This is going to be an attempted thread examining in my own way how history might have gone differently had a certain man been killed at Tsaritsyn. I'll be looking at the way some changes might have been made and how well some countries would have fared and what changes might come because of that.
Prologue:
September 1919 Tsaritsyn,
The crack of rifle fire and the stucco rattle of a distant machine gun hardly bothered the man named Stalin. The 'Man of Steel' as it were sat on his horse and watched the battle from afar. The outlying buildings were holding a group of White troops who had held up his attack on the nearby village. Slipping past the sentry lines they had entrenched themselves during the night and attacked the column of men he had sent to discipline the nearby village. Stalin knew it had to be treachery, there was no other way those Whites could have slipped through the lines and attacked them. He still hadn't holstered his service revolver after punishing the traitor. The corpse of the White officer assigned to him lay in a puddle of blood just up the road. He knew they were all conspirators against the revolution. He'd make sure any other White officers were dealt with when he returned to the city proper. Now for the men in his immediate line of sight.
The men under his command pressed forward towards a small house that looked like it had been a shop until recently. That was where a number of the enemy had holed up. If they took it, or just burned it down, they would push the remainder out and hunt them down. He smiled mentally. Movement in a building close by caught his attention. He craned his head to look and saw a muzzle flash just before the bullet took him in the throat. He was thrown from his horse, his gun going off into the air before he dropped it from limp fingers. He managed a choking, gargling scream before he hit the ground. His comrades closed in around him and fired at the window where the shot had come from. They called for a doctor but by the time it was too late. Stalin's blood had fed the soil of Mother Russia. The Man of Steel was dead.