DBWI: Could Stalin's USSR rise to a superpower status?

Now, as we all know Stalin, genocidal dictator of USSR during late 20's and 30's, suffered a fatal heart attack after German attack his dictatorship in 1941. In a one of the greatest miracles of 20th Century the Cabal which replaced him managed not only to defeat German attack but also to raise USSR to superpower status to rival United States until the eventual collapse during early 2000's after peoples of Soviet Union decided that an alliance with China would only benefit their leaders, not the Soviet People.

One of the recurring themes of this board is a what if Stalin had not suffered a heart attack in 22 June 1941? While I think, contrary to most people, that USSR would have been able to eventually defeat German onslaught and even to drive it back to, say, Poland, before end of the war, some like sheer Stalinist fantasies. In one brilliantly written but flawed piece of work the board member UralBear "Stalin's rise to a superpower" Stalinist USSR defeats Germany and establishes a cordon sanitaire of puppet states in Eastern Europe. His successors manage to expand Soviet influence all around the world and even commit Soviet Union to a space race with USA. Despite all it's flaws this Stalinist Soviet Union manages to bungle on to early 1990's. UralBears last post suffer from a clear case of exhaustion after criticism, as this Soviet Empire collapses just in some two years, and mostly peacefully.

Why are these kind of fantasies, kind of like fantasies of Nazi Germany victorious, so popular? If we examine Stalin's USSR's performance to 22 June 1941 and some time afterwards (clearly the Cabal could not reform Soviet Army just in space of a few days) there's no signs to show that Stalin could have any diplomatic sense, or could unite Soviet peoples against German attacker.

One of the most curious points are the Soviet Wunderwaffe which appear in Soviet fantasies. Stalinists develop an atomic bomb just a few years after USA (yeah right!, capitalist science, Lysenko and all that), a hydrogen bomb just a year after USA and even space rockets, capable jet fighters etc. Why can't people see that fairly capable pieces of military equipment that USSR produced prior to 1941 were mostly based on foreign techonology and achievements of brilliant independent designers not yet exhausted under Stalin's rule? It's clear that after this generation of weapons had passed a Stalinist state would have been unable to create such weapons as MiG-15, T-55 and AK-47, to name a few Soviet successes

Finally, Stalinist fantasies omit the most serious point. A Stalinist USSR would have been totally unable to reform. A state which destroyed entire nations and groups of humans just because they were stated to be class enemies would have destroyed itself in a space of few years, even if German attack wasn't succesfull. A reformist Stalinist USSR is about as believable as reformist Nazi Germany after Hitler's death, another favourite fantasy scenario.
 
Stalinists develop an atomic bomb just a few years after USA (yeah right!, capitalist science, Lysenko and all that),

Biology was the only science negatively impacted by Stalinism. The others including physics did well enough under Stalin and received state support. I don't see why a Stalinist Soviet Union would be less likely to create weapons like the AK-47 and the Katyusha Rocket then the otl post Stalin Soviet Union. In fact the Katyusha Rocket was first developed in 1939, two years before Stalin died.
 
Biology was the only science negatively impacted by Stalinism. The others including physics did well enough under Stalin and received state support.

The difference between Czarist Russia and Soviet Union was somewhat similar between Weimar and Nazi Germany in field of science. Imperial Russia managed to grab three Nobels in natural sciences in years before the First World War. Stalin's Soviet Union got none. Even those scientist supported by regime, such as Pavlov, got only meagre funding.

Moreover, by destroying so-called Kulaks Stalin's regime effectively killed a large number of families which could have bred a new educated middle class capable of turning out both engineers and scientists of high standard.

I don't see why a Stalinist Soviet Union would be less likely to create weapons like the AK-47 and the Katyusha Rocket then the otl post Stalin Soviet Union. In fact the Katyusha Rocket was first developed in 1939, two years before Stalin died.

I think Katyusha rather as an example what was wrong and good in Stalinist weapon development. A brilliant and simple weapon mass producedm, but as a simple one without much capability of being developed further.

But even a weapon as innovative as AK-47? I don't see a chance of that being developed in Stalinist Soviet Union. However simple, it's production demanded more resources than it's predecessors which were already existent in abundance. Stalinist USSR might be able to produce good, even excellent infantry support weapons, maybe something akin to MG-42, but a weapon suited for individual soldier? I don't see that happening. Class conscience would be sufficient to overpower fascist defences.
 
In some ways I think the answer would be yes, but it would have to create a massive army to do so, as the original Mk. 1 Stalinist system was not capable IMHO of sustaining the global empire that goes with superpower status. However I would dispute that Soviet technological progress depended on foreign aid in the military sphere. The command economy was very good at building the kind of massively wasteful and redundant supplies required for warfighting.
 
If you look at Stalin's military record at the time he probably bungles things badly, the man was not a good military leader and insisted on trying to micromanage, and when he found someone competent he purged them

With him in charge the USSR likely gets gutted like a fish by the Germans and is barely able to stagger on, maybe at best getting to prewar borders before the nukes start dropping on Germany (a lot more than three this time)

Given the excess casualties this would result in the USSR would likely stagger on as a power but would lack the ability to challenge the USA
 
Stalin would probably order suicidal resistance from his men, leading to tactical stupidity. He'll respond to the conflict by killing his generals, leading to a disastrous opening campaign.


Figure that when Moscow is on the Line, he himself is on the line. I imagine that the men who replaced him in OTL--Molotov, Kaganovich and Zhandov--would probably oust him.


In OTL, of course, the Germans barely made it into Smolensk. But if Stalin has screwed up so badly that Moscow is lost--he'll get killed there and then.


Probably leads to a bloodier war on the Eastern Front that ends in 1947 with the US Army meeting the Red Army in the Ukraine.
 
Oh, please don't. All we need is to attract more neo-stalinists. Stalin was a genocidal madman. Notice how these Stalinwanks are banned in the USSR.

(OOC: ITTL, Stalin is not involved in the UN's postwar writing of the definition of "genocide", and the Cabal is disinterested in whitewashing his reputation; so social classes are included in the definition; so his liquidation of the kulaks is officially and uncontroversially counted as genocide.)
 
The difference between Czarist Russia and Soviet Union was somewhat similar between Weimar and Nazi Germany in field of science. Imperial Russia managed to grab three Nobels in natural sciences in years before the First World War. Stalin's Soviet Union got none. Even those scientist supported by regime, such as Pavlov, got only meagre funding.

Five of the Soviet Nobel winners who received laureates in the physical sciences, recieved their awards for works done at least partly during the Stalin years.
 
If you look at Stalin's military record at the time he probably bungles things badly, the man was not a good military leader and insisted on trying to micromanage, and when he found someone competent he purged them


Stalin didn't purge Zhukov after he defeated the Japanese in Mongolia in 1939.
 
Stalin didn't purge Zhukov after he defeated the Japanese in Mongolia in 1939.
Zhukov beat the Japanese (this says more about the Japanese than it does about Zhukov), but despite having more men and more and better armor he suffered almost equal loses in the process, and failed miserably against the Germans losing the Entire Southwestern Front and Kiev and dying in a German POW camp

If Zhukov had won someplace besides the back of beyond against a first class foe he would have been purged

OOC: Not intended to be Zhukovs fault, he just ends up getting trapped in a campaign lost through no fault of his own and ends up a convenient scapegoat who is safely dead and cannot argue
 
Last edited:
Five of the Soviet Nobel winners who received laureates in the physical sciences, recieved their awards for works done at least partly during the Stalin years.

But they received truly massive doses of support only after USSR decided to commit itself to an atomic bomb project. If Stalin's USSR committed itself to an atomic bomb project I'd imagine they would just focus on duplicating American successes rather than trying to do any of their own basic research.
 
Oh, please don't. All we need is to attract more neo-stalinists. Stalin was a genocidal madman. Notice how these Stalinwanks are banned in the USSR.

This raises an another point. Could you imagine the famous Churchill and Roosevelt speeches during the desperate summer of 1941 on giving the full support for Soviet people to defeat Nazi Invasion if Stalin was in power? After all, just a year before Churchill had been effectively bent on attacking Soviet Union.

I could very well imagine that as a condition to lend-lease to Soviet Union one precondition might have been removal of Stalin. I don't think UK or US electorate would accept otherwise. While jovial Zhdanov and dry but deep thinking Molotov were effectively propagandized in the West as being some kind of illustrations of different aspects of Russian soul, could one imagine Stalin getting any positive PR in the West?

Finally, one of the greatest diplomatic coups by the Cabal was the assuring of fresh start for communism which fooled Roosevelt in particular to accepting Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Could you imagine Stalin as being imagined trustworthy enough for Churchill and Roosevelt to rely on? Or even as diplomatically astute? After all, Stalin's greatest foreign policy coups had been effective support for electing Hitler in early 1930's and the famous non-aggression pact of 1939 which allowed Hitler to conquer Western Europe at ease.
 
This raises an another point. Could you imagine the famous Churchill and Roosevelt speeches during the desperate summer of 1941 on giving the full support for Soviet people to defeat Nazi Invasion if Stalin was in power? After all, just a year before Churchill had been effectively bent on attacking Soviet Union.

I could very well imagine that as a condition to lend-lease to Soviet Union one precondition might have been removal of Stalin. I don't think UK or US electorate would accept otherwise. While jovial Zhdanov and dry but deep thinking Molotov were effectively propagandized in the West as being some kind of illustrations of different aspects of Russian soul, could one imagine Stalin getting any positive PR in the West?

Finally, one of the greatest diplomatic coups by the Cabal was the assuring of fresh start for communism which fooled Roosevelt in particular to accepting Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Could you imagine Stalin as being imagined trustworthy enough for Churchill and Roosevelt to rely on? Or even as diplomatically astute? After all, Stalin's greatest foreign policy coups had been effective support for electing Hitler in early 1930's and the famous non-aggression pact of 1939 which allowed Hitler to conquer Western Europe at ease.


That's absurd. The Soviet Union wasn't and wouldn't be under Stalin or anyone a minor bananna Republic that could be dictated to. At the time, the United States was still neutral and Great Britain had no other major allies and could not win the war alone, it was in no position to dictate terms for its support. The Soviet Union was a sovereign power and their is no way that they would allow foreign powers to dictate it who would head its government. The Soviet Union might have demanded Churchill's resignation for his support of intervention in the Russian Civil War which cost the lives of thousands or even millions of Soviet citizens.

How did Stalin effectively support Hitler's election? Also, the non-agression pact was a response to the Munich appeasement policy and the refusal of Britain and France negotiate a collective security pact.

ooc: Joseph Davies book Mission to Moscow which they based the pro Soviet movie on was published in 1941 but I'm not sure if it was published before the divergence point.
 
Last edited:
Top