Russia Fractures, Part 1: The Political Geography of the Russian Revolution

We’ve occasionally discussed the possible breakup or dissolution of Russia in the 21st century. It’s an engaging topic to discuss for several reasons—Russia faces a declining industrial base and a shrinking population; the USSR fractured rapidly in 1990 and Russia has fought a bloody war in Chechnya. But what would dissolution look like? And how long would it take?

The precipitous fracture of the USSR is remembered for being relatively orderly and bloodless—with some exceptions, of course. But remember that Russia broke apart twice in the 20th century. The fracture fo the Russian Empire, and its rapid reconstruction as the Soviet Union, was a bloody, messy affair, with multiple actors, multiple regions and factions pushing for independence or unity. Looking over this wikipedia article Timeline of Russian History (20th century), the events flow so rapidly and so many factions take or lose territory, that reading it doesn’t make much sense. So I decided to create a set of maps to understand the “political geography” of the Russian Revolution more carefully. Naturally, I had to summarize some events, cut some events, and the borders are very approximate, but the collection of 45 maps appears below, and you can view and navigate them as an automatic or manual slideshow below. Most of the action happens between 1917 and 1922, with scattered clean-up events happening after that.

What does this show? Russia’s size was no impendiment to its rapid destruction. Part 2 will examine the Soviet collapse.