Has Anyone Ever Killed-off Stalin during WWII?
- Thread starter Dr. Luny
- Start date
Snake Featherston
Banned
There are several TLs involving this premise. *If* we want to plumb the kind of horrors Nazi barbarism and savagery would have brought to the USSR, this'd be a relatively quick rote to that if timed at the worst possible moments for the USSR.
ccdsah
Donor
Have there ever been any TL's written with a POD of Stalin dying, accidental or otherwise, during WWII? That strikes me as the kind of POD that could cause some pretty wide divergence from OTL. Maybe he dies in a plane crash
Stalin should have been killed because he systematically ignored warnings about German attacks; I mean British, American and Soviet intelligence says you're going to be attacked (heck R. Sorge gave him even the exact date of attack) and you don't listen to them even ordering the Soviet airforce not too engage hundreds of recon flights by Luftwaffe for fear it would provoke the germans??? I mean WTF???
True, but on the other hand what could he do? The Red Army was in no position for a modern war, it was in the middle of massive reforms. In Stalin's mind while the Germans were certainly mobilziing they would not attack before issuing an ultimatum along with some preliminary negotiations. A surprise attack was something he didn't expect. Thus mobilziing the Red Army, an act which would only provoke Germany more, seemed to be the wrogn solution. In retrospect he was wrong, but not at the time.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Well, given how many people even in the period nowadays when we know just how monstrously evil the Nazis were think that Stalin was less evil than Hitler, imagine how these same people react if the Soviets *do* shoot first.
I started a thread ages back about him getting assassinated by a Japanese backed team of six Russian emigrants in 1939 but it never really went anywhere. Long story short guy called Genrikh Lyushkov who was the head of the NKVD in the Russian Far East in 1938 during the Purges got a call back to Moscow, read the writing on the wall and hopped the border to Japan with a suitcase full of military and intelligence secrets. This was about a month before the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars went hot. During his stay with the Japanese he convinced them to finance a plan to have six emigre Russians slip over the Soviet-Turkish border and assassinate Stalin whilst he was on holiday in Sochi in early 1939. Unfortunately the group had been penetrated by a Russian agent so when the six assassins crossed the border they were promptly rounded up and the plan came to nothing.
The point of departure was that the group wasn't infiltrated and at least a couple of them make it far enough to take out Stalin. I was generally looking for ideas of who might take over but since I don't really know enough about the Soviet Union at the time and didn't have the chance to do any serious research it's never really been followed up seriously. Technically it's just before WW2 starts, unless you count the Second Sino-Japanese War as part of it, but it's close enough for government work I'd say.
The point of departure was that the group wasn't infiltrated and at least a couple of them make it far enough to take out Stalin. I was generally looking for ideas of who might take over but since I don't really know enough about the Soviet Union at the time and didn't have the chance to do any serious research it's never really been followed up seriously. Technically it's just before WW2 starts, unless you count the Second Sino-Japanese War as part of it, but it's close enough for government work I'd say.
It's an interesting POD because depending on when he dies, a large number of different outcomes are possible. A death at the wrong time might even hand the war to the Germans, say July 1941. If he dies a few moths before Barbarossa, his successor might be better prepared for the German attack, and could lead a very different post-war Soviet Union. Too soon before Barbarossa, and the Russian state could be in crisis on the eve of the invasion. The number of possible successors is pretty large as well.
I started a thread ages back about him getting assassinated by a Japanese backed team of six Russian emigrants in 1939 but it never really went anywhere. Long story short guy called Genrikh Lyushkov who was the head of the NKVD in the Russian Far East in 1938 during the Purges got a call back to Moscow, read the writing on the wall and hopped the border to Japan with a suitcase full of military and intelligence secrets. This was about a month before the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars went hot. During his stay with the Japanese he convinced them to finance a plan to have six emigre Russians slip over the Soviet-Turkish border and assassinate Stalin whilst he was on holiday in Sochi in early 1939. Unfortunately the group had been penetrated by a Russian agent so when the six assassins crossed the border they were promptly rounded up and the plan came to nothing.
The point of departure was that the group wasn't infiltrated and at least a couple of them make it far enough to take out Stalin. I was generally looking for ideas of who might take over but since I don't really know enough about the Soviet Union at the time and didn't have the chance to do any serious research it's never really been followed up seriously. Technically it's just before WW2 starts, unless you count the Second Sino-Japanese War as part of it, but it's close enough for government work I'd say.
Did not know about this!
Source?
I remember reading about it on either a random site or magazine article ages back and then doing a quick double check on The Genocide back when I made the original thread to make sure I wasn't imagining/misremembering stuff again, so take it with a pinch of salt. Just do a search of his name and it should bring up some stuff.
Stalin
In his book "Hitler: The Victory that Nearly Was" - Bruce Quarrie offers the possibility of Beria having Stalin killed and taking over.
Taking this on a step, in late October 1941 in OTL, Stalin considered leaving Moscow as the Germans approached but in the end chose to stay. One possibility is to have him leave but to have his convoy ambushed by NKVD troops under the command of one Yuri Andropov. Stalin and his bodyguard are killed and Lavrentiy Beria takes control of the Politburo.
Beria uses his contacts with Heydrich's SS to seek a peace with Germany and the Treaty is essentially a harder version of Brest-Litovsk with vast areas of western Russia (including the Ukraine and the Crimea) ceded to Germany and other areas (including Karelia) ceded to Finland and other of Berlin's allies.
Beria's Russia remains Communist in name only and is effectively a satellite of Berlin.
With the threat from the north-west ended, Japan is free to launch its war of aggression against the US in the western Pacific a few days later...
Meanwhile, elements of the Wehrmacht are withdrawn from the East and sent to North Africa to strengthen the Afrika Korps as it prepares for a new offensive against the British.
In his book "Hitler: The Victory that Nearly Was" - Bruce Quarrie offers the possibility of Beria having Stalin killed and taking over.
Taking this on a step, in late October 1941 in OTL, Stalin considered leaving Moscow as the Germans approached but in the end chose to stay. One possibility is to have him leave but to have his convoy ambushed by NKVD troops under the command of one Yuri Andropov. Stalin and his bodyguard are killed and Lavrentiy Beria takes control of the Politburo.
Beria uses his contacts with Heydrich's SS to seek a peace with Germany and the Treaty is essentially a harder version of Brest-Litovsk with vast areas of western Russia (including the Ukraine and the Crimea) ceded to Germany and other areas (including Karelia) ceded to Finland and other of Berlin's allies.
Beria's Russia remains Communist in name only and is effectively a satellite of Berlin.
With the threat from the north-west ended, Japan is free to launch its war of aggression against the US in the western Pacific a few days later...
Meanwhile, elements of the Wehrmacht are withdrawn from the East and sent to North Africa to strengthen the Afrika Korps as it prepares for a new offensive against the British.
Yes, I did, too!!
It occurs in HMS Heligoland. Here's the text - an excerpt from my book :-
Operation Wagner remains something of a mystery, mainly because of the intense secrecy, the restriction on use of records and the deaths of most of those who planned and executed it. What is clear is that KG 202 (SS) were involved, flying thirty aircraft east to Tomsk for a diving Mistel attack on the entrances and the tunnel housing Stalin's last headquarters. The NKGB assembled reports that it sent to Soviet Consuls in Britain and the USA, these being the main source of historical truth, although media-funded excavations in 2004 did discover more facts and some aircraft wreckage. On 14th April 1944, the Wagner force took off from airfields near Kyubyshev and flew to Tomsk, where they flare-marked the tunnel entrances, attacking with new bombers converted into Mistels. The impacts caved in the tunnel entrances and adits, before the remaining Mistels were used to cave in part of the tunnel's length.
A very nasty feature was that half a dozen of the attackers were used to blast the caps off the two tunnel air vents, then to dump quantities of nerve gas anad mustard gas into the workings. The ones that missed the vents created a zone of persistent contamination that delayed approach and rescue for far too long, so those in the tunnel not killed by cave-ins were to die from gas poisoning or asphyxiation. Figures for deaths from the attack vary from 350 to 4,000 - most of those being amongst rescue crews - and later investigations showed that the contaminated rubble was a serious hazard. Stalin's body was recovered by the miners and was both crushed and contaminated, so it was cremated by the NKGB after Malenkov authorised this.
Stalin’s death was initially considered a blow, but replaceable, until the effects upon the Soviet consciousness became clear; Malenkov and Molotov had none of the charisma Stalin had possessed, nor the fear he had inspired. As Gombos and Hitler had intended, this removal of Stalin led to a collapse of the Soviet system into a network of warlords' fiefs, most of them too fragmented to last. Between the Reich and Pacific Siberia, Western Siberia descended into the kind on anarchy only seen in parts of the pre-1914 Caucasus and Balkans. The fragmentation was made worse by the Luftwaffe destroying bridges and tunnels by free-fall bombs, Hs 293 rocket-powered glide bombs and derivatives of the Fi 103 flying bomb.
It occurs in HMS Heligoland. Here's the text - an excerpt from my book :-
Operation Wagner remains something of a mystery, mainly because of the intense secrecy, the restriction on use of records and the deaths of most of those who planned and executed it. What is clear is that KG 202 (SS) were involved, flying thirty aircraft east to Tomsk for a diving Mistel attack on the entrances and the tunnel housing Stalin's last headquarters. The NKGB assembled reports that it sent to Soviet Consuls in Britain and the USA, these being the main source of historical truth, although media-funded excavations in 2004 did discover more facts and some aircraft wreckage. On 14th April 1944, the Wagner force took off from airfields near Kyubyshev and flew to Tomsk, where they flare-marked the tunnel entrances, attacking with new bombers converted into Mistels. The impacts caved in the tunnel entrances and adits, before the remaining Mistels were used to cave in part of the tunnel's length.
A very nasty feature was that half a dozen of the attackers were used to blast the caps off the two tunnel air vents, then to dump quantities of nerve gas anad mustard gas into the workings. The ones that missed the vents created a zone of persistent contamination that delayed approach and rescue for far too long, so those in the tunnel not killed by cave-ins were to die from gas poisoning or asphyxiation. Figures for deaths from the attack vary from 350 to 4,000 - most of those being amongst rescue crews - and later investigations showed that the contaminated rubble was a serious hazard. Stalin's body was recovered by the miners and was both crushed and contaminated, so it was cremated by the NKGB after Malenkov authorised this.
Stalin’s death was initially considered a blow, but replaceable, until the effects upon the Soviet consciousness became clear; Malenkov and Molotov had none of the charisma Stalin had possessed, nor the fear he had inspired. As Gombos and Hitler had intended, this removal of Stalin led to a collapse of the Soviet system into a network of warlords' fiefs, most of them too fragmented to last. Between the Reich and Pacific Siberia, Western Siberia descended into the kind on anarchy only seen in parts of the pre-1914 Caucasus and Balkans. The fragmentation was made worse by the Luftwaffe destroying bridges and tunnels by free-fall bombs, Hs 293 rocket-powered glide bombs and derivatives of the Fi 103 flying bomb.
b12ox
Banned
The attack was to begin in May. Since than any time was possible, it was a moving target. The closer to autumn the less probable the Germans would do it. I am sure Germans succeded in convincing him they were not going to attack. It is not known how even today. The fact is the Russians were completely unprepered for the start to this war, inland and at the border.
In the 183rd Survey Group I had my people from the future juice Lenin with nanites that kept him from having the stroke that killed him. Stalin was such a pain in the ass that Lenin fired him and he finally got liquidated by Iron Felix.
Hitler got clipped during the Munich Putsch.
Mao was 'killed resisting arrest' after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Chaig Kai Shek.
I'm wondering what to do about Huey Long.
Hitler got clipped during the Munich Putsch.
Mao was 'killed resisting arrest' after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Chaig Kai Shek.
I'm wondering what to do about Huey Long.
Stalin gets killed in several scenarios in AH collection books... Hitler Triumphant, Hitler Victorious, etc.
Actually, I am writing a TL where Stalin dies during WW2.
In this typical nightmare, 3-way cold war scenario WW2 ends in a stalemate. The main POD is that the Nazis are less anti-slavic and the "National Liberation armies" like the RLA will play a decesive role in the eastern front. Also no Holocaust.
So far I though after the capture of Moscow and Leningrad by the Germans in 1941/42 the Russians will be more suspicious towards Stalin's regime. The turning point of the war is when Stalin is assassinated when he attempts to flee the besieged Kuybyshev.
My questions are: who will most likely become the head of state of the USSR? will he try to make peace with the Germans?
In this typical nightmare, 3-way cold war scenario WW2 ends in a stalemate. The main POD is that the Nazis are less anti-slavic and the "National Liberation armies" like the RLA will play a decesive role in the eastern front. Also no Holocaust.
So far I though after the capture of Moscow and Leningrad by the Germans in 1941/42 the Russians will be more suspicious towards Stalin's regime. The turning point of the war is when Stalin is assassinated when he attempts to flee the besieged Kuybyshev.
My questions are: who will most likely become the head of state of the USSR? will he try to make peace with the Germans?