No Fanny Kaplan: Vladimir Lenin lives to 1929

Hnau

Banned
In OTL, on August 30, 1918, as Lenin was leaving a Moscow factory where he had given a speech, Fanny Kaplan, a Socialist-Revolutionary opposed to the takeover of power by the Bolsheviks, emerged from the crowd and fired three bullets before she was incapacitated and arrested. One passed through Lenin's coat. The other hit his left shoulder. The third passed through his jaw and neck. This injury would add to the deterioration of Lenin's health in the next few years, until he would pass away in February 1924 after a period of near paralysis.

Fanny Kaplan served eleven years in exile at Akatui where she performed hard labor, this being a consequence for participating in an earlier assassination attempt against a Tsarist official. It is not implausible that she could have perished one freezing night due to the conditions. No Fanny Kaplan, no assassination attempt on Lenin's life, and as such, Vladimir Lenin passes away July 1929 instead from a stroke. Five more years. This could very well mean a completely different Soviet Union.

I'll give you guys a chance before I post a longer analysis of this POD. I don't intend to make a timeline, merely trace the possibilities.
 
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Hnau

Banned
As soon as I'd posted this, I had realized I had made a mistake.

Sidney Reilly. The Lockhart Plot. I've posted ideas concerning its success before. If there is no Fanny Kaplan, there is no massive post-assassination attempt Red Terror that destroys Reilly's plans to ambush a number of Soviet officials at the Bolshoi Theater during a planned meeting of the Moscow Soviet and the Council of People's Commisssars there, including Lenin. Lenin would have died earlier, rather than later.

Down that timeline is nothing too interesting. Reilly had drawn up a list of Soviet military officials who would be sympathetic to joining a coup. They would receive British support in taking out the Bolsheviks. With the Bolsheviks' leadership decapitated in one fel strike, these Soviet generals would declare a 'temporary' junta. The Left-SRs and others would be drawn back into the government, though foreign affairs would be handled by the generals. A peace would be arranged between the Reds and Whites, mediated by the British. The Allies would join forces with a re-established Russian Army to resurrect the Eastern Front in the last months of the war. As soon as the war is over, Russia would be rewarded with the Baltics, Poland and Galicia, at least on paper, and the generals would begin repressing more revolutionary elements. The civil war could indeed start up again. A lot of death in that timeline, actually. A lot of disorder.

That's not what I really wanted to explore... so let's say that Kaplan really was working with an anti-communist group, instead of independently. They still get someone to assassinate Lenin... only this person fails to hit him entirely. The assassination attempt is still used as an excuse to declare a Red Terror which disarms the Lockhart plotters. Lenin gets to live as the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union until 1929.
 
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You can give Lenin five more years of life without changing the borders and terms of Versailles. The key is to control Stalin, and how such can be done by extending the life of Lenin.
 
With 5 more years Lenin will likely be able to force Stalin into political exile; even in death he very nearly managed that. The question is whether in 5 years Trotsky will remain Lenin's 'Favourite son'. If he does, then this becomes a Trotskyite 'verse (of which there has never actually been a satisfactory timeline, to my knowledge). However, Lenin's continually more pragmatic adjustments to the Soviet system may change the balance of influence dearly. Who then? Likely not Stalin's confederates or the Politburo Right. Bukharin is a possibility, as always. I've always been rather partial to Kirov, myself.

As for the SU itself, I can almost see something like modern China emerging. An Technocratic autocratic state, control largely directed from an un-elected Congress and Bureaucracy rather than a single central figure, with an economy geared towards socialistic capitalism. Lenin was no economist, but his drive and pragmatism would make him an interesting Den Xiaoping figure.

In any event we'll see a strengthened Left throughout Europe and a less enfeebled Comintern funding and directing their activities. I can imagine Nationalist China turning Red (or at least pink) with proper, non-crazy encouragement from Moscow.

Aside from all that, I'm not sure.
 
In any event we'll see a strengthened Left throughout Europe and a less enfeebled Comintern funding and directing their activities. I can imagine Nationalist China turning Red (or at least pink) with proper, non-crazy encouragement from Moscow.

And this is dependent on continuation of NEP-lite? That's an interesting take and not too implausible.
 

Hnau

Banned
Stalin would probably try to step much more lightly with Lenin around, but I still believe he'd eventually be directly opposed with Lenin. By mid-1923, it is likely Josef Stalin would lose his position as Party General Secretary. Kamenev and Zinoviev would go down with the ship as well, perhaps Bukharin would be included as well for having opposed Trotsky. Its likely, though, that instead of Stalin and Trotsky being the right and left hands of Lenin, it will be Bukharin and Trotsky. Preobrazhenski and Radek, it should be noted, would probably rise in power due to him being one of Trotsky's allies in the OTL Left Opposition.

Trotsky by late 1923 was arguing for more internal democracy and an increase in central state economic planning. Lenin might concede slightly to his second argument, but on internal democracy he would be more than willing to introduce some new blood: the factory workers that he mentioned in his OTL testament. That might reduce bureaucracy, but generally I think the workers would gravitate around the veteran revolutionaries. You have a moderating effect on the more extreme decisions but not much else. Lenin will still be given a huge amount of deciding power.

Yet, more efforts to democratize the party will definitely be made under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky, with Kamenev, Zinoviev, Radek, Preobrazhenski supporting. Open discussion in the party would be re-affirmed through various measures, as well as in the soviets and the trade unions. Elections would probably be experimented with, both in the party and in the soviets, but probably wouldn't work out.

NEP-lite is right. The NEP will start being reduced by the mid-1920s, before OTL, but they'll be reduced slower, so that by the time collectivization is under way, capitalism is still rampant in the economy. As for the aftermath of Lenin's 1929 death, I can't see Trotsky losing to Bukharin... but I also can't see him expelling him. After Lenin dies, the two men will be the major power players in the Communist Party, both internationalists, but to the left and right on economic matters. Trotsky is likely to begin a crash course for industrialization and socialization of the economy, but he will not use the brute force Stalin did in collectivization. Food will continue to be a problem in the cities. The peasants will be more successful in opposing the state's attempts to socialize agriculture. Industrializataion will go slower. But less people will die. This, in combination with a longer NEP (possibly stretching into the early-1930s) likely means a much stronger economy by the 1940s.

Hopefully some of that was helpful.
 
Stalin would probably try to step much more lightly with Lenin around, but I still believe he'd eventually be directly opposed with Lenin. By mid-1923, it is likely Josef Stalin would lose his position as Party General Secretary. Kamenev and Zinoviev would go down with the ship as well, perhaps Bukharin would be included as well for having opposed Trotsky. Its likely, though, that instead of Stalin and Trotsky being the right and left hands of Lenin, it will be Bukharin and Trotsky. Preobrazhenski and Radek, it should be noted, would probably rise in power due to him being one of Trotsky's allies in the OTL Left Opposition.
You might get Ossinsky and Miasnikov as well.
 
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