DBWI: Beria doesn't become General Secretary

Von Tyrconnell

What if Lavrentiy Beria hadn't become the leader of the Soviet Union following Stalin's death? Any other leader such as Khurschev or Malenkov surely would've been better than Beria and the many sadistic rapings and killings carried out under his regime.
 

Seandineen

K and malenkov temporarily form an alliance. Berta’s desire for a government outside the party was scarier than his sexual abuse.
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
That depends ENTIRELY on who gains power. One can not say what will happen merely by saying what dosent happen in a scenario with so many other options. Could you pick a different General Secretary?
 

Corjomc

Well following his spectacular flame out which ended the USSR prior to 1960 I suspect the state would just meander on for years grinding a to a halt eventually.
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
no one said:
how long? until 1965?1975? 2010?
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As long as the Russian core can keep its economic dominance over Eastern Europe and Manchuria, which really depends on how hard the West is willing to press the Communist Bloc for market penetration. I'd say sometime in the late 80's: about a decade after the "White Revolution" in Iran completes the encirclement of the Bloc by democratic regimes (sans China) and the West has had sufficient time to get a strong establishment in African industry to make places like Hungary and East Germany seem tempting
 
Bulldoggus

Bulldoggus

Banned
80’s? You guys are either nuts or way into dystopia. I say 1970 is the absolute max for how far the USSR can make it. They were in a deadly pinch between a bloody, unsustainable status quo and a system that relied on fear and misery. Maybe if you put someone like Khrushchev in charge, it lasts another decade after Stalin bites it.
 
Dolan

Dolan

Banned
Let's be fair, without Beria's mismanagement, Soviet Union would be likely still there instead of our OTL implosion and later Romanov restoration (that was masterminded by then Prime Minister Berzhnev)
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
Bulldoggus said:
80’s? You guys are either nuts or way into dystopia. I say 1970 is the absolute max for how far the USSR can make it. They were in a deadly pinch between a bloody, unsustainable status quo and a system that relied on fear and misery. Maybe if you put someone like Khrushchev in charge, it lasts another decade after Stalin bites it.
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Misery and insecurity had been the lot of the Russian peasantry pretty much as far back as one can read, being the borderland that got overrun and dominated by basically everyone in Europe, the weather is barely livable, autocratic governments were the norm and every promise of democracy proven a joke. You're making a HUGE mistake if you're going to say you get the pressure from below that would bring down the government in the same situation in the USSR as you would with citizens in Western-Central Europe and the USA. So long as Moscow controls the flow of bread into the industrial centers, they'll have the loyalty of the workers. So long as they control the money to fill the pay envelopes and the quality housing and amenities of the barreks and soldier-villages they'll have the loyalty of the army and their families. And so long as they control the flow of information they can at least keep the ignorant acceptance of the isolated rural population.
 
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