No Staling, is there still a pact with the Nazis?

No Stalin, is there still a pact with the Nazis?

Assume a different Soviet goverment, still imprisoning and in some cases murdering oppointments but not on a crazy scale


I suspect that Western Nations would be as suspiciaous as they were of Stalin in OTL .

How would such a governemnt respiond to Nazi offers
 
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The answer to this depends on the circumstances and timing of Stalin's demise, who succeeds him and what policies the successor frames. Arguably, Soviet chief motivation for deal with Germans remains, because with Stalin or without Stalin, Poland will resent any alliance with Soviet Union. Soviet Union wants that strip of Polish territory and if Germany offers the same deal as they did, no matter who is in Politburo will accept it.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The answer to this depends on the circumstances and timing of Stalin's demise, who succeeds him and what policies the successor frames. Arguably, Soviet chief motivation for deal with Germans remains, because with Stalin or without Stalin, Poland will resent any alliance with Soviet Union. Soviet Union wants that strip of Polish territory and if Germany offers the same deal as they did, no matter who is in Politburo will accept it.

Agreed. As long as the West does not offer the Soviets a better & credible deal, whoever the leader of the USSR will likely accept the deal. The terms may change, maybe even a lot, but the deal is likely. It is important to remember that Stalin was just as shocked at the rapid fall of France as France was shocked. Like many decisions criticized in history, if one makes the same assumptions/analysis that the decision makers used, one will arrive at basically the same decision.
 
It depends on how we get rid of Stalin. A dictator of the USSR who's got the murderousness but decides to wait until the war with Hitler's over to purge the Army on a more pragmatic timing, if not end goal, would create a very different situation from Stalin's. A USSR that has the time to further develop its extremely advanced pre-war concepts is in a very different situation than one where Stalin dies in a car crash in 1939.
 
If Stalin is ... eliminated ... in late 1940 ... early 1941

Maybe Zhukov can implement his plans to launch a per-emptive Soviet Military Strike against the military forces of the Axis among the Borders in May? 1941?? and try to smash The Axis Armed Forces right into the teeth of the German Wehrmacht in prepared positions and the Romanian Army..

Tho the Soviet Army in early 1941 were in the transition of upgrading their front-line units with new equipment & training and were not fully prepare, trained or equipped with new tanks and their logistical tail was below par and the upper echelon of Soviet Officers were not fully replaced nor completely trained due to the Stalin Purges during 1937-1941 of his political and supposed military foes....
 
If Stalin is ... eliminated ... in late 1940 ... early 1941

Maybe Zhukov can implement his plans to launch a per-emptive Soviet Military Strike against the military forces of the Axis among the Borders in May? 1941?? and try to smash The Axis Armed Forces right into the teeth of the German Wehrmacht in prepared positions and the Romanian Army..

Tho the Soviet Army in early 1941 were in the transition of upgrading their front-line units with new equipment & training and were not fully prepare, trained or equipped with new tanks and their logistical tail was below par and the upper echelon of Soviet Officers were not fully replaced nor completely trained due to the Stalin Purges during 1937-1941 of his political and supposed military foes....

I'm going to go with no on that one as Stalin rejected the plan for the very sound reason that whatever its merits the Soviet army was not remotely suited to carry it out.
 

b12ox

Banned
it was not suited and there was no political benefit in invading Germany. Nothing but trouble. The Soviets were never big friends with the West until the war with Hitler. There were wars and claims in the south for contrl of the Middle East with French and Englich. Add to it the Soviets pushing to central Europe with their marxist worlview and the Red Army and centralised economy and you have a World War all the same and the Soviets isolated.
 
Then what makes you think there would even be a recognisable opportunity for such an agreement? With a POD that early there as an enormous flock of butterflies on the loose and history could take any number of directions, perhaps excluding Nazi Germany or Poland or... Well you name it. Without giving us certain propositions on whom succeeds Stalin or take place in his stead, there is no limit to possibilities and any analysis is moot.
 
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This assumes Stalin never got to be dictator in the first place

In that case you're talking butterflies going back to the 1920s which would be sufficient to potentially butterfly away the Nazis as a political movement, let alone WWII or the torturous chain of circumstances that led to the M-R Pact.
 
There is absolutely no way of knowing how things would be handled because unlike other western leaders, the Soviet leadership varied greatly from leader to leader.

Lets say Trotsky attains the throne of Soviet leadership. He was thought to have been more internationalist so assuming he gains power, we may see a Communist Germany instead of Fascist, or any other number of things.


Trotsky never seemed like he had as much willpower, and cult of personality, so I doubt he would have been able to lead the Soviets against the germans successfully, should a Barbarossa style invasion occur.
 
There is absolutely no way of knowing how things would be handled because unlike other western leaders, the Soviet leadership varied greatly from leader to leader.

Lets say Trotsky attains the throne of Soviet leadership. He was thought to have been more internationalist so assuming he gains power, we may see a Communist Germany instead of Fascist, or any other number of things.


Trotsky never seemed like he had as much willpower, and cult of personality, so I doubt he would have been able to lead the Soviets against the germans successfully, should a Barbarossa style invasion occur.


Yeah, I too suspect that Trotsky may not have succeeded Lenin even without Stalin. A lot of people assume that he would be a shoo-in but he was disliked by a lot other Bolsheviks for being too arrogant. Even had he succeeded in attaining power, he may not have had necessary ruthlessness to keep it (we all know of course, that ruthlessness was one thing Uncle Joe had in spades).

Nevertheless, it does raise an interesting question. Suppose that Trotsky (or another Jewish Bolshevik like Kamenev or Zinoviev) was the leader in 1939, would the Nazis have made a deal with a Jewish Soviet leader? Would Trotsky have taken it?
 
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