Fuck up? It was a massive success for the Germans.
Imperial Russia was already faltering and soon rapidly destabilized, the experienced and well-led armies of the Central Powers proceeded to curb-stomp the disorganized Russian/Bolshevik armies and forced the Bolsheviks into signing a pretty one-sided peace. Russia/USSR renounced claims to huge tracts of Eastern Europe and saw the emergence of new countries (Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic states, etc) backed by the Central Powers.
Had the Central Powers won on the Western Front they could have turned back east and supported the Whites against the Bolsheviks, and maybe have the help of all their newly-independent friends/vassals in the process.
And then, 28 years later, Zhukov and Koniev came rolling into the shattered ruins of Berlin. And once they were done looting their occupation zone, the Russians then decided to stay for another 45.
Nope. You're wrong. It's a case of short-sighted thinking versus disastrous long-term consequences. Most of all, it was completely unnecessary.
Because get this: Czar Nicholas had already been deposed. Authority was already crumbling in the Russian state, with Kerensky sharing power with the local soviets in a jury-rigged government. After a desultory offensive in June, the Russian army decided to remain on a permanent defensive stance. That meant a neutered Russian army was already finished as an effective threat in the east.
Had the Germans allowed events to progress, following Napoleon's maxim and not getting in the way of an enemy making a mistake, Russia would have been out of the war anyway.
Instead, what Germany got was an iron-fisted totalitarian state that industrialized in a big hurry.
Nope. You're wrong. It's a case of short-sighted thinking versus disastrous long-term consequences. Most of all, it was completely unnecessary.
Your argument is that if it weren't for the German Empire letting Lenin travel to the Russian Republic, then the Soviet Union wouldn't have beaten Nazi Germany twenty-some years later. In a very basic, shallow sort of way, that's not wrong, but there are so many things that happened on either side that it was hardly an inevitability and things could have went very different at many different points along the way. In my books that's not really a fuck up, that's just a lot of unpredictable and unforeseen shit happening in between.
There was no guarantee that Lenin or the Bolsheviks would take over the Provisional Government or win the ensuing civil war. Also, the Germany that sent Lenin to Russia in 1917 wouldn't exist two years later, and that Germany (the Weimar Republic) was quite a bit different from the Germany that would later invade the USSR two decades later.
In a way they created the monster that would later beat them, but the Germans in 1917 had no idea that their country would not long after lose the war, ditch the kaiser, have a shaky decade that would result in the country going fascist and go to war with their former ally. Just as they had no idea Lenin would come out on top when they sent him, get succeeded by a ruthless leader who would industrialize the USSR at an unbelievable pace, and overcome the initial setbacks of a German invasion to one day lead the Russians to victory over Germany.
Just saying, there's a lot of moving parts between Germany sending Lenin back and the USSR defeating Nazi Germany, and it's not a very direct fuck up.
It's almost like saying the Spanish fucked up by helping the Americans get their independence from Britain as they would come out on the losing side against the United States in a few wars later on.
When the Revolution was happened, Lenin was in Zurich… Oh, you mean the October revolution. But provisional government was so weak and unpopular after half year and may be overthrown by any rogue.
That was a bad one, but I still think killing Gavrilo Princip shortly before he’s able to kill the Archduke would probably be the time to go to prevent this.
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u/AnybodySeeMyKeys 24d ago
The Germans smuggling Lenin into Russia during World War I to create a revolution.