Soviet Collapse After World War II

In OTL, Winston Churchill believed the Soviet Union would collapse after World War II. What POD could cause the Soviet Union to collapse after World War II? It seems very difficult considering Lend-Lease Support from the United States and the Soviet Union's gold reserves boosted the economy.
 
They mostly ransacked places to fill their treasury and fuel industry. So long as they don't look out for the good of their own population their economy should be fine.
 



But Winston Churchill believed by the time World War II was finished, the USSR would have been on the brink of collapse. When he saw that this was not the case, it inspired his plan Operation Unthinkable.

Everyone had been thinking that for decades, but it was never close to being the case. Russian exiles in the 1920s comforted themselves with the belief that the Bolshevik regime would be short lived, like the Jacobin one. Hitler believed he had but to 'kick in the door' or something like that. Trotskyists held it as an article of faith that the war would deal a critical blow to Stalinism.

Only in the late 1970s and 1980s, when few in the west saw what was going on internally and the west believed the USSR was more powerful than ever, was decline truly setting in.
 
After WWII? Really? I don't think being the overwhelming victors would result in total collapse after WWII, not the least when you get free reign to loot the losers' industries. (I'm assuming you just meant soon after, instead of the OTL collapse half a century later.)
 



But Winston Churchill believed by the time World War II was finished, the USSR would have been on the brink of collapse. When he saw that this was not the case, it inspired his plan Operation Unthinkable.

I'd like to see a quote - my understanding is him speaking to a young aide in 1950's that communism would collapse within the aide's lifetime - he missed the prediction by 2 years.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...u#v=onepage&q=churchill collapse ussr&f=false
 
A collapse of the Stalinist system doesn't proute a capitalist restoration. Not in the 1940s or 50s. Bolshevism had firmly won the hearts and minds by then, and the Great Patriotic War sealed the deal.

You get soviets without Stalinism if the regime fails. And there was considerable resistance to reinstating the norms of Stalinism after the war anyway.
 
If Stalin slowly but surely started the purges that he was planning in mid 1941 to continue against those he consider a potential threat to his base...

There might be some very angry Soviet Generals leading troops against the NKVD Divisions all over occupied Europe and then back into the Soviet Union...
 
A collapse of the Stalinist system doesn't proute a capitalist restoration. Not in the 1940s or 50s. Bolshevism had firmly won the hearts and minds by then, and the Great Patriotic War sealed the deal.

You get soviets without Stalinism if the regime fails. And there was considerable resistance to reinstating the norms of Stalinism after the war anyway.

Stalinism is not a system. It's a strategy of rule.

Bolshevism at this time is called Marxism Leninism and its ideals are embodied in Stalin and his regime. A fall of "Stalinism" produces a fall of the USSR.

The problem is that there is no way that could happen.
 
A collapse of the Stalinist system doesn't proute a capitalist restoration. Not in the 1940s or 50s. Bolshevism had firmly won the hearts and minds by then, and the Great Patriotic War sealed the deal.

You get soviets without Stalinism if the regime fails. And there was considerable resistance to reinstating the norms of Stalinism after the war anyway.

Pretty much - WW2 basically saved the Communist Party rule, since it beat the Nazis. I believe it's commonly accepted that the Soviets couldn't maintain the USSR the way it was going without WW2?

What it would be replaced with, I don't know. "Soviets without Bolsheviks" perhaps but then you have the nationalist elements to deal with. Depends on who takes over afterwards too (right and left Bolsheviks as it were, though all the big wigs for those had been purged by that point).

*Insert obligatory "Soviet Union was capitalism with red bunting" comment*:p
 
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But Winston Churchill believed by the time World War II was finished, the USSR would have been on the brink of collapse. When he saw that this was not the case, it inspired his plan Operation Unthinkable.

That's because Winston Churchill was a couple of cigars short of a full box. The reason he's so revered now is not because he wasn't crazy, but because he was just the right kind of crazy that the world needed to take on the Axis.
 
Pretty much - WW2 basically saved the Communist Party rule, since it beat the Nazis. I believe it's commonly accepted that the Soviets couldn't maintain the USSR the way it was going without WW2?

By who? I've heard the argument that Germany needed a war for its economy to continue to function, but I've never heard this re the USSR. Even before the war, communist party rule was solid.
 
That's because Winston Churchill was a couple of cigars short of a full box. The reason he's so revered now is not because he wasn't crazy, but because he was just the right kind of crazy that the world needed to take on the Axis.

I don't see why that makes him crazy. If he indeed said that, he was simply repeating one of the more common memes about the Soviets at the time.
 
By who? I've heard the argument that Germany needed a war for its economy to continue to function, but I've never heard this re the USSR. Even before the war, communist party rule was solid.

Solid in the sense of "yay communism for everybody" or solid in the sense of "love Lenin or we shoot you"? I thought it was more the Soviets would conclude that the Stalinist system wasn't that great and should be replaced - not their economy but their political system?
 
Solid in the sense of "yay communism for everybody" or solid in the sense of "love Lenin or we shoot you"? I thought it was more the Soviets would conclude that the Stalinist system wasn't that great and should be replaced - not their economy but their political system?

Both. Stalin purged most of the leadership who would have made such changes.
 
I don't see why that makes him crazy. If he indeed said that, he was simply repeating one of the more common memes about the Soviets at the time.

There's a common meme nowadays that all Muslims are hardline reactionaries and secretly want to impose Sharia Law. Only crazy people believe that too.
 
I don't see why that makes him crazy. If he indeed said that, he was simply repeating one of the more common memes about the Soviets at the time.

He was crazy. His policies in Africa and India were total insanity. In addition, there was his war plan for Operation Unthinkable. Other than the obvious, it called for the reawakening of the German war machine months after the end of WWII to battle the Soviets.
 
If Stalin was to die shortly after WW2, might there be enough fighting between the factions to cause a long civil war in Russia? Might some of the Republics try to regain there independence?
 
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