Lenin successor most likely to start a war?

You make it sound like the Holodomer was an intentional act on the part of Stalin and his cronies.

That is the general opinion of all serious historians. This was the period of what was called "the war against the peasant".

The peasant farmers of the USSR wanted land of their own, to farm for themselves. Many had acquired land before the Revolution, or during it.

However, the Bolsheviks were absolutely opposed to this.

Small farmers working their own land for their own profit are "petty bourgeois". That makes them structurally opposed to socialism - "class enemies".

The Bolsheviks therefore decreed that agricultural land would be consolidated into large collective farms, and the peasants would become rural proletarians. But the peasants refused to get with the program - stubbornly rejecting collectivization.

The Bolsheviks had two choices. They could leave the peasants in possession of the land, but that would mean the continued existence of a huge bloc of class enemies - a deadly threat to the Revolution. Or they could force the peasants to submit to collectivization.

The Terror Famines were not accidental - they were a conscious measure to break the resistance of the peasants to collectivization.
 
The botched application of policy over reality can be specifically laid at the hands of the Soviet leadership. The Ukrainian resistance to collectivization, in part due to the resulting famines (even if we grant that Stalin did not intentionally create famine as a policy) lead to the brutal killing or imprisonment of many 100s of thousands of Ukrainians.
 

Alkahest

Banned
I appreciate everyone's input, thanks.

I have to admit that upon reading more about this fellow, Kamo, I immediately had the thought of putting him in charge. Dude ripped a guy's heart out. There's a certain "Blood for the Blood God" kind of charm to that. Also, if the POD is that he isn't killed in a traffic accident, it makes OTL look like the alternate history. Not sure how to make him end up as Premier, though. I'm actually surprised I haven't seen any TL involving him.
 
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