A political solution to Barbarossa

A thought.

We've toyed endlessly with getting a better Barbarossa by tweaking aspects of the invasoin; the Germans head straight for Moscow, or don't get caught in Stalingrad, etc.

Could a prewar political change in the USSR be the key?
 
Maybe if you have a civil war in the SU by the time the Germans cross the borders. In such a case I think the SU, and thus the rest of Europe, are doomed...
 
To complement my previous answer: imagine a POD where Stalin is assassinated two or three months before Barbarossa begins. In the ensuing power struggle in the Kremlin a civi war arises and burns through out the entire european part of the SU. I don't remember any scenario with this specific kind of POD...
 
Maybe if you have a civil war in the SU by the time the Germans cross the borders. In such a case I think the SU, and thus the rest of Europe, are doomed...

Well, I was thinking something like a less drastic industrial development policy, but this works too.
 
Maybe if you have a longer civil war following bolshevick rise to power, maybe even the Poles marching nearer to Moscow...
 
Maybe a stronger Polish/Ukranian war effort after WW1. Maybe (heavily) backed by the western powers to contain the Soviets?




Terified Rhysz looks around for Hurgan
 
Random assortment of thoughts....

Perhaps the Soviets learn the wrong lessons from the Civil War (where all but the core of European Russia was overrun by the Whites). There is a deliberate effort to concentrate industry in Russia proper. That hurts industrialization overall as the easiest areas to site new heavy industry - the Ukraine and the Urals - get less attention. Even worse, it'd put a larger percentage of Soviet Industry in the West where it can be overrun.

One of the obvious ways would be to delay the transfer of war industries to the East. The process was ongoing when Barbarossa began, effectively starting the CCCP off without a great deal of its production capacity. Fortunately the war dragged on the remaining year+ it took to rebuild all the factories and get them running, but if the process had been started later for some reason the Nazis would have "caught" a lot of factories in transit.

Get Stalin a political agreement with a western power about the time militarists start popping up around Europe. It doesn't have to be a thing that would last, or even offer real guarantees. It just has to allay Soviet fears for six months or a year. More factories go on line making consumer goods and such, as per the Five Year Plan. They shift too late, and Russia is much less prepared when the German tanks come rolling in.
 
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