AHC: Famous Generals as Soviet Leaders.

AH.commers have a habit of putting Soviet military leaders, like Tukhachevsky, Konev, Vasilevasy, Vatutin and Zhukov, on the post of General Secretary. But the thing is that in the real Soviet Union, for some reasons, generals never became long-lasting leaders themselves. Zhukov, for example, launched a coup against Beria and put Khrushchev in power, instead of taking power for himself.

What exactly prevented Soviet soldiers from taking political power?

Despite not being a South American or Arab military dictatorship, which transfers the throne from one soldier to another, the Soviet government was somewhat like Israel in the sense that only people who served in the military could have a chance to become rulers.

Stalin himself owed much of his rise to his military career during Russian Civil War, especially the defense of Tsaritsyn, later renamed Stalingrad to stress on the military part of Stalin's exploits.

Both Khrushchev and Brezhnev were high ranking officers during the Great Patriotic War. And in the case of Brezhnev, his records were exaggerated by official propaganda to boost his legitimacy.

And given the fact that almost ALL power transitions in the USSR were irregular, there were some chance to have a system that places famous generals into power more often, especially during the post-Stalin succession crisis.

Your task is to change the Soviet succession system so that prominent war heroes like Konev, Vasilevasy, Vatutin and Zhukov, becomes Soviet Leaders more often.
 
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They didn't want a military officer to take power in the USSR for fear of a "Red Bonapartism" if the person takes over. The government of the USSR they think will be ripped to shreds by the West if a military officer comes to power.

Your POD might be that a bomb kills most of the Soviet government's top brass. The military (ex. Zhukov comes to power, more likely than the others). During the period 1945-54 it could happen.
 
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They didn't want a military officer to take power in the USSR for fear of a "Red Bonapartism" if the person takes over. The government of the USSR they think will be ripped to shreds by the West if a military officer comes to power.

Your POD might be that a bomb kills most of the Soviet government's top brass. The military (ex. Zhukov comes to power, more likely than the others). During the period 1945-54 it could happen.

If top leadership is killed then medium leadership takes over, forms some sort of collective governing body then at some point knives come out and somebody takes top post and removes others. Like Khruschev did OTL
 
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