Novgorod AU

PART II Novgorod Soviet Sosialist Republic 1917-1945

4. History 1917-1939

4.1 October Revolution 1917

After the failure of preventing german advance in the Baltics, the morale and dicipline of the military begun to detoriate fast. In the aftermath of the Battle of Moon Sound, major revolt broke out in the Baltic fleet's headquarter in Kronstadt and among the ships stationed in Helsinki. Within few days, the main bulk of the fleet was under comand of revolutionary sailors.

This sparked the Bolsheviks to act and in the night of 24th October 1917 they seized conrtol of St. Petersburg by taking over the important government buildings and other key locations inside the City. The Emperor and the remains of the Royal family were put on house arrest Empress and her children fled to Great Britan via Sweden after Emperor Michaels breakdown following the Kronstadt Revolt. The capture of the Capital was suprisingly bloodless and in the following days, Bolsheviks had took over all the major cities agross Novgorod.

Meanwhile the cituation in Russia has detoriated into civil war and the provosional government de facto loosing its legimacy and power. Moscow and the northern parts of the coutry are under Communist rule and supported by the Novgorodian Bolsheviks. Both in Ukraine and in the Central Asian areas various nationalistic and revisionistic groups are struggling for power. Lenin together with representatives from Russian Communist party beguns to negotiate with the Central powers for peace but the German demands are hars; Novgorod is to cede Poland, Baltic coastline and Finland and Russia is forced to release Ukraine as independent nation. Initially both Novgorodians and Russians refuse the demands but as the Germans are closing in towards St.Petersburg, Novgorodians have no choise than to accept the demands. Russian representatives decline the peaceoffer but have no actual means to prevent Germans as they already occupy Ukraine. The formal Peace treaty is signed in Brest-Litovsk in 3rd March 1918 which ended the First World War for Novgorod.

4.2 Civil War, Foreign interventions and consolidation of the Soviet rule 1918-1922

After the Revolution, The bolsheviks decleared the birth of Novgorod Soviet Sosialist Republic. The new sosialistic state however faced serious difficoulties in its early years of existence. After the harsh peace treaty with Germany, the capital was under serious thread from foreign invasion and the sea access to the Baltics was now only from the end of the Gulf of Finland. Proplems lied elsewhere. Altough nominaly the whole country was under the bolshevik rule, various anti-communist factions existed in different part of the country. In Sumatra, the local colonial overlords decleared provosional goverment loyal to the Emperor.

To make matters worst in summer 1918 Novgorod's former allies Great Britan and United States launched an intervention capaign towards the northern and eastern seaports in Dalny, Vladivostok, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk and in the Baltics where British launched series of naval attacks against the Baltic Fleet stationed in Kronstadt. They objective was to oust the Bolsheviks from the power and bring Novgorod and Russia back into the war against Germany.

Situation changed when Germany capitulated in late 1918 and the First World War came to an end. This created a power-vacuum in the areas deprived from Novgorod and Russia in the Brest-Litovski peace-treaty. In the Baltics, local ethnical groups, mainly Estonians and Latvians begun to seek independence from the former Novgorodian and German overlords. However a strong Novgorodian counter-revolutionary army was beign formed in the security of the Baltics under General Yudenich command. Troughout the 1918-19 Novgorodian ”reds” fought minor battles against the Balts, Yudenich army and other smaller counter-revolutionary forces. Also to the end of the 1919, Most of the foreign intervention troops were driven out.

Lenin considered the helping of the fellow Russian communist the paramount factor to secure the Revolution. Thus main force of the newly formed Raboche-Krestyanskii Krasnyi Armiya or the Workers and Peasants Red Army were sended to fight the ”white” russian armies and help the Russian communists. By the end of 1919 communists in Russia begun to be on the upper hand and most of the Novgorodian expeditionary forces were called home. However in the homefront, situation got more perile when General Yudenich launched major assault from Estonia towards St.Petersburg in October 1919 together with the help of the independent Finland. The Red Army however managed to defeat the attackers and remains of Yudenich army was driven back to Estonia. The Red Army didn't stop on the new border however as Lenin used the Yudenich attack an excuse to improve the security of the Capital and invaded Estonia and rest of the Baltic lands by 1920. Finnish troops were pushed back to the 1721 border between Novgorod and Sweden.

Altough the Soviet rule was begun to consolidate on Russia and Novgorod, the former became to proplems with the newly created Polish state. Led by the authoritan General Pilsudski the new nation tried to exploid the confusing situation in its easter border and attacked into Ukraine with the hope of expanding the polish rule over the lands of the acient Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth. While initially successfull, the Polish attack is stopped when Novgorod once again turned into Russian help by launching attack towards the Polish Capital in Warshaw. Poles are defeated and are forced to cede the lithuanian lands which they gained in the Brest-Litovski treaty.

Last major military campaign in the early days of the Soviet rule was the recapture of Sumatra from the last remaining counter-revolutionary forces. The initial invasion force was delayed several times due the poor state and dissorganisation among the Pacific Fleet. Eventually in May 1921 a fleet of practically every single operational unit from the Pacific fleet sails down to South together with nearly 10 000 troops. As Great Britan and France have already ended their campaign to overthrown the Bolsheviks, the Sumatran colonial rule is without any foreign help. The Red army lands on the northern part of the Island and quickly moves towards the city of Aleksandrov (Medan). The local population is supporting the Red Army as the bolsheviks operating in the colony had promised self-governing and liberation from the colonial rule of the Imperial regime. The counter-revolutionary forces are quickly overrun. Sumatra is given nominal independence in 1924 but remained in control of Novgorod up until the creation of Indonesia after Seccond world war.
As fighting were over in both Novgorod and Russia, the two communist states begun talks of forming a powerfull union of the two states called the Soviet Union. However despite initial enthusiasm, the long endured rivalry and personal differences between the rules and dissargeement over power inside the union sinked the attempt. Lenin was particulary worried about the rising power of Josif Stalin, the most prominent of the Russian communist leaders. With Novgorod withdrawing from the unification talks, Russia formed Soviet Union by itself together with Ukraine, Transcaucasus and Central Asian soviet republics in December 1922.

4.3 NEP and Trotsky's rise to power.

During the Civil War and in the aftermath of the revolution, Novgorod adopted rather harsh economical policy called ”war communism”. It called complete central commanding of the economics with state nationalizing all industries and requisition of agricultural surpluses in order to feed the Red Army and urban citizens. Altough it worked in a sense that the Red army emerged victorious, it also put heavy strain on the population, exspecially for those living in the countryside.

In the light of its proplems 1921 Lenin issued a new policy, called the NEP (Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika or New economic policy) to replace the ”war communism”. Its major difference to the past was loosening the govermental control of the economy and allowing small private ownership. It also ended the forced requisition of agricultural goods. In effect it was a step back from fully socialistic economy towards ”state capitalism”. Government still held heavy industry and foreign trade under its strickt command.

The new policy increased the agricultural productivity which soon surpassed the pre-revolutionary numbers. However the NEP's success was tied to the fate of its creator. In 1922 Lenin suffered series of strokes, effects of his failed assasinations which seriously disabled him from governing the Soviet Novgorod. After third stroke in March 1923 Lenin lost his ability to speak and was forced to retire. Lenin died in January 1924. Ever since the last stroke, the battle for his succession had begun. Eventually Lev Trotsky emerged as the most powerfull and succeeded Lenin as premiere chairman of the counsils of peoples commisars.

Trotsky was considered more radical than the pragmatic Lenin and soon headed into coalision course with many of the party members as well as with Soviet Union's leader Josif Stalin. Trotsky argued that in order to achive socialist triumph, the sosialistic international community with Novgorod and Soviet Union as vanguards should actively advocate the concept of permanent revolution. This called surpassing the bourgerous revolution and jump directly to workers state in countries that had not yet achived the highest state of capitalism. However Stalin argued that sosialism should be achived in one country first and the two sosialistic states drifted into different courses. First skishm became from how to react to the ongoing Chinese revolution. Novgorod supported the chinese communists and encouraged them to seize power from the Kuomintang republicans where as Soviets encouraged chinese communist to co-operate with the Kuomintang.

Towards the end of the 1920's, Trotsky started to capaign against the NEP system calling it anti-sosialistic and revert towards capitalism. In 1928 the NEP was offically ended and the Soviet government took over all production. Economy was now based on the planned economics where the
output and production quotas were predetermined by govermental planning commision. Agriculture was planned to be collectivizated in the following decade.

4.4 1928-1939

Simultaneously with Trostky's reforms, Soviet Union under Stalins lead begun their own major industrialization program and soon the formely backwards agrarian neighbour was surpassing Novgorod in the indusrial output. This sparked economical rivalry in Novgorod and the two socialistic powers begun to compete each others in production. This rivalry helped both nations to boost their industrial base but was staining the already cold relations between Trotsky and Stalin. Both powers also fought for the hearts of the socialists around the world and the communist movement divided into two camps. This was paramount in the Third International, Comintern where Stalin and his supporters eventually gained upper hand. The rift eventually led Novgorod greating the ”Fourth International” in 1938.

In europe, Novgorod tried actively support local communist parties but the results were usually counter-productive. In 1933 right-wing extremist took power in Germany under Adolf Hitlers rule and fasism spread to many of the new eastern european nations. Western powers considered the threat of communism beign far more serious and thus did not initially tried to prevent the rise of the fasists until it was too late.

The first major trial for Novgorod and Trotsky's ideology came in, when 1930 Spain transformed into republic and by the 1936 it was in the break of a civil war. Novgorod had supported the socialist factions in Spain and when the nationalist forces begun their coup and starting the civil war, Novgorod begun to support the republican fractions more intensively and kept sending aid to the republicans and encouraged the whole socialistic movement around the world to send voluntary troops to fight against the nationalist. However Stalin denounced Trotsky's effort within comintern and the drift between the two socialistic states grew larger.

Germany and Italy responded by helping out the nationalist troops. Italian fleet helped the nationalist and German and Italian advisor’s and troops begun to move into Spain. This caused trouble to the international troops and republicans. By the end of 1937 the nationalist had gained more land and were winning. Novgorod answered by sending “voluntary” troops, including tanks and planes into Spain. With the additional help, the republicans finally managed to defeat the nationalists in 1939. It left the Spain being the third socialistic nation in the world but badly worn out in the eve of the second world war.

Victory in Spain brought dark clouds over Europe. Where as the fascist Italy and Germany were openly hostile against Novgorod and Soviet Union, the advance of communism made Great Britan and France more and more reluctant to side up with Novgorod against the threat presented by the rising Germany. With Soviet Union having similar situation, it took the path of warming its relation towards Germany and in August 1939 Soviet Union and Germany signed non-aggression pact which divided eastern Europe into different sphere of influence for the both powers.

4.5 1939 War against Japan

Situation in the far east was not much better than it was in Europe. Japan had conquered Korea during the chaotic phase after First World war and were looking for revenge over the 1905 humiliation. After series of incidences, Japanese troop occupied Northern Chinese areas and created puppet state Mengkukuo in 1937 effectively blocking Novgorod to have direct land connection to China. This allowed Japan to concentrate on their ambitions in China and gave then a starting point for possible invasion of Manchuria. First outburst of hostilities came in summer of 1938 when Novgorodians and Japanese had small border skirmish in Lake Khasan near Korean border.

However more serious fighting broke out in June 1939 when the Japanese northern army attacked Mongolian troops near Khalkhin Gol. [In this AU the Khalkin Gol is situated in the southern border of Manchuria, near the cross between Novgorod, Mongolian and Chinese border] Novgorod send troops to help out their allies and trough out the summer of 1939 heavy fighting took place around the area. Novgorod brought additional troops led by General Zhukov to the theatre and in August Novgorod managed to defeat Japanese troops in the area. At this point the crisis had envolved to a full scale war between Japan and Novgorod.

Japanese started to bring more troops to the Northern Mengkukuo and moved their fleet to counter the Pacific Fleet in the Yellow Sea. Japanese attempted to lure out Novgorodians into open sea for a decisive naval battle but the Pacific Fleet remained in Port Artur. However Japanese naval aviation proved successful and the air strikes from Japanese carriers sunk one old battleship and several smaller units.

Novgorod was facing difficult situation. While the fighting were in their most tense face in Khalkhin Gol, Soviet Union had made a non-aggression pact with Germany. Novgorod feared that this was the starting point of joint German-Japanese invasion where Novgorod would be first tied up in the far east and then be attacked by Germany in Europe. Thus Zhukov was given orders to strike hard on the Japanese northern army to end the conflict soon. Japanese anticipated this strategy and instead started to retreat in the north to lure Novgorodians deeper into Mengkukou.

However Japanese Northern army was acting on its own agenda and in Tokio, japanese leadership was not that happy on the situation. They had not planned to go war against Novgorod at this point. The initial battles had showed Novgorodian combine-arms tactics far superior to Japanese forces and they feared that the war against Novgorod would seriously threaten the plans Japan had against China. Thus in December 1939 both parties agreed on cease-fire without any territorial concessions. This led both to focus on more important areas, Novgorod to build up against Germany.

In meanwhile the Seccond World War had started in Europe when Germany attacked Poland and Great Britan and France joined the fight against Germany.

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