WI: Lenin's untimely death

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

There have been countless threads about the Fanny Kaplan doing the job 'right', but here's one I have never seen on this site:
What if Lenin had been killed by the gunmen who ambushed him and Fritz Platten on January 14, 1918? The Constituent Assembly had not been dissolved yet, and there was still no Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia would probably take a completely different from OTL (and there certainly wouldn't be a USSR). The possibilities are endless.

Discuss.

[Snake Featherston]

My guess is that this actually produces the cult of Lenin the Martyr, his successors manage to eke out an inglorious victory over their horribly outnumbered and far weaker opponents (like OTL), and that Smirnov becomes the ATL's evil dictator that ruined the glorious Soviet experiment. Outside the USSR there'd need to be a fuller scenario of global developments to judge one way or the other.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

My guess is that this actually produces the cult of Lenin the Martyr, his successors manage to eke out an inglorious victory over their horribly outnumbered and far weaker opponents (like OTL), and that Smirnov becomes the ATL's evil dictator that ruined the glorious Soviet experiment. Outside the USSR there'd need to be a fuller scenario of global developments to judge one way or the other.

Isn't Smirnov a major general? The reason I say this is this has... interesting implications in regards to militarism and the Soviet Union.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Isn't Smirnov a major general? The reason I say this is this has... interesting implications in regards to militarism and the Soviet Union.

There were two Smirnovs, just as there were two Kamenevs.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

There were two Smirnovs, just as there were two Kamenevs.

Oh... didn't know that.

Okay, what is the position of the Smirnov you're talking about?

[Stolengood]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Okay, what is the position of the Smirnov you're talking about?

He is the official Joke-teller, who makes the Russian armies laugh with comparisons of Western Europe and Tsarist Russia.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Oh... didn't know that.

Okay, what is the position of the Smirnov you're talking about?

He was the original man who held Stalin's position, and backed Trotskyism.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

He was the original man who held Stalin's position, and backed Trotskyism.

Hmm. I guess more aggressive foreign policy, for all of those implications.

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

Thanks for the replies
Everyone so far has concentrated on Snake's line of thought, which is interesting, but I'd like to read more...