1945 - Stalin dead in a "horse accident".

Old Airman

Banned
Someone below said Zhdanov might sovietize Finland: Would it be a full SSR or on the level of a Warsaw Pact country?
Methink it would be a WarPac satellite a-la Poland.
How would such an action affect the Cold War?
Not much. IMHO Cold War became very likely in Autumn 1941 (when USSR didn't fall) and inevitable in 1948 (when it got the nuke).With sovetized Finland there would be a bit more tempers flying around, but an ultimate humiliation had been done before...
 

Cook

Banned
In 1945 Lavrenty Beria was still chief of the NKVD, so he not only knew where all the bodies were buried (figuratively and literally) but had direct control of the apparatus required to bury any rival.
 
Beria, IIRC, wanted to accept a shitload of offered Marshall Aid in return for lightening the occupation of or even removing all troops out of Eastern Europe. You get him in charge, and the Cold War may be unrecognizable.
 
Probably Molotov, Molotov wasn't really that bad though, I see him more moderate than Stalin.
Have a read of Molotov Remembers. It was basically made before he died in the mid 1980s... and he was still backing Stalin's line, and IIRC still thought Mao was on the right track. Fun fact: Molotov was the only member of the Anti-Party Group who didn't vote for his own dismissal in 1957.

Zhdanov is a strong candidate I suppose. He'll have some problems with the 'old Stalinists', like Molotov and Kaganovich. With Stalin gone in 1945, these guys are still in fairly strong positions and probably don't want the new generation to push them out. They might have some support too, since they represent continuity of sorts. While I think of it having Zhadanov in power probably means a bigger Zhadanovschina.

Beria is out of the question as the new leader. As well as being unpopular, making him the leader would be seen as too much power and it's worth keeping in mind his actions during his semi-power post 1953 offended most of the more orthodox party members.
 

Cook

Banned
Beria is out of the question as the new leader. As well as being unpopular, making him the leader would be seen as too much power and it's worth keeping in mind his actions during his semi-power post 1953 offended most of the more orthodox party members.

In 1945 he was in a much more powerful position. I suspect he would have suddenly been very popular with anyone who didn’t want a visit from the NKVD in the wee small hours…
 

Cook

Banned
Beria seems to have been a very strange fish indeed.
Head of the Secret Police and Militia and responsible for mass murders and appalling abuses he seems to have been secretly a liberal.
So he’s in an awkward position, he can proceed as you would expect the cliché baddie to do in his position to do and have all potential rivals shot, or he follows his nature and presses for relaxation of the rules, whereupon he is executed by a conspiracy that would have been crushed had he stuck to script. And the great irony is that most of the conspirators acted against him out of fear of his growing power.
 
Do not forget that just after stalin death in 1953, Beria hurried to close the "jewish doctors plot" case and tried to appear as the "innocent good guy" who found evidence of unfair trials due to S paranoia and is trying to set things right.
And this is quite funny considered that he was blood-soaked with the case
 
Do not forget that just after stalin death in 1953, Beria hurried to close the "jewish doctors plot" case and tried to appear as the "innocent good guy" who found evidence of unfair trials due to S paranoia and is trying to set things right.
And this is quite funny considered that he was blood-soaked with the case

Of course he was blood-soaked. Who wasn't in top echelons of the Stalin's government??? Khrushchev was most closely associated with Ukrainian famine, among other things. If you associate yourself with Stalin and the like you have to make your hands dirty.

But Beria appears more... well... "pragmatic" or "less dogmatic" are maybe a better description than "more liberal". Deng Xiaoping wasn't a big friend of liberal democracy too, but he recognized the need for reforms towards liberalization and introduced them - all for the needs of the state. As already stated, we don't really know much about Beria. Whether he was a blood-lusty psychopath or an amoral opportunist who just did any job necessary to get up top - we don't know it with certainty, there was so much propaganda and counterpropaganda pumped out about him.
 
there was so much propaganda and counterpropaganda pumped out about him.

yes there was.
and this means something, don't you think so?

of course you cannot be chief of secret police without getting your hands dirty, but people in russia despise him even TODAY (while there is not such a definite feeling about S: someone consider him a criminal, others no).

On the whole, however, you are right: he was pragmatic and not dogmatic.
The only problem is that he would never survive a military coup (or a coup backed by the army, as in OTL), becoause he was hated too much and nobody would rise a finger to help him
 
yes there was.
and this means something, don't you think so?

That he orchestrated murder of millions of people, mostly innocent, and that he ruined lives of millions more - there is no doubt about that. The man was a mass murderer on a grand scale.

About his "private" mostrosities, however, there is so much less documented (obviously) than about his "professional" monstrosities that there is some room to doubt at least some of them.

Despite any doubt on the latter, his "professional" performance definitely merited his end IMO. The point is that the difference bewteen him and any other possible candidate in terms of "blood on hands" would be only a difference of degree.
 
About his "private" mostrosities, however, there is so much less documented (obviously) than about his "professional" monstrosities that there is some room to doubt at least some of them.
QUOTE]

I have seen the cells in the under-level of one of his residences in moscow (now a magrebine embassy)
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
In 1945 he was in a much more powerful position. I suspect he would have suddenly been very popular with anyone who didn’t want a visit from the NKVD in the wee small hours…

In 1945 Lavrenty Beria was still chief of the NKVD, so he not only knew where all the bodies were buried (figuratively and literally) but had direct control of the apparatus required to bury any rival.

I would suggest that the period between May 1945 and the end of that year was the most dangerous time for Beria.
The terror had been cut back, the NKVD full of new recruits, often from the Army. The successful Generals, especially Zhukov, dripping with prestige and in command of the biggest Armed force ever with handpicked subordinates in every part of the country and occupied territories dominating all communications. (note how Zhukov engineered Krushev's eventual succession).
I think the chop for Beria was inevitable.
 
I would suggest that the period between May 1945 and the end of that year was the most dangerous time for Beria.
The terror had been cut back, the NKVD full of new recruits, often from the Army. The successful Generals, especially Zhukov, dripping with prestige and in command of the biggest Armed force ever with handpicked subordinates in every part of the country and occupied territories dominating all communications. (note how Zhukov engineered Krushev's eventual succession).
I think the chop for Beria was inevitable.

And indeed, after the war his power was reduced. The NKVD was split into the MVD and the MGB, both of which were put under the control of men who had no loyalty to him, Abakumov and Kruglov. Almost all of his supporters in high positions in those two agencies were removed. The elimination of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was a direct blow at Beria, who had supported it. Beria bounced back a little bit after Zhdanov's death when he was able to purge Zhdanov's top supporters, and also after he supervised the Soviet atomic bomb project, but his low point was probabaly the Mingrelian Affair in the early 50s, where a lot his closest Georgian supporters were purged on Stalin's orders. If Stalin had lived longer and launched his second Purge, Beria would have been the first one up against the wall most likely.

Ironically, in 53 he was in his best position in years. He had control of the MVD and MGB back, which he merged into one organization. His ally Malenkov was the head of the state, and Molotov was at least willing to tolerate him. He would probably never become the leader himself, but he was the power behind the throne, His big mistake was that he went too far in his liberalization plans with his ideas about making Germany neutral. This is what turned Molotov and Malenkov against him, and together with Krushchev they were able to get the Army's backing in removing Beria.
 

Old Airman

Banned
Have a read of Molotov Remembers. It was basically made before he died in the mid 1980s... and he was still backing Stalin's line
Yes, the fella had been an orthodox communist till the end of his life. On the positive side, although he wasn't a "softie" (no one of Stalin's inner circle was), it seem to me he didn't strike me as one too eager to use violence to protect his power or political views. And remember, he was preaching communist views while stripped of decision-making power. If in power, he might evolve faster. But, all in all, he strikes me as 3rd-most-stalinist figure in Soviet leadership (behind Uncle Joe himself and Zhdanov), and this isn't good in my books.
Beria seems to have been a very strange fish indeed.
Head of the Secret Police and Militia and responsible for mass murders and appalling abuses he seems to have been secretly a liberal.
I think altamiro got it right. The guy was endlessly pragmatic and didn't have much of political ideas of his own. Under his watch, state security apparatus purged itself of idealistic commies, becoming effective and ruthless tool of the state (i.e. leadership). He didn't hesitate for a second to sign an execution order, but, IMHO, it was strictly a mean to the end. Memoirs of people who were part of Soviet nuke project (direct responsibility of Beria) are full of descriptions how people literally showed him middle finger if they thought his decision is wrong and offered a viable alternative. Guess what? He didn't mind it, if alternative approach worked (but, of course, if it didn't, ones who proposed it were in deep trouble).
 
Molotov

Do not forget that he was a bloody good diplomat!
He had a good understanding of western societies, and could wriggle out the best of both worlds.
Also he is probably a guarantee both in the eyes of the west ("he's a diplomat, he will not attack us without warning") and in the eye of russia ("the west know he's a diplomat, they will try to solve matter by means of diplomacy")
 
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