Sort of a TLIAD situation, if that terminology is still a thing.
Suppose the Latvian Riflemen have a slightly different war from 1915 on. Nothing earth-shattering - just a different set of casualties in this battle, a few different promotions, certain men survive, a smattering of different friendships and relationships. Particularly, Frīdrihs Briedis has a completely different experience of the war, avoiding his nasty jaw wound of 1916 and falling in with an especially tight-knit circle of lower officers.
Come the Revolution Briedis is not in the hospital and, out of intense personal loyalty and against his strong sympathies, continues to serve with the Latvian Riflemen when they go over to the Soviets. Briedis' intense antipathy to the Bolsheviks causes endless arguments, but until the summer of 1918 momentum carries them forward. The group of Latvian officers and men starts to look to the Left Socialist Revolutionaries as what they see as the most plausible alternative to the Bolsheviks, despite having huge problems with that group as well.
In another world they might simply have attempted to go over to more conservative Whites, but in the event the nascent conspiracy of friends is drawn into the events of the Left SR uprising. As things come to a head in Moscow, the SR faction of the Cheka approaches this ambivalently-Red faction of the Latvians (they weren't that subtle) and manages to push them over the edge into action before cooler heads can prevail on them to not "seize this opportunity."
The Bolsheviks had remarkably little armed might backing them in Moscow, so a little goes a long way.
After the initial SR push, Lenin orders Jukums Vācietis to put down the uprising. There is a delay as it suddenly becomes clear the Briedis faction has disappeared and "relocated" the artillery the Riflemen had in Moscow. By noon most of the Latvians are confronting Popov's unit, and after a longer attempt at negotiations a firefight breaks out. Without artillery, the violence draws out rather than ending sharply, and the uprising goes on.
Violence in Moscow escalates between the Bolshevik and Left SR factions, in some ways exacerbated by the initial hesitance of the two Latvian splinter groups to fight each other. Without resolution, those less sympathetic to the Bolsheviks are left a plausible window to rally to the Left SR cause. It's an enthusiastic time. They do so. From the flash in the pan of OTL, the situation rapidly escalates into a desperate struggle. The encroaching whites make longer-term violence in the capital horrifically dangerous to the revolution.
The OTL telegram to Left SR general Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov on the eastern front has the same effect as in our TL. He turns his army around (nominally to go to war with the Germans), seizes Simbirsk, and marches on Moscow. Historically, his men refused to oppose the Bolsheviks and he was killed while resisting arrest. But historically, the uprising was firmly over by that point. ITTL, many of his men desert, but he leads the remainder toward Moscow.
So.... what then?
At this point if the Bolsheviks win, the Left SR and those who rallied to them will be able to withdraw from the capital to join Muravyov, who will be poised much closer to Moscow than any hostile force approached through the whole Russian Civil War. Defending the capital, positions on other fronts will suffer, especially in the east. And other Left Socialist Revolutionary or left-wing anti-Bolshevik uprisings will have happened, so even if the Bolsheviks are in a far superior position, the territory of Soviet Russia (already much reduced) will be at least somewhat divided between the two factions.
If the Bolshevik's lose, they'll retreat from the city, the Left SRs will basically become the government, most of Soviet Russia will defect to them, and the Bolshevik's will have to be put down by the new government. It will be messy and ugly and take time, energy, men, and materiel. Some Bolshevik sympathizers will remain to potentially cause trouble of their own later.
If neither faction gets a decisive victory before Muravyov arrives, the Bolsheviks will probably lose the city anyway. Similar result.
No matter what, this looks like something that would dramatically worsen the Reds' position in the civil war. It doesn't give the various White factions much of any popular support in the country, but it does undermine the popular support of the Reds, and give the Whites a great deal of breathing room.
Whither the Russian Civil War? Could the Whites plausibly win in this scenario? What would a Bolshevik or Left Socialist Revolutionary Soviet Russia be like if weakened substantially on top of the our-timeline disaster?
Suppose the Latvian Riflemen have a slightly different war from 1915 on. Nothing earth-shattering - just a different set of casualties in this battle, a few different promotions, certain men survive, a smattering of different friendships and relationships. Particularly, Frīdrihs Briedis has a completely different experience of the war, avoiding his nasty jaw wound of 1916 and falling in with an especially tight-knit circle of lower officers.
Come the Revolution Briedis is not in the hospital and, out of intense personal loyalty and against his strong sympathies, continues to serve with the Latvian Riflemen when they go over to the Soviets. Briedis' intense antipathy to the Bolsheviks causes endless arguments, but until the summer of 1918 momentum carries them forward. The group of Latvian officers and men starts to look to the Left Socialist Revolutionaries as what they see as the most plausible alternative to the Bolsheviks, despite having huge problems with that group as well.
In another world they might simply have attempted to go over to more conservative Whites, but in the event the nascent conspiracy of friends is drawn into the events of the Left SR uprising. As things come to a head in Moscow, the SR faction of the Cheka approaches this ambivalently-Red faction of the Latvians (they weren't that subtle) and manages to push them over the edge into action before cooler heads can prevail on them to not "seize this opportunity."
The Bolsheviks had remarkably little armed might backing them in Moscow, so a little goes a long way.
After the initial SR push, Lenin orders Jukums Vācietis to put down the uprising. There is a delay as it suddenly becomes clear the Briedis faction has disappeared and "relocated" the artillery the Riflemen had in Moscow. By noon most of the Latvians are confronting Popov's unit, and after a longer attempt at negotiations a firefight breaks out. Without artillery, the violence draws out rather than ending sharply, and the uprising goes on.
Violence in Moscow escalates between the Bolshevik and Left SR factions, in some ways exacerbated by the initial hesitance of the two Latvian splinter groups to fight each other. Without resolution, those less sympathetic to the Bolsheviks are left a plausible window to rally to the Left SR cause. It's an enthusiastic time. They do so. From the flash in the pan of OTL, the situation rapidly escalates into a desperate struggle. The encroaching whites make longer-term violence in the capital horrifically dangerous to the revolution.
The OTL telegram to Left SR general Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov on the eastern front has the same effect as in our TL. He turns his army around (nominally to go to war with the Germans), seizes Simbirsk, and marches on Moscow. Historically, his men refused to oppose the Bolsheviks and he was killed while resisting arrest. But historically, the uprising was firmly over by that point. ITTL, many of his men desert, but he leads the remainder toward Moscow.
So.... what then?
At this point if the Bolsheviks win, the Left SR and those who rallied to them will be able to withdraw from the capital to join Muravyov, who will be poised much closer to Moscow than any hostile force approached through the whole Russian Civil War. Defending the capital, positions on other fronts will suffer, especially in the east. And other Left Socialist Revolutionary or left-wing anti-Bolshevik uprisings will have happened, so even if the Bolsheviks are in a far superior position, the territory of Soviet Russia (already much reduced) will be at least somewhat divided between the two factions.
If the Bolshevik's lose, they'll retreat from the city, the Left SRs will basically become the government, most of Soviet Russia will defect to them, and the Bolshevik's will have to be put down by the new government. It will be messy and ugly and take time, energy, men, and materiel. Some Bolshevik sympathizers will remain to potentially cause trouble of their own later.
If neither faction gets a decisive victory before Muravyov arrives, the Bolsheviks will probably lose the city anyway. Similar result.
No matter what, this looks like something that would dramatically worsen the Reds' position in the civil war. It doesn't give the various White factions much of any popular support in the country, but it does undermine the popular support of the Reds, and give the Whites a great deal of breathing room.
Whither the Russian Civil War? Could the Whites plausibly win in this scenario? What would a Bolshevik or Left Socialist Revolutionary Soviet Russia be like if weakened substantially on top of the our-timeline disaster?
