PC/AHC: Mikhail Kalinin as actual leader of USSR

BigBlueBox

Banned
When people discuss leaders that could have taken power if Stalin never did or was removed early on, the names that get mentioned the most are Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamanev. But could Kalinin have taken power, and if so, how? What would his policies have been?
 
Kalinin was a figurehead, a symbol of the peasant come to power (which was obviously useful for the Bolsheviks in a predominantly peasant country). Lenin called him a "peasant from Tver Gubernia." https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/30.htm (Actually, he was an industrial worker, though of peasant origin like so many other workers.) If left to himself he might have taken a pro-peasant "rightist" position in 1928. But he did not do so, and rumors spread that Stalin had some sort of blackmail "hold" over him. https://books.google.com/books?id=sUFm-KL367EC&pg=PA70 But I'm not even sure that was necessary. Kalinin was just not a strong person and I don't think he ever had a chance of winning real power.
 
I woold like to se POD whit Kirov not killed. And becoming 2nd after Stalin or replace him.

As I said here a while back, IMO Kirov's importance was magnified by his assassination, and he had not really stood much chance of being Stalin's successor. The best work on Kirov is Matthew Lenoe's The Kirov Murder and Soviet History (the basic thesis of which is that Nikolaev probably acted alone in killing Kirov). Two points Lenoe makes:

(1) One should not exaggerate Kirov's stature in 1934. "Not only did the early publications of the memorial campaign turn Kirov into a plaster saint, they also exaggerated his stature in the party leadership. Perusal of Pravda and even Leningrad's hometown Leningradkaya Pravda from 1934 suggests that Kirov's public profile before his death was substantially lower than that of Kaganovich, Molotov, or Ordzhonikidze. Coverage of the Leningrad leader was comparable to that of Pavel Postyshev and other second-level party officials. The overstatement of Kirov's power and prestige during the memorial campaign contributed to later assertions that he was a serious rival to Stalin." The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, pp. 494-495.

(2) Lenoe also argues that it is not true that Kirov got more votes than Stalin for re-election to the Central Committee at the Seventeenth Party Congress: "I. F. Kodatsky, from Leningrad, and Mikhail Kalinin were the only two TsK members elected unanimously. Stalin received three votes against, and Kirov four." p. 757. There were allegations in 1960-61 that there had really been two or three hundred votes against Stalin, but Lenoe dismisses them as implausible and designed to fit Khrushchev's narrative of the time--that many "honest Leninists" had tried to stand up to Stalin, but were thwarted by Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich--the last named was very conveniently accused of altering the voting results. pp. 613-614.) Of course that there were any votes at all against any of the leaders--especially Stalin--was suppressed, and in later memory that may have been inflated (or deliberately exaggerated) into suppression of a huge number of anti-Stalin votes.
 
I do not think Kirov was rival to Stalin. But Stalin like him . If Kirov was not killed he may get more power.
 
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