No Hitler: What's Stalin do?

I think that Stalin was cautious. He did not start anything until Hitler came along.

Note that Stalin was a monster.

However in the context of the USSR thinking that other powers were out to get him was not an entirely irrational assumption.
 
I think that Stalin was cautious. He did not start anything until Hitler came along.

Well. There was that aborted coup in the 1920s in... Latvia?

And aid to the Guomindang, as part of a bid to expel foreign influence from China. (This gets forgotten very often).

Stalin also supported the Communist putsch in Germany in 1923.

In the early 1920s, he also promoted the formation of a Soviet puppet in Northern Persia.
 
I'm not as big a fan of cautious Stalin as I used to be. The Berlin airlift, meddling in Turkey, etc. postwar are all a bit reckless.

Not to say that he is out to conquer Europe, but I could see him moving into these regions. Especially on the heels of a victorious war in Asia.

Yeah but that was post-war, he was in far more powerful position and was confident in his superiority over the Fascist Imperialist Pigs
 
Yeah but that was post-war, he was in far more powerful position and was confident in his superiority over the Fascist Imperialist Pigs

But even in teh 20s, as I pointed out, he did some iffy things.

It might be more plausible to say that Hitler made him more cautious.
 
From what I’ve read of Stalin, I think his attitude towards attacking Western Europe could easily go either way. On the one hand, he was an “enlightened” despot whose primary goals were to industrialize and reform the Soviet Union to become a world power, to gather the lands of the old Russian Empire that had been lost during the RCW, and to create an obedient, unified society that believed in the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism. Additionally, and quite rare for a man of his stature, he was also able to realize when mistakes had been made, and to adjust his strategy accordingly. On the other hand, he belonged to a generation of Soviet leaders that interpreted the “revolution” as a world revolution, one that could be realized through military action. In this mindset, if the revolution does not expand, it will be smothered by capitalist encirclement. Stalin was also a gambler, albeit one that preferred medium-risk gambits with potentially high rewards. His foreign policy before June 22, 1941 and after WW2 show time and again that Stalin was willing to take a bold move, if the chance of failure and personal risk to the USSR was minimal. Even the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 could be seen this way, with Stalin assuming that the French would stand up to Hitler and fight him to exhaustion before any of his eastern ambitions could be realized, leaving Stalin to keep his gains.

However, the big problem with this question is that I don’t know what context Stalin is making his decisions in this TL. You can only take forensic psychology so far in these situations. The state of Hitlerless Europe would be fundamental to Stalin’s thinking of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. If we have the ultra-optimistic outcome of Europe consisting of a constellation of happy, prosperous liberal democratic republics that are all well-armed, Stalin may be deterred to a few small wars with some of the western republics, depending on just how threatening the capitalists are being. However, if we have a situation with a sullen autocratic Germany, London and Paris at each other’s throats, and an Italy spitting in the faces of all three, a clever manipulation of the players may allow the USSR to become a regional hegemon in Eastern Europe. If an actual war breaks out between the imperialists, well, then the sky’s the limit.
 
I doubt the Red Alert scenario will come to pass. Unlike Napoleon and Hitler, Stalin wasn't a compulsive gambler. He knew that if he expanded west, everyone else would coalition against him.

Rather, he would have continued to focus on slaughtering and oppressing his own people, and he would have expanded into Asia: he would have used incidents like Kalkhin-Gol to take Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin, and eventually Hokkaido. In OTL, Stalin wasn't able to press his advantage after Kalkhin-Gol and Nomanhon because of events in Europe.
How the hell is the Red Army going to get into Hokkaido?
 

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Stalin wouldn't dare to do nothing without the split in the capitalist world. He knows USSR is a despited nation, that would easily be attacked by all other great powers if they did any aggressive moves.
 
I think its important to differentiate 'cautious' from 'passive'. Stalin will continue to mess about in foreign affairs so long as he believes that any interventions will not lead to a general war. The pan-European anti-Bolshevik crusade was a real fear but not one that was going to be caused by funnelling arms and supplies into Iran, China or even the Baltic states. If Germany collapses for some reason, Stalin would move into Eastern Europe, but it shall have to be obvious Germany wasn't about to swiftly recover. A little economic trouble won't cut it, it would probably have to be a full on revolution with uprisings in numerous cities and sustained violence.
 
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