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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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