Most Effective Soviet Leader

Wolfpaw

Banned
The less authority a single potentate has over the Party and the secret police, the less likely they are to violently purge. A USSR which enjoys a genuine collective leadership is more likely to see "purges" along the lines of reassignments to undesirable positions (like overseeing a potash plant in the Urals or becoming ambassador to Tannu Tuva).


Ultimately it's hard to predict since purges are 100% based on the constantly-shifting interpersonal relationships of the Party elite.
 
OH! I've been looking at this the wrong way. Rather than a single leader, there needs to be a group like you described. Okay, now, how to put that into effect... Well, you showed one scenario. Perhaps there is one with a more literal oligarchy(I guess what this would be.)
 
Perhaps, but he isn't going to purge THAT much. The hugeness of Stalin's purge I find hard to believe would be duplicated across politicians.

Yes, by all means a person of Trotsky's brand of fanaticism acting like a fanatic is unthinkable. :rolleyes:

Stalin was acting like a fanatic when he did what he did. Trotsky would be no different in this regard, the two men were more alike than different here. They disagreed on the means to the end, not the end.
 
Well, now Wolfpaw has showed how to create stability. Only problem is the elites may fight too much, causing slowness in response to things like Nazi Germany, and massive wastage. Hopefully no.
 
Well, a little late, but okay, interesting case. Do please elaborate on him.
Yeah sorry for butting in during the middle of a discussion.
Alright if there was a Putin-esque figure in the era, a member of the NKVD who rose to power industrialization would have been ruthless but not quite as ruthless as under Stalin, perhaps he would perfer to try to break apart large militias that opposed him and wouldn't have AS severe penalties to meeting the quotas. As for the Red Army, I would imagine he would not purge it as much as reorginize so generals that were suspected of betrayal were simply placed to the side becoming staff officers with generous pensions, for the Soviet Union of course, to keep them quite. The army would probably be used to "spread the revolution" trying to pressure other states to join them of their own voilition and staging coups instead of using the whole of the Red Army, avoid the ire of the Western Powers of course. Dealing with Germany he certainly wouldn't have trusted Hitler, I imagine he may have striked first when he was in France, to catch him off guard, if he is able to have a cleaner quicker industrialization process he may be able to beat the NAZI's in a suprise attack and gain better relations with the west, while turning Germany into his puppet. Not to make the man sound like a super-genius but to be honest he is one of the most brilliant leaders of the world today, whether you agree with his rather totalitarian policies is another story entirely though.
 
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