Capitalists of the World, Unite

The German railroad car smuggling Lenin into St. Petersburg is intercepted by Tsarist forces, and Lenin is executed along with his compatriots. Without Lenin, the Communist rebellion in Russia never becomes organized enough to garner widespread support and falls apart. Tsar Nicholas II maintains his tenuous grasp on power long enough to bleed both Germany and his own country dry. Germany, having advanced accross much of the Russian front but pressured from the western front sues for peace in 1917 on slightly more favorable terms. Battered and bloodied, Tsar Nicholas begins to pick up the shattered remains of his once vast empire, slowly ceeding control to quasi-democratic elements within the country.

The western democracies meanwhile, relieved of the damage of the 1918 offensive, resume their industrialized assent. Without the spiritual and logistical aid of the Soviet Union, socialist and communist movements in the west faulter. However, without the 'Red Menace', the general fear of communism begins to subside.

POD
In March of 1917, the German government agrees to a secret plan with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. They will smuggle him from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in a special rail car in echange for a promise to withdraw from the Great War should his Bolshevics come to power. Unfortunately, Tsarist spies outside of Poland get wind of the plan and his car is intercepted outside of Rega. Lenin and his compatriots are executed as German agents.

Generalities of the timeline
The timeline is marked, most notably, by the absense of the Soviet Union, by the relative strength of Germany post Armistice, and the widespread destruction of eastern Europe. Without the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, German forces could not be re-deployed for the 1918 western offensive. Consequently non-European nations such as the United States saw little or no action.

Lacking the moral and organizational support of the Soviet political movement, Socialist oriented parties in the west turn elsewhere for support. With a newfound parity in Europe, the process of industrialization begins in earnest as an uneasy peace begins. With the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, a savaged Russia begins picking up the pieces of its fragile government. A fragile coalition of liberal aristocrats, wealthy land owners, and emerging industrial barons holds sway over the new Russian Republic.

Meanwhile, a growing sense of parity is occuring in the industrializing nations of the west as labor unions and trade guilds try to advance their gains in the face of an increasingly prosperous world.