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Originally Posted by Infinite Chaos  Carrying on with conjecture.. 
Do you not think the Bolshevik revolution would have carried on regardless? There were plenty of homegrown radicals and the Imperial rule was deeply unpopular, I think the seeds had already been sown. |
Forgive me for not getting back to you sooner. I lost track of where this thread was and just now found it.
I think its possible that Karensky's government would have limped on until forced by Germany to make peace. Germany would have imposed a very severe settlement on Russia and I think its probable that Karensky's government would have fallen as a result. Since the Bolsheviks were not a even a flyspeck on the Russian political scene at this time, especially without Lenin, I doubt they would inherit the pieces. It is far more likely that the SRs, the Social Revolutionaries who were partners in Karensky's government would take control. I'm sure some right wing grouping of exTsarist officers would seek to overthrow the a left oriented SR government at this point. How that would end is anyone's guess.
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Ah, remember your original point - what if the U.S. hadn't joined WW1? Would there be an independent Britain, France or Netherlands to join with the U.S.? The last century would have been very different if the U.S. had remained isolationist until threatened.
As for China, they were already mostly under the rule of the Japanese so the U.S. would have been alone against Japan.
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I didn't posit in my post that Germany would win World War One if the US stayed out. I doubt if they could force a clean victory over the Allies. If the US stayed out I think the war would have ended in 1917 soon after Russia fell to the Germans by negotiation between the Central Powers and the Allies. Germany would have deprived France of its iron and coal regions and taken a slice of Belgium. France would be done as a world power but Britain, Holland and the US would be basically unimpaired and thus able to defend their imperial interests in the Fasr East against Japanese aggression. An entertaining conjecture
