FDR and Joseph Stalin switch dates of death

Stalin’s death in 1945 would give him a better reputation than IOTL, despite the purges and famines.

The Soviet Army was at the doorstep of Berlin by April. His name would be romanticized to maintain morale in the last phase of the war, and no matter who emerges in the post-Stalin power struggle, a “secret speech” would become less likely.

The most devastating aspects of the Soviet occupation might still be kept in place, like the deportation of Germans to the USSR, or the ethnic cleansing within the new borders of the Eastern Bloc countries.

The starvation in 1946/7 would not hurt as much.

No “doctors’ plot”, which might mean the deadly efficiency under Stalinism survives longer than OTL, even under a collective leadership.

Cold War might break out much later, as such a collective leadership would have no incentive to provoke confrontation.

When, and over what would the Cold War break out ITTL? Probably when the allies push for free elections in Czechoslovakia or East Germany, and the Soviets forced to intervene to keep their spoils?
 
Andrei Zhdanov.

How would he do? I mean, Stalin's earlier death will send shockwaves since it means the US will be negotiating with a different person than expected. Would FDR be able to get Zhdanov to agree to better terms than OTL regarding Europe and the Iron Curtain? As for with the US, FDR will retire by the end of his fourth term, but victory will have him ride a wave of political power to try and ram things from the Second Bill of rights like universal single-payer healthcare or something and maybe some stuff with civil rights.

With Zhandov, well, his cultural doctrine may not be put into place if he has to be more pragmatic. Furthermore, assuming he still dies in 1948, this means that FDR and Churchill will have to do deal with whoever is replacing Zhdanov. Furthermore, whoever is succeeding FDR, either Truman or more likely Dewey. Dewy would likely finish polishing off the work FDR did before working with Zhdanov's replacement. After all, Stalin died suddenly and then his replacement died in only a few short years so maybe he would be willing to work with the new head in charge if Stalin and Zhdanov's deaths were causing a power struggle.

Who would be Zhdanov's replacemenet though? There's Malenkov or Beria, but then there would be the coup by Khrushchev to consider. Who could take the place with the power vacuum and the complications of the power struggle?
 
How would he do? I mean, Stalin's earlier death will send shockwaves since it means the US will be negotiating with a different person than expected. Would FDR be able to get Zhdanov to agree to better terms than OTL regarding Europe and the Iron Curtain? As for with the US, FDR will retire by the end of his fourth term, but victory will have him ride a wave of political power to try and ram things from the Second Bill of rights like universal single-payer healthcare or something and maybe some stuff with civil rights.

With Zhandov, well, his cultural doctrine may not be put into place if he has to be more pragmatic. Furthermore, assuming he still dies in 1948, this means that FDR and Churchill will have to do deal with whoever is replacing Zhdanov. Furthermore, whoever is succeeding FDR, either Truman or more likely Dewey. Dewy would likely finish polishing off the work FDR did before working with Zhdanov's replacement. After all, Stalin died suddenly and then his replacement died in only a few short years so maybe he would be willing to work with the new head in charge if Stalin and Zhdanov's deaths were causing a power struggle.

Who would be Zhdanov's replacemenet though? There's Malenkov or Beria, but then there would be the coup by Khrushchev to consider. Who could take the place with the power vacuum and the complications of the power struggle?
Zhdanov was the leader of the Leningrad section of the party, which produced the more reform minded members of the party in the 1940's, and he was both their patron and protector - it's not a coincidence that Stalin orchestrated the Leningrad Affair the year after Zhdanov died. If Stalin dies in '45 and Zhdanov succeeds him we have to assume that Kosygin, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov continue to rise with him. You would probably see a power struggle between Stalin's old cronies and the younger generation after Zhdanov dies.
 
Zhdanov was the leader of the Leningrad section of the party, which produced the more reform minded members of the party in the 1940's, and he was both their patron and protector - it's not a coincidence that Stalin orchestrated the Leningrad Affair the year after Zhdanov died. If Stalin dies in '45 and Zhdanov succeeds him we have to assume that Kosygin, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov continue to rise with him. You would probably see a power struggle between Stalin's old cronies and the younger generation after Zhdanov dies.

Given how Zhdanov would die in 1948 if not sooner, this would mean that whoever is voted in in 1948 would be meeting the new USSR boss. Who do you think it would be? One of those three?
 
Zhdanov was the leader of the Leningrad section of the party, which produced the more reform minded members of the party in the 1940's, and he was both their patron and protector - it's not a coincidence that Stalin orchestrated the Leningrad Affair the year after Zhdanov died. If Stalin dies in '45 and Zhdanov succeeds him we have to assume that Kosygin, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov continue to rise with him. You would probably see a power struggle between Stalin's old cronies and the younger generation after Zhdanov dies.
that would defiantly be interesting plus having FDR as general sectary would completely change the world. I wonder what Eleanor would be doing.
 
If Stalin dies in 1945, Molotov has not yet fallen from grace. So he's a likely successor or someone who'd be important in whatever collective leadership comes into being.
 
The already mentioned Leningrad faction would become significantly more powerful. Especially Voznesensky and Kosygin would certainly try under Zhdanov's protection to enforce their economic reform ideas. Maybe there will be a second NEP?

I could well imagine that there would be no "secret speech". Stalin would be styled in the Soviet propaganda as a hero, who was brutal, but with this brutality saved the Soviet Union from German victory. The purges might be tried to be pushed on the account of Beria.
 
What happens militarily will depend on whether or not the power vacuum in the Kremlin after Stalin's death will have any repercussions on Red Army operations on the front. After Königsberg had fallen to the Red Army's siege on April 9th, freeing a not insignificant number of Soviet troops there, more than a million Red Army soldiers had amassed on the eastern banks of the Oder River and the final thrust towards Berlin IOTL started in the early morning hours of April 16th with likely the most massive artillery barrage in recorded history from more than 40'000 artillery pieces and the subsequent crossing of the Oder River and attack on the German defensive position on the Seelow Hights, held by 120'000 German troops under the command of colonel general Gotthard Heinrici, ensuing in a 4 day battle, which opened the road to Berlin for the Red Army. Would Stalin's sudden death delay the crossing of the Oder River long enough for the Western Allies to reconsider their reluctant stance regarding the race to Berlin? Quite unlikely. Or would Stavka's plans for the Battle of Berlin proceed as planned beforehand, regardless of the vozhd's death? More than likely. In the south Vienna would most likely still have fallen on April 13th or at most a day or two later.

The only region where the Western Allies would likely have made more headway would have been Bohemia, where even IOTL a US Army unit, violating the halt orders at the demarcation line drove the last 40 odd miles from Rokycany to Prague with a couple of Jeeps on May 6th. Stalin's early death would preclude him from ordering an accelerated Red Army offensive into Bohemia while asking the Western Allies to stop their advance around Pilsen. The American troops in the western part of the country, who IOTL were forced to stop at a demarcation line 19 km east of Pilsen could have heeded the desperate radio calls for military aid by the Czech insurgents during the Prague uprising, thus rehabilitating the Western Allies' image in the country, which had previously been tainted by the Munich Agreement, perceived by many Czechs as a betrayal by their interwar allies. This would have made the Czech Communist Party's postwar electoral success and subsequent rise to power, which was to a substantial part based on the exploitation of said perception and the pictures of the liberation of Prague by Russian soldiers, significantly less likely.
 
What happens militarily will depend on whether or not the power vacuum in the Kremlin after Stalin's death will have any repercussions on Red Army operations on the front. After Königsberg had fallen to the Red Army's siege on April 9th, freeing a not insignificant number of Soviet troops there, more than a million Red Army soldiers had amassed on the eastern banks of the Oder River and the final thrust towards Berlin IOTL started in the early morning hours of April 16th with likely the most massive artillery barrage in recorded history from more than 40'000 artillery pieces and the subsequent crossing of the Oder River and attack on the German defensive position on the Seelow Hights, held by 120'000 German troops under the command of colonel general Gotthard Heinrici, ensuing in a 4 day battle, which opened the road to Berlin for the Red Army. Would Stalin's sudden death delay the crossing of the Oder River long enough for the Western Allies to reconsider their reluctant stance regarding the race to Berlin? Quite unlikely. Or would Stavka's plans for the Battle of Berlin proceed as planned beforehand, regardless of the vozhd's death? More than likely. In the south Vienna would most likely still have fallen on April 13th or at most a day or two later.

The only region where the Western Allies would likely have made more headway would have been Bohemia, where even IOTL a US Army unit, violating the halt orders at the demarcation line drove the last 40 odd miles from Rokycany to Prague with a couple of Jeeps on May 6th. Stalin's early death would preclude him from ordering an accelerated Red Army offensive into Bohemia while asking the Western Allies to stop their advance around Pilsen. The American troops in the western part of the country, who IOTL were forced to stop at a demarcation line 19 km east of Pilsen could have heeded the desperate radio calls for military aid by the Czech insurgents during the Prague uprising, thus rehabilitating the Western Allies' image in the country, which had previously been tainted by the Munich Agreement, perceived by many Czechs as a betrayal by their interwar allies. This would have made the Czech Communist Party's postwar electoral success and subsequent rise to power, which was to a substantial part based on the exploitation of said perception and the pictures of the liberation of Prague by Russian soldiers, significantly less likely.


So with the Czech's most likely like Austria do we get a much earler split? Where Slovakia becomes it's own republic and member of the Warsaw pact?
 
So with the Czech's most likely like Austria do we get a much earler split? Where Slovakia becomes it's own republic and member of the Warsaw pact?
The problem with that is that the idea of Slovak separatism was tainted with the clerico-fascist Slovak government that had persued this very course. If of course both Poland and Hungary become Soviet satellite states, then having a Slovakia that is part of a free and at least neutral Czechoslovakia protruding that far east would be unacceptible to the Soviets so they might throw such concerns over board and have the Slovak Communist Party agitate for secession.
 
Who would succeed Uncle Joe if he had died on April 12, 1945?

How about a triad of Zhukov, Malenkov, and Zhandov? Beria might try but will be quickly killed as about the only thing the rest agree on consistently is that Beria is a murdering a**hole.

If the Red Army pauses for a bit I wonder if this might put Czechia in the West and keep Germany divided at the Line of Control? Perhaps Greece falls to Communism during the Cold War if the USSR no longer feels the need to restrain support?
 
How about a triad of Zhukov, Malenkov, and Zhandov? Beria might try but will be quickly killed as about the only thing the rest agree on consistently is that Beria is a murdering a**hole.
Wasn't Mikoyan still in favour at the time? Also I believe that Malenkov only rose to prominence during the postwar repression and the purging of the Leningrad Soviet. Either Mikoyan or Molotov would have been more likely to be in the Troika than Malenkov at this point IMO. Given that Zhukov would likely step down soon after and Zhandov would drink himself to death by 1948, if not sooner, then that could leave whoever is left with a free hand in shaping the postwar Soviet Union.
 
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