After the 1905 Revolution in Russia, Nicholas II establishes a two-house Duma with an upper house composed of hereditary nobles and a lower house of elected representatives, two per oblast, but with greater powers than the OTL Duma.
The new Duma renames the country the Federative Union of All the Russias, promotes capitalism through economic reforms in Russia with land reforms that enable a more successful peasantry, with the peasants now able to buy and sell land as well as take out mortgages. Noble-class landowners are allowed to sell peasants any amount of land, and the price is fixed by legislation so that it is both affordable and with guaranteed loans for purchase. While some peasants revolt and loot nobles' homes, the unrest is brought under control through the intervention of the Cossacks, who still are at the behest of the Russian government, albeit the new Duma and premiere. By 1908, agricultural production begins to improve, and the Chernozem region's output increases due to mechanization and increases in peasant ownership as well as bringing additional acreage into production.
Additional legislation guarantees workers' rights with a minimum wage comparable to other European nations, a 10 hr. work-day, at least one day off per week, the right to form unions, the right to strike, a ban on child labor, and other reforms necessary to quell unrest. The military is restructured, and officers with a predilection for mutiny are dismissed from the forces. Nicholas II also steps down as an autocratic ruler, and restructures the government with a constitution as well as an elected premiere. Russia is restructured as a constitutional monarchy similar to Great Britain by late 1906 and investor confidence leads the economy out of the slump that had begun in Europe in 1899.
Nicholas II and George V
By 1915, the Russian economy has grown by nearly 7-8% per year through the expansion of railroads and heavy industry, but Bolshevik agitators continue their work, inciting workers to desire better conditions, prodding the peasantry with ideas of debt-free land, and instigating students to question their country's policies on Russification of the various nationalities in the empire, to reject national ambitions of expansion, and to embrace Marxist ideals. Just as in the original timeline, Russia had expanded its imperial holdings with the same series of conquests, ruling Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
WWI
WWI begins much as in the OTL, but as Russia has stronger armed forces due to the military reforms and economic stabilization of the country in the years after 1905, it is better prepared. The Triple Entente, composed of Britain, France, and Russia, enters the war against Austria, Germany, the Ottomans, and Italy. Fighting on two fronts against Germany and Austria and the Ottomans, Russia's strategy is offensive, and in 1916 they invade Istanbul and take the territory surrounding the Bosporus and well as the Dardanelles. They suffer great losses on the European front in Galicia initially, but Nicholas II travels to the front where he takes command and replaces incompetent generals who had been unwilling to take the risks needed. By the war's end, as defeated Austria and Germany languish in treaty negotiations, Russia begrudgingly agrees to Polish independence ( territiory includes OTL 1917 borders AND 1939 OTL borders). Further, European Turkey and the area around Istanbul and ancient Troy are given to Greece.
By the end of WWI, in late 1918, Bolsheviks attempt to incite a coup in the government, with Vladimir Lenin at the command of the Red revolutionaries. The coup fails due to a lack of interest from the general populace, due to the reforms previously enacted. Further, since Russian territory was not devastated from the war due to its offensive posture, the general peasantry and workers throughout Russian territory were little affected during the war, unlike most of the rest of Europe. On December 25, 1918, Lenin is captured in St. Petersburg and shot by a Cossack officer whose name remains unknown, only memorialized and remembered as a "Hero of the Don Cossacks"--some later reported that the officer was a Don Cossack.
"Герой донских казаков" ("Hero of the Don Cossacks") in Rostov-on-Don overlooking the Don.
Bolshevik supporters and agitators are arrested throughout Russia and exiled to the gulag. At least 10,000 Bolsheviks are exiled while Lenin's inner circle is executed summarily after a public trial back in Moscow.
Dekulakization and decossackization never take place in Russia due to the earlier reforms which precluded the OTL 1917 revolution, but the Cossack nationalism movement grows as well as unrest in areas of Russia such as the Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. Just as other European powers, the alternate timeline Russian nation in the 1920's and 1930's is unwilling to allow its nineteenth-century conquests independence and remains bent on maintaining its empire since areas such as the Ukraine contribute vastly to the state's success as a food exporter and world-wide leader in heavy manufacturing. Extensive petroleum deposits are discovered in the Caspian basin in the early 1930's. By 1935, as the Cossack independence movement grows stronger in the lower Don region, Nicholas II, by now 67, falls ill with emphysema due to his avid smoking habit and later dies in November 1936.
Nicholas II's son, Alexei, is crowned Tsar Alexei II January 6, 1937, and despite his hemophilia, he had grown into a strong and handsome young man with good prospect for a royal match with Princess Anna, daughter of Haakon XVII of Denmark. After Nicholas had stepped down and the royal family had taken on the role of figureheads with limited power, they had become the darling and delight of the people, receiving ebullient accolades of praise at public appearances and the like. Alexei had studied extensively in Western Europe and lived amongst his British royal cousins, and some even styled him as a second Peter the Great due to his affinity for all things western. He could speak English as well or better than Russian, and he had also traveled extensively in the United States and witnessed what a lightly regulated capitalist system could achieve.
The Duma, especially the upper noble house, is rather taken aback at Alexei's first address to them on May 1, 1937. After news of the Anschluss reaches Russia, it is evident what Germany's goals are. Alexei suggests nothing less than a military alliance with the United States, the Danish Empire, and Great Britain in the event of any outbreak of war due to German aggression. The ruling premiere at that time is Ivan Ivanovitch Antonov, a former army general from Yekaterinburg who had been crucial in the defeat of the Austrians at Battle of Lvov in 1918, and he had been in power since the elections of 1930, now in his third term. Antonov fully supports Alexei's suggestion of an alliance, and the Russo-Anglo-Danno-American treaty was formally signed by Antonov and Alexei II, Franklin Roosevelt, Haakon XVII, and Neville Chamberlain--who had been advised by George V, Nicholas II's cousin, not to placate the Nazis in Germany in any way.
WWII
WWII breaks out in 1939 as the Third Reich invades Poland (Sept. 1, 1939 as in OTL), but the Russian forces quickly intercede along with the Polish Army, or the New Hussars as they call themselves. Since Polish independence, Poland had entered into a defense treaty with Russia that ensured protection from invasion in exchange for economic benefits for Russia. As Russia had steadily built up its army since the close of WWI, its manpower stood at almost 15 million, and the air force as well as the army was comparable to that of Germany. In a stunning defeat, the combined Russo-Polish forces stop the Germans just 20 miles east of the Oder River by September 20. The German invasion is crushed, the German army thoroughly demoralized at defeat by their old foes.
While the Nazis regroup and reanalyze their eastern strategy, events in Russia foment unrest. Due to weather conditions, the last three years had seen decreased in production of agricultural foodstuffs in the Ukraine, and under Sergei Alexievitch Kornilov, the Cossack independence movement gains strength. Food prices skyrocket, and the Don is in
Don Cossacks at play
turmoil. Several Cossack atamans vye for power among the Don Host, and the Ural Cossacks issue the government an ultimatum along with several other hosts. The Ural Ultimatum states that the traditional Cossack areas desire independence from Russia. The most ambitious of Cossack movements to date, the Ural Host's document overrides other hosts' less ambitious wishes for a return to their semi-autonomous status they had enjoyed under Nicholas II during the last days before the 1905 revolution. The news of unrest in Russia of course reaches Europe quickly, causing the Germans to plan a new offensive against Russia. In May 1940, the Nazis roll into Belarus and almost reach Minsk before they are successfully stopped by the Russians. As the war continues on in the main of Europe unabated, Russia maintains a presence on the German front and makes some advances against the Nazi forces in Slovakia and Austria, but Russia largely turns inward after defeating Nazi advances for the second time, with the Germans delaying in further invasions. As the Cossack movement grows stronger--at least half of the Russian forces are Cossacks, civil war seems eminent.
A Cossack of the Don
If the Cossacks win, the Lower Don Basin, parts of the Caucasus region, and even the Ural region might cease to be a part of Russia. Antonov's strategy for dealing with the Cossacks as premiere was unwise in hindsight. The Black Sea Fleet sails up the Don to Rostov November 17, 1941 and disembarks Russian troops intending to take Rostov, one of the Cossack seats of power. The war is on. This Russian Civil War drags on for several years until 1944 when the Cossacks and the Russians reach a cease-fire agreement. The Cossacks take both Moscow and Kazan, and the Russian government fears a Cossack victory is becoming more of a reality every day. The loss of life is mostly among the soldiery and much less in comparison to the millions Russian losses, both military and civilian, suffered in OTL WWII. Most of the fighting was confined to several cities as it was a sort of low-grade conflict, although some of Russia's manufacturing might was destroyed during Cossack terror campaigns.The Cossacks are granted an independent state at the close of the war that compromises the Lower Don Region with Novocherkassk as the Don Host's stronghold, the
Kazakia
adjoining Black Sea region of Circassia, including the area around Sochi and Krasnodar (the home of the Kuban Host), and the Terek region of the Caucasus. The Russian government does cede any territory in the Urals. The new state is known to the world by the exonym Kazakia. Meanwhile, during the war, top German scientists flee to Russia where they begin work on an ultimate weapon. Known as the Volgograd Project, this nuclear device is set to end the war. At dawn on July 30, 1945, the Tupolev bomber "Little Tsareivitch Nicky" drops the nuclear device on Berlin, obliterating the city. The Germans surrender unconditionally the next day.
"Little Tsareivitch Nicky" on display at the Royal Aeronautic Museum in St. Petersburg
After the war, the Poles and Russians petition for a permanent partition of German territory, and it comes to pass just as had been the case with Poland in the late 1700's in OTL. Germany is divided amongst the Danish Empire (Schlieswig-Holstein and the Baltic Coast [Mecklenburg]), Batavia (Saxony, North Rhine/Westphalia, Hesse, Saarland, and the Rhineland Palatinate), France (Alsace-Lorraine and Baden), and finally Poland (OTL East Germany less Mecklenburg). Only the Bavaria region is allowed as an independent German homeland as a puppet state of Poland.
As the 1940's wear on and colonial possessions of the European powers begin to desire independence, in the Baltics, the trouble begins for Russia. Alexei II's policy had been based on Britain's strategem of holding onto the colonies, but after they lost India in 1947, it was evident the world had changed. First Estonia, then Lithuania and Latvia declare their independence during the summer of 1948. Not a shot is fired. The Russian Army is not involved, and the world is surprised how seamlessly the Baltic States become independent. The Ukraine would be a different situation. When the Ukrainians see how easily the Baltic states break away, they begin to analyze both the benefits of remaining a part of Russia and of independence.
1950s
By early 1951, an Ukrainian independence movement is born. The governor of Ukraine at the time, Andriy Ponomarenko, crafts a letter with various representatives in the Ukrainian parliament, to the effect that Ukraine desires autonomy from the Russian State. Alexei II, now a polished statesman at 47, along with the current premiere of Russia, Stanislav Gagarin, who had been elected in 1947, travel to Kiev where they enter negotiations. Whereas Russia would be cut off from warm-water sea access with a totally independent Ukraine, Alexei and Gagarin tread lightly through the negotiations. Ancient enmities aside, Russia and the Ukraine agree to a semi-autonomous status for Ukraine within the Russian state, with economic and military agreements in place. Whereas in this timeline, no Eastern Bloc forms after WWII, western Europe begins as early as 1949 forming a bloc that would lead to a European Union, which would see western countries such as Britain and France as the main players, some 30 years before the OTL EU. The Ukrainians poignantly realize their place in the Slavic world, and the idea of a Slavic Union is bandied about during negotiations as a rejoinder to the nascent EU's probable hegemony. "Cлавянские братья" ("Slavic Brothers") becomes the most memorable slogan of the negotiations. The Russians as well as the Ukrainians had always felt like outsiders in the greater European world despite efforts from Peter the Great's campaigns to Westernize Russia onward through the present day.