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> In 1910 the average Russian was an illiterate peasant On the eve of World War I, Finland and Russia were on near parity in terms of GDP per capita. It's GDP

> In 1910 the average Russian was an illiterate peasant On the eve of World War I, Finland and Russia were on near parity in terms of GDP per capita. It's GDP per capita was only 12% higher than the rest of the Empire. By the end of the Soviet Union, Finland has nearly three times the GDP of the USSR. If the Russian Revolution had installed a liberal democratic government (as it did in the case of Finland), Russia would most probably look like a Nordic country today. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...

dan-robertson 6y ago
I suspect that, being enormous, things in Russia would still look different to Finland if they had taken a liberal democratic path. Perhaps more similar to America or the EU.
syops 6y ago
Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. Finland did not fight a brutal civil war. Finland didn't have U.S., and British forces trying to subvert it's government during a civil war. Finland is much smaller and homogeneous than the Soviet Union. Finland after the war was never the recipient of embargoes (that I know of). I think it is not possible to state what most probably would have happened had Russia established a liberal democratic government. For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion?
- zokier 6y ago
  > Finland did not fight a brutal civil war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_White_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_Whit... "Together with the harsh prison-camp treatment of the Reds during 1918, the executions inflicted the deepest mental scars on the Finns, regardless of their political allegiance" "The Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland: around 36,000 people – 1.2 percent of the population – perished. The war left approximately 15,000 children orphaned"
  - syops 6y ago
    I did not know about this. Thank you for the correction. I think the rest of my point stands. I hope!
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. I'm not sure how you'd measure that. The Soviet Union was the aggressor against Finland, and Finland was able to defeat them at great cost. I suppose there's the old saying about one of them fighting for more land and the other fighting for their life. > For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion? Without Stalin at the helm, would they have entered into the Hitler-Stalin pact? That is, without the Soviet Union's support for Nazi Germany, would the war have happened as it did? Somewhat unlikely.
  - syops 6y ago
    Yes, they fought a war with the Soviet Union but the country didn’t suffer the sort of devastation Nazi occupied Soviet territory did. Finland’s experience since 1918 is sufficiently different than Russia’s that I don’t think one can conclude what Russia would be like today had it had the type of government that Finland had. To your last point, maybe and maybe not. Who knows what the prevailing thought would have been in the alternate scenario. Would Russians have been more like the war weary French in this scenario? One thing I think is for certain. The claims of OP are not justified.
  - the_af 6y ago
    > Without Stalin at the helm, would they have entered into the Hitler-Stalin pact? That is, without the Soviet Union's support for Nazi Germany, would the war have happened as it did? Somewhat unlikely. The pact was just about gaining time, for both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Both sides knew war was inevitable, they just didn't know exactly when. The war wouldn't have happened "as it did" -- that's a tautology: "if you changed something, things would have been different". But if your question is "would war have happened at all?" then the answer is "yes". The Nazi political system required war, couldn't function without it, and it was spelled out in Hitler's writings from way before the war. Lebensraum, reparations/vengeance for WWI, extermination of inferior races, all of that requires war. And given the conditions of the world at that time, almost inevitably a highly destructive war.

dan-robertson 6y ago

I suspect that, being enormous, things in Russia would still look different to Finland if they had taken a liberal democratic path. Perhaps more similar to America or the EU.

syops 6y ago

Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. Finland did not fight a brutal civil war. Finland didn't have U.S., and British forces trying to subvert it's government during a civil war. Finland is much smaller and homogeneous than the Soviet Union. Finland after the war was never the recipient of embargoes (that I know of). I think it is not possible to state what most probably would have happened had Russia established a liberal democratic government. For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion?

zokier 6y ago
> Finland did not fight a brutal civil war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_White_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_Whit... "Together with the harsh prison-camp treatment of the Reds during 1918, the executions inflicted the deepest mental scars on the Finns, regardless of their political allegiance" "The Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland: around 36,000 people – 1.2 percent of the population – perished. The war left approximately 15,000 children orphaned"
- syops 6y ago
  I did not know about this. Thank you for the correction. I think the rest of my point stands. I hope!
luckylion 6y ago
> Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. I'm not sure how you'd measure that. The Soviet Union was the aggressor against Finland, and Finland was able to defeat them at great cost. I suppose there's the old saying about one of them fighting for more land and the other fighting for their life. > For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion? Without Stalin at the helm, would they have entered into the Hitler-Stalin pact? That is, without the Soviet Union's support for Nazi Germany, would the war have happened as it did? Somewhat unlikely.
- syops 6y ago
  Yes, they fought a war with the Soviet Union but the country didn’t suffer the sort of devastation Nazi occupied Soviet territory did. Finland’s experience since 1918 is sufficiently different than Russia’s that I don’t think one can conclude what Russia would be like today had it had the type of government that Finland had. To your last point, maybe and maybe not. Who knows what the prevailing thought would have been in the alternate scenario. Would Russians have been more like the war weary French in this scenario? One thing I think is for certain. The claims of OP are not justified.
- the_af 6y ago
  > Without Stalin at the helm, would they have entered into the Hitler-Stalin pact? That is, without the Soviet Union's support for Nazi Germany, would the war have happened as it did? Somewhat unlikely. The pact was just about gaining time, for both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Both sides knew war was inevitable, they just didn't know exactly when. The war wouldn't have happened "as it did" -- that's a tautology: "if you changed something, things would have been different". But if your question is "would war have happened at all?" then the answer is "yes". The Nazi political system required war, couldn't function without it, and it was spelled out in Hitler's writings from way before the war. Lebensraum, reparations/vengeance for WWI, extermination of inferior races, all of that requires war. And given the conditions of the world at that time, almost inevitably a highly destructive war.