Would the Soviet Union even have existed if the Germans had won?
It was the Germans who sent the Bolsheviks back into Russia. Lenin and his crew were in Switzerland until the German High Command put them on a special train and delivered them to the Finland Station. The Czar had already abdicated when America declared war and the Revolution was the reason for the abdication.
So it is likely that we would have had a Soviet Union in any case since the Bolsheviks were the most determined, ruthless and organized of any of the forces making the Revolution. It seems a good bet that they would have seized power no matter what was happening further west.
The Soviet Union wouldn't have existed without the Germans. The Kaiser paid for it: $60 million gold marks delivered to Lenin to buy a revolution in Russia—and pull Russia out of the war. (Russia was an ally of Britain and France.) Once he'd bought an army of goons and engineered his coup, Lenin immediately obeyed his German paymasters and pulled Russia out of the war.
Churchill send in troops (British and U.S.) to try to beat back the Reds, but it was too late to reverse the coup.
“Would the Soviet Union even have existed if the Germans had won?”
Probably, because after the territorial concessions they were left to their own devices (fighting the civil war that put the communists in power).
The Soviet Union existed because Germany nocked Russia out of the war early. If Germany would have won Germany in league with the Whites might have gone back after the Reds. Sending Lenin back to Russia was a nice touch by the Germans.
Yes. The Germans gave Lenin his ride into Russia to start revolution and take Russia out of WWI in 1917.
But the USSR would not have included Ukraine and Belorus. Those areas [and more] were ceeded to the Germans in the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovic signed by Lenin. The western allies turned those territories and the areas of the broken-up Astro-Hungarian Empire into seperate countries after the Armistice and the USSR took the Ukraine and Belorus back in the 20s. Tried to get Poland too but lost that fight.
Did not regain the Baltic countries/Moldovia until 1940/1945 and tried to regain Finland but stalemated that fight.
The Soviet Union was born because the Germans wanted Russia out of the war.
They shipped Lenin into Russia to cause a revolt in exchange for Russia leaving the war.
The ripples of WW1 are still be felt to this day.
Wilson and the USA was making a lot of cash arming the Brits and the French. Maybe this was Wilsons way of saying”thank you”?