke away, with the provisional government being too weak to stop them: Primorsk in the far east, fell to a reactionary government under the Admiral Kolchak, who became little more than a Japanese puppet; Alash Orda and Turkestan in Central Asia, two troubled nations, with the latter especially becoming a haven for Muslim extremists; in the Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan broke free of Russian influence, and made themselves independent. A Cossack nation, the Don-Kuban Union, also arose. And to top it all off, even Finland and Mongolia expanded at Russia's expense.

The Russian people were put off by this, but war-weariness had resulted in a silent, if grudging, acceptance of these losses. While the government attempted to alleviate Russian revanchism, it was only partially successful. While citizens accepted the loss of Catholic Poland, and even Catholic Lithuania and the Protestant Baltic Governorates as inevitable, they were infuriated still at the loss of Belorussia and the Ukraine, and even at the Caucasus and Central Asian nations.

For almost 20 years, Alexander Kerensky had been the man leading the weakened and humiliated Russian nation. But on January 4, 1936, Kerensky was assassinated by Leon Mikhailovich whilst giving a speech in Moscow, Mikhailovich being almost immediately tackled and arrested. While he was sent to an almost certain execution, Russia's aristocrats quickly moved to install Grand Duke Dimitri as the new Russian Tsar. But the aristocrats also wished to ensure popular support for Romanov rule, and so the Duma was allowed to continue functioning under its current system, albeit with the Tsar now wielding equal power.

Following the installation of Grand Duke Dimitri as the new Tsar of Russia, tensions flared between workers and government forces. Major strikes and riots across major Russian cities became commonplace for the next few months, and it reached a point where many observers considered a major civil conflict an inevitability. Somehow, through luck, no such event occurred, as many Bolshevik and Syndicalist ringleaders were captured during the February and March of 1936.

On January 18, the Kadet-Liberal coalition's leader, Pavel Milyukov, became the new prime minister, andthe Kadet-Liberal Coalition took power in the VII Duma Elections that took place around the same time. With a large majority in the Duma, they were able to pass several reforms and legislate on the behalf of Grand Duke Dimitri, who preferred to remain out of political life.

During the month of April, the newly reforged Russian Empire began to extend their power to the rest of the nation. A two-part solution was implemented: A centralized bureaucracy was created in Moscow, which became the new capital of the Russian Empire, to rule and set down examples to regional governors, who re-instituted Zemstva and worked through local officials to create and maintain order, stability, and the rule of law.

But the new Russian Empire, despite its name, was far from a direct continuation of the old: firstly, the Duma held real and powerful influence over the government, especially as they maintained a status of equals to the Tsar when it came to power. Although this early shaky arrangement could have been upset by the Tsar easily, he chose not too. And when the liberal Vladimir Kirillovich came to power, it became unthinkable to do such a thing. By Kirillovich's death in 1992, the Duma and the system of democracy that it had brought had become inseparable from Russia, and created a system that was followed by many of her allies and satellites. Therefore, this Russian Empire wasn't an autocracy, instead, it was a Parliamentary Monarchy, with a powerful parliamentary body able to hold the Emperor's powers in check. Some Russian allies went more towards the Parliamentary side, while others drifted towards the monarchical side.

Secondly, this Russian Empire was not bent on turning all subjects into Russianized people, or even with the reclamation of all former Tsarist lands. Indeed, Russian plans called for future movements into Eastern Europe to result in the annexation of Belorussia and the Ukraine, while Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would be turned into independent nations, dependent on Russia but not a part of it.

Lastly, this Russia was not a terminal or declining power. Indeed, rather the opposite. As we will see in the next chapter, the Romanovs and the Duma worked well together for the next 10 years to bring Russia from a humiliated nation to one of the world's superpowers, a nation with a sphere spanning a great deal of Eurasia, and one perhaps even more modernized and advanced then her rivals.



Above, one can see the flag of the Russian Empire. One associated with a new, modern Russia​

Above, a picture of Emperor Dmitri Pavlovich, the first of the Romanov Restoration line to govern Russia.​

Chapter II: Consolidation

After the domestic and civil reforms instituted during the beginning of Dmitri's rule, dubbed the "April Reforms" because most of them were passed during the month of April, Russia began to finally begin crawling out of its shell, but to do so, she would need to be able to back up her threats with action if needed to on the world stage. And so, on May 1, 1936, the "Supremacy Doctrine" was adopted. It provided for a great expansion of the Russian Armed Forces by over 100 divisions, a technological upgrade and focus on a balance between quality and quantity, and providing for the upgrade and expansion of the airforce and navy.

Making this somewhat more difficult, however, was the economic consequences of Black Monday. Russia, who's economy was linked with Mitteleuropa, was affected to a lesser degree than Germany, but still hit hard. The government realized the consequences if this was not remedied, and focused on putting people to work on military production and subsidizing civilian industries. Although it would be impossible to fully stop the effects of Black Monday, it did stymie them somewhat.

Throughout this time, workers unrest increased. Although the peasants and workers never took up arms against the government, they would refuse to work, sometimes taking entire plants and factories out of operation. To remedy this, the Russian government established a minimum wage, maximum work hours, and safety regulations to be effective as of January 1, 1937. This was effective in reducing agitation somewhat, although there was always those who wanted more. For the most part, Russian industry was returned to working order.

On July 9, 1936, the Patriarch Mikhail Pol'skii threatened to resign his position unless the Russian Orthodox Church was given veto position over any government actions. He provoked a major crisis, but in the end, on July 13, he was removed from his position and this event prompted the drawing up of the Russian Constitution of 1936, created in August of 1936, which declared Russia a modern, secular state, a parliamentary monarchy, and dually headed by the Tsar and the Prime Minister of the Duma, whomever that may be at the time.

By the autumn, new governmental authority had begun to set itself in across the nation, although swathes of Siberia were still quite independent from the government in Moscow. The Duma agreed to Dimitri's proposal to massively extend the Russian industrial base after Dimitri's speech proclaiming that a modern state needs a modern industrial base. Over a period of 10 years, it was planned to expand the Russian capital goods, consumer goods, agriculture, transportation, communications, health, education, and welfare industrial bases.

While this was happening, the first portions of Russian plans for restoring her glory were instituted. A large number of new infantry and motorized divisions were put in training and were to be deployed most on the southern frontiers with the Caucasus and Central Asia. They were planned to be used in future operations in the region during the summer of 1937, when Operation Pushkin was slated to begin. They would be posted there to intimidate the nations into agreeing to Russian demands, which were essentially annexation and loss of independence. But the alternative to refusing would be made known.

Finally, as the new year dawned, the reforms agreed to in the Spring of 1936 were officially instituted, and a new issue for reform came up: military reform. Even with the military buildup that had already begun, Russia's military still lacked an adequate doctrine for extending its military power to the rest of the world. The military emerged into hot debate between Denikin, who promoted a massive conscript army, Wrangel, who proposed a modern military and a centralized high command, Shatilov, who argued that officers should follow their own initiatives on the front-lines, and the dark horse Markov, who successfully argued for the implementation of a new form of warfare using speed and armored vehicles.

Once Markov won the debate, he almost immediately began devising ways to implement armored vehicles into warfare separate from simply roles of infantry support. He envisioned a new armored corps to be in command of 12 armored divisions by 1940, a dream which didn't seem to far off at the time. Nevertheless, buildup of infantry and motorized infantry divisions continued.

On March 16, 1937, the Duma passed a resolution officially declaring Russia a liberal constitutional monarchy, under the rule of a monarch, of the Romanov line, and the Prime Minister of the Duma. But Grand Duke Dimitri, a figurehead for the past year, stepped down allowing Kyril Romanov to take power as the next Russian Tsar. Dimitri retired to a luxury, private life, but died because of frail health on June 6, 1948.​