Twilight of the Red Tsar
- Thread starter Napoleon IV
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Overthrow
Overthrow
Excerpt from Grey Eminence: The Life of Mikhail Suslov by Konstantin Chernakov
It had long been clear to many in the Soviet leadership that something had to be done to fix Soviet agriculture. The agricultural sector had never been very efficient, and after the purges problems such a poor management, low labor productivity, and extreme inefficiency became worse. The result was an agricultural crisis. Malenkov’s solution to this problem was to increase the price the state paid collective farms, lowering taxes, and perhaps most importantly encouraging individual plot of land. These individual plots already produced much of the Soviet Union’s food, even though they amounted to only 2-3% of arable land. Indeed, by one estimate the individual plots were over 1000% as productive as the collective farms. Then, in December 1958 Malenkov proposed dissolving the Machine and Tractor Stations and distributing its accounts to the government. The MTS supplied collective farms with agricultural machinery, and also policed the often unreliable collective farmers. For Suslov this reform was completely unacceptable on ideological grounds. According to Marxist dogma collective property was a lower form of property than state property, thus Malenkov was proposing surrendering some of the state’s control over the means of production.
The fight over the MTS was the final straw; Malenkov had to go. On January 12th the Presidium proposing removing Malenkov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Originally Suslov had been planning to give the position to his protégé Fyodor Kulakov, but to gain support to remove Malenkov he offered the position to Dmitri Polyansky. With Polyansky’s support the hardliners had enough votes to unseat Malenkov[1]. Technically Malenkov could have argued that only the Central Committee could remove him, but he soon realized that his level of support within the Central Committee wasn’t high enough. To avoid the appearance of a coup Malenkov was forced into retirement, with ill health given as the reason for his resignation. Malenkov’s retirement was comfortable by Soviet standards, with a 500-ruble-a-month pension and a guarantee that he would be allowed to keep his house and dacha[2]. The next step was to deal with Malenkov’s supporters within the Presidium. Naturally Goglidze, hated by everyone in the Central Committee, was first to go. As revenge for his role in the purges Goglidze wasn’t just removed, but also expelled from the Party (there had been a proposal to have him executed, but Suslov vetoed it, declaring “Politics is not a blood sport”). With Goglidze’s ouster the MGB and MVD were again separated, and Mikhail Solomentsev was placed in charge of the former. As for Andropov, he survived until June 1959, when he was sent into political exile as ambassador to Mongolia.
Excerpt from Inside the Kremlin by Joseph Kuzmin
The truth was that Mikhail Suslov never wanted to lead the USSR. He was much more at home being a power behind the throne, or the chief ideologue, rather than the public face of Soviet power. Even by the standards of the Soviet leadership he was reclusive and secretive. In all his years in power Suslov only appeared in a handful of photographs, made virtually no public appearances, and even his entry in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia barely made two paragraphs. This trait also showed in how Suslov ran the Soviet Union. He led by manipulation and formulating conspiracies, often convincing other members of the leadership that his ideas were their ideas.
Suslov was greatly assisted by the other members of the hardline faction, who together made up what was known as the Gang of Four[3]. At first Ustinov was Suslov’s chief lieutenant, but as time went on he was overtaken by Fyodor Kulakov. Suslov and Kulakov were like two pieces of a puzzle. Both men were austere and stern, but unlike Suslov Kulakov enjoyed the rough and tumble of politics. He was also far less ideological, a trait which allowed him to work with both Suslov and the more moderate members of the Presidium. In fact, Kulakov’s power would grow until in some respects he was more powerful than Suslov.
[1] The vote was as follows:
For Malenkov:
Georgy Malenkov
Sergdo Goglidze
Yuri Andropov
Vladimir Semichastny
Against Malenkov:
Mikhail Suslov
Dmitri Ustinov
Pyotr Demichev
Fyodor Kulakov
Nikolai Tikhonov
Dmitri Polyansky
Joseph Kuzmin
[2] This was the same retirement deal given to Khrushchev after his IOTL overthrow.
[3] The Gang of Four was: Mikhail Suslov, Dmitri Ustinov, Fyodor Kulakov, Pyotr Demichev
bookmark95
Banned
Potentially, but again, structural problems lurk in the Soviet System. Plenty Soviet leaders seem to be choosing ideology over not starving to death.
Well Brezhnev happened and it took a decade for the USSR to fall still.
So it seems that Soviet Agriculture is not going to be fixed which will cause many issues down the road and in OTL the hardliners gaining power again did seem to hasten the fall of the USSR so I'm curious to see if something similar happened TTL.
Also it seems Nixon is vindicated in not responding to rapprochement attempts from Malenkov.
I'm interested to see how hardline Soviet communism works without Stalin's psychopathy.
Agriculture was always one of the worst sectors in the Soviet economy, and there were plenty of times where the Soviet Union faced famine and shortages.
Also Suslov is a much worse leader than Brezhnev.
Well considering what the situation was by the time Reagan came tiny office in the US (The USSR was a big consumer of US agriculture) and what Suslov is like I dare say that might happen by the early to mid 70's (especially when taking into aconite the situation in China).
Also I take it this means a Wall is going to be built in Berlin.
Without any kind of removal or rerform of the Collective Farms like Kruschev did with his Destalinization in OTL. Then I suspect the standard of living, life expectancy, and demographics to go on the decline even more severely than in OTL, so suspect a Russia with 100 million or so by the 20th century. While the party will be even more heavy handed in keeping the populace in line, until inevitably so influential group will have enough and overthrow them or there is a war of succession with nukes occur.
IIRC around 100 million Russians died between 1914-1953, so the total will be far more.
Teshuvah
Banned
This likely means the U.S. develops a more European view on freedom of speech. Culturally, freedom of speech won't be seen as the untouchable absolute that it is IOTL, and consequently people will be less willing to tolerate hate speech on 1st Amendment grounds.
Overall TTL's US will probably look more like OTL Canada when it comes to racist/hateful speech.
Great TL, by the way. Eagerly awaiting the next update. EDIT: Just saw it was posted!
Cook
Banned
You really think Ho would be upset with his chief financiers because they killed off millions of Chinese?
Well, because of them, there are now millions of Chinese overwhelming the border.
Oh right, there are all those settlement programs in the Baltics and eastern Europe, and not to mention the probable Chinese refugees moving into Siberia with Suslov in power. Because if so I can see a lot more prominent ethnic violence than OTL.
So do you expect the USA to become much more embracing of different races and Cultures than OTL?
Cook
Banned
He'd only have to shoot the first ten or twenty thousand and they'd stop coming; not exactly hard work for Ho, particularly when they are Chinese.
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