Had Stalin died in 1946 who would be the best to lead the USSR?

Gurroruo

Okay this has probably been asked a lot before, but with the way the search function works I'll be able to accomplish much more with a new thread. But feel free to post links to old threads.

Basically I want to who would be the best to lead the USSR, and what would their rule look like?

Also is Vasily Stalin a viable leader?
 

CalBear

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Churchill.

He was looking for work at that time. Just sayin'. :D

There really was not "good" candidate. Beria was pretty much a given, thanks to his control of the NKVD. The other two member of the troika (Molotov and Malenkov) were also possible.

Stalin had done an excellent job of ensuring that there was no really good candidate.

The "best candidate inside the USSR might have been Zhukov, but even a General as ruthless as he was unlikely to be ruthless enough to survive Soviet politics.
 

ObssesedNuker

CalBear said:
There really was not "good" candidate. Beria was pretty much a given, thanks to his control of the NKVD.
Click to expand...

Beria's probably the first to die for pretty much the same reason as OTL. Can't have the secret police overcoming the party, after all. I'd say either Malenkov or Molotov.
 

MattII

Does it have to come down to one person immediately? Remember that from 1922 to 1925 Russia was essentially ruled by a troika, so the system could be put into use again (and was OTL, twice, though the first one lasted only for a matter of months before Beria was offed).
 

David T

Zhdanov was widely viewed as Stalin's most likely successor as General Secretary at the time--but he was in poor health and would probably not have lasted very long. (Molotov would probably have become Premier again.) When Zhdanov dies, I could see Malenkov replacing him as General Secretary (with Beria's backing). And (as in OTL with the 'Leningrad Affair") there could be some pretty bloody purging of Zhdanov's Leningrad allies.

It is even possible that after Stalin's death the post of General Secretary will be abolished for awhile as it was in 1952-53. (Technically, Stalin had the office abolished in October 1952, but of course he remained as powerful as ever). But in practice one of the Secretaries is going to emerge as the leading one, as Khrushchev did in 1953 even before the office of General Secretary was revived(as "First Secretary").
 

Tietjens

It could be different. As David T said, Zhdanov was in poor health, but Molotov would make an interesting successor. No Khrushchev thaw implications are always quite interesting, but here we can imagine a road where there isn't a pro-Western Beria. That being said, the USSR still doesn't have nuclear weapons.
 

Sam R.

CalBear said:
The "best candidate inside the USSR might have been Zhukov, but even a General as ruthless as he was unlikely to be ruthless enough to survive Soviet politics.
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He wasn't. Look at his later career in the politbureau.

yours,
Sam R.
 

Kung Fucious

CalBear said:
Churchill.

He was looking for work at that time. Just sayin'. :D

There really was not "good" candidate. Beria was pretty much a given, thanks to his control of the NKVD. The other two member of the troika (Molotov and Malenkov) were also possible.

Stalin had done an excellent job of ensuring that there was no really good candidate.

The "best candidate inside the USSR might have been Zhukov, but even a General as ruthless as he was unlikely to be ruthless enough to survive Soviet politics.
Click to expand...

Wasn't the party leadership terrified of Zhukov assuming power and forming a Bonapartist regime?

That said, the possibility of a Zhukov-lead post-war USSR is super fascinating. He had a great relationship with Ike (to the point where Ile managed to convince Coca-Cola to manufacture a clear version of the soda, so that Zhukov could drink it without appearing to indulge in "western decadence"), and he was far more pragmatic than Beria or Molotov.
 

MattII

So a troika, Zhukov representing the military, Molotov the administation, and Malenkov the Communist party?
 

Napoleon IV

Zhdanov is the immediate successor most likely, but then he dies (possibly sooner than IOTL, because he would probably deal with the stress of running the USSR by drinking even more heavily), or is removed by his rivals with his alcoholism being an excuse. Beria is executed shortly after Stalin dies, since everyone feared and hated him. Malenkov won't become General Secretary. He owed a lot of his wartime and post-war rise to Stalin, who trusted him to do things such as take out Zhukov and denounce the Leningrad Party organization. He was also far too inexperienced, having only been a candidate member of the Politburo for 1-2 years, depending on when Zhdanov goes. I would say the most likely candidate to finally succeed Stalin is Molotov.

And Vasily Stalin would be screwed. Keep in mind that he was arrested two months after Stalin's death. He was by all accounts a spoiled brat and a decadent alcoholic who partied and lived fast on his father's dime.
 

Locke01

CalBear said:
Churchill.

He was looking for work at that time. Just sayin'. :D

There really was not "good" candidate. Beria was pretty much a given, thanks to his control of the NKVD. The other two member of the troika (Molotov and Malenkov) were also possible.

Stalin had done an excellent job of ensuring that there was no really good candidate.

The "best candidate inside the USSR might have been Zhukov, but even a General as ruthless as he was unlikely to be ruthless enough to survive Soviet politics.
Click to expand...

Just to note, Beria had left NKVD by the end of 1945 (he resigned on December 29, 1945) to concentrate on running the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Although he was named as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers about this time, and the organs of state security reported many items of interest to him, Beria no longer had any operational control of the secret police. The guy who took over the Ministry of State Security, Victor Abakumov, had been direct reporting to Stalin for years while running SMERSH (the Soviet wartime counterintelligence agency), and was specifically selected for his new job because he was a Beria rival. Beria only returned to the Lubyanka executive floor after Stalin's death. Beria is a goner if Stalin dies in 1946. Both the ''New'' leadership of State Security/Interior Ministry and the Red Army will turn on him, no if, ands or buts.
 

David T

Locke01 said:
Just to note, Beria had left NKVD by the end of 1945 (he resigned on December 29, 1945) to concentrate on running the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Although he was named as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers about this time, and the organs of state security reported many items of interest to him, Beria no longer had any operational control of the secret police. The guy who took over the Ministry of State Security, Victor Abakumov, had been direct reporting to Stalin for years while running SMERSH (the Soviet wartime counterintelligence agency), and was specifically selected for his new job because he was a Beria rival. Beria only returned to the Lubyanka executive floor after Stalin's death. Beria is a goner if Stalin dies in 1946. Both the ''New'' leadership of State Security/Interior Ministry and the Red Army will turn on him, no if, ands or buts.
Click to expand...

Note though that Abakumov did not replace Beria's man Merkulov as head of the MGB until a few months into 1946. So *when* Stalin dies in 1946 may make some difference.

In OTL when after Stalin's death in March 1953 the MGB and MVD were merged and placed under Beria's leadership, Beria became so incredibly powerful that the entire Politburo decided that he had to be eliminated--though this could only be done by way of conspiracy. (Moreover, he was alarming the leadership by proposing some bold policy initiatives in terms of encouraging non-Russians to take greater power in the Union Republics.) In this ATL, precisely because Beria is not *that* powerful, I am not sure that there will be the same consensus on the need to get rid of him. No doubt a healthy and all-powerful Zhdanov would smash Beria, but even if Zhdanov becomes General Secretary, he will be neither healthy nor all-powerful, and Beria may find allies in people like Malenkov.
 
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