Stalin dies, and Beria takes over

Wolfpaw

Banned
Total breakdown of the CCCP, I am afraid.
Stalin's cult was too ingrained in '40 CCCP society not to be one of the fundamental factors of russian resistance to the invasion.
His death in concomitance with a massive foreign invasion would be sure signs of the apocalypse
This is very much dependent on the POD. If Stalin stays in Moscow and the Germans are victorious, then yes, I agree, the whole thing will probably go down the shitter for the USSR.

If Stalin flees Moscow and joins the rest of the Politburo in Kuybyshev, however, there is a good chance that Moscow will fall since that is really going to annihilate a lot of the defenders' morale. This will, in all likelihood, lead to Stalin being removed from power by the Politburo and most likely executed.

Basically, so long as the Politburo can control its own fate, things will probably be fine. Moscow won't be the decisive victory the Germans need unless they manage to get Stalin's head on a platter.

With regards to Stalin's cult being too ingrained in '40, that's incredibly iffy. A good number of Soviet citizens (possibly a majority, definitely the peasantry) actually hated the guy with a passion.

Once the War started, however, and Soviet citizens began to see the horrors that Nazi rule would bring, they very quickly rallied around Stalin. It was the War and the nationalism that Stalin came to embrace and (rightly or wrongly) embody that became the roots of his cult of personality. Prior to 1941, though, he and his cult (which, again, was mostly urban-based) are on much more unsteady ground.
 
Well expact the Cold War wont even go thrgh the Khrushchev thaw, on the other hand the U.S.S.R wont become stagnant as it did under Brezhnev. Molotov would be very ''hands-on'' when dealing with problems, he wouldnt hesitate to represspeople either.

Molotov wont go senile or suffer chronic illness either unlike other younger leaders, so the old tiger will be fully in charge until the mid 80's. It also likely true that his cult and sheer length of time in power will mean the U.S.S.R wont all apart in the 90's, as the system would still be feared and respected by the population. Whereas under Khrushchev onwards the regime's overall fearfulness declined.

De-stalinization wont happen either, that's a big deal all by itself.:eek:
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Well expact the Cold War wont even go thrgh the Khrushchev thaw, on the other hand the U.S.S.R wont become stagnant as it did under Brezhnev. Molotov would be very ''hands-on'' when dealing with problems, he wouldnt hesitate to represspeople either.

Molotov wont go senile or suffer chronic illness either unlike other younger leaders, so the old tiger will be fully in charge until the mid 80's. It also likely true that his cult and sheer length of time in power will mean the U.S.S.R wont all apart in the 90's, as the system would still be feared and respected by the population. Whereas under Khrushchev onwards the regime's overall fearfulness declined.

De-stalinization wont happen either, that's a big deal all by itself.:eek:
My thoughts exactly :)
 
Molotov might not live as long ITTL. He was in forced retirement after 61, running the USSR would be much more stressful and might cause him to die somewhat earlier. He'd probably make it to the 70s though.
 
Are there any good English language books on the personalities and politics of the higher echelons of the USSR covering the Stalin era?
 

Cook

Banned
Total breakdown of the CCCP, I am afraid.
Stalin's cult was too ingrained in '40 CCCP society not to be one of the fundamental factors of russian resistance to the invasion.
His death in concomitance with a massive foreign invasion would be sure signs of the apocalypse


Russian resistance to the German invasion was based on love of the Motherland.

Russian propaganda during that invasion period of 1941 emphasises the Motherland, not The Party, and not Comrade Stalin.

Stalin hindered the defence, it’s a miracle Moscow wasn’t taken.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I recommend Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. While perhaps not the most profound novel on Stalin, it certainly is up there and is filled with anecdotes that really paints quite a vivid portrait of the Soviet hierarchy and its personalities at the time.
 

Cook

Banned
Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.

Thanks Wolf, I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Sadly it may end up in the growing pile of unread books on my bookshelf now. Gone are the days of reading a new book every week.

Who knew baby’s took up this much time?
:eek:
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Wasn’t the Politburo visit to Stalin’s Dacha immediately after the invasion the most likely POD though?
Not in my opinion. They realized how completely rudderless they were without Stalin after the initial shock of the invasion. They went to his dacha hat in hand and begged him to come back. Funny thing is, Stalin expected them to come and arrest him!

They needed a strong, centralizing figure to "guide" them during those first few weeks, and since the generals in charge at the time (like Timoshenko) had come down with decapitated-chicken syndrome and none of the potentates could agree on who should be in charge, they realized how invaluable Stalin had made himself to the Soviet system.

Once the Politburo's over the initial shock of the invasion, however, things are a lot different. Stalin basically served to calm everybody down and even though he fucked up royally many, many times, at least there was one guy giving orders instead of a dozen (and praise is due to Stalin for initiating the massive shift of industry and such to the East, even though he did just utterly blow the military aspect of the defense.).

Again, by the time of the Moscow offensive the front had (and I use the term very loosely) stabilized. The Politburo had gotten the breathing room it needed to recover and start functioning properly again.

So again, IMO, the best and most likely POD for this scenario is Stalin fleeing Moscow, having Moscow fall, and then having the Politburo "remove" Stalin.
 

Cook

Banned
Not in my opinion. They realized how completely rudderless they were without Stalin after the initial shock of the invasion. They went to his dacha hat in hand and begged him to come back. Funny thing is, Stalin expected them to come and arrest him!

I knew Stalin went into total shock and depression after the launch of the invasion and expected to be purged when they arrived at his dacha, that’s why I though it the more likely moment.

So it was a case of him being at his most vulnerable and them just not having the organisation and possibly motivation to make anything of it?

A bit of a bugger really.
:p
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
So it was a case of him being at his most vulnerable and them just not having the organisation and possibly motivation to make anything of it?

A bit of a bugger really.
:p
Well, there's also the fact that a lot of them genuinely loved Stalin. Maybe not Beria and Khrushchev (who really were more opportunists rather than ideologues), but Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and so many others . . . no, they believed in and, yes, loved Stalin.

It's kind of sweet in a very dark, twisted sort of way :eek:
 

Cook

Banned
Sorry, didn’t mean to write that small, don’t know what happened there.:confused:

Can everybody still see?
:)
 

Cook

Banned
Wolf Mate,

Have you come across offers by Stalin to Hitler for a ceasefire?
Made in ’41, ’42 and ’44?

I read something about such ages ago and have never been able to find any other references to them, so I don’t know if they definitely were made and if they were serious.

Have you come across them?
:confused:
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Wolf Mate,

Have you come across offers by Stalin to Hitler for a ceasefire?
Made in ’41, ’42 and ’44?

I read something about such ages ago and have never been able to find any other references to them, so I don’t know if they definitely were made and if they were serious.

Have you come across them?
:confused:
From what I've gathered, the 1941 peace offer of Brest-Litovsk borders was never directly offered to the Nazis. The Soviets met with the Bulgarian ambassador and asked him to act as an intermediary between themselves and Germany, offering Brest-Litovsk borders. The ambassador said the Germans wouldn't go for it, but the Soviets shouldn't worry since "Even if you retreat to the Urals, you'll still win in the end."

The offers of 1942 and 1944 were done largely through back channels in neutral Sweden. I read a whole JSTOR document on the whole thing that I frankly don't want to bother dredging up now, but basically in 1942 the Soviets demanded (yes, demanded) 1939 borders. The Germans said "No."

In early 1944, the Soviets (again, unofficially) offered 1914 borders, and again the Germans said "No."

Unsurprisingly, there were no more peace offers after that.
 

Cook

Banned
Amazing that the 1944 offer wasn’t accepted, or at least negotiated futher.

And bloody lucky.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Amazing that the 1944 offer wasn’t accepted, or at least negotiated futher.

And bloody lucky.
Indeed. Though a resurrection of 1914 Russo-German borders would probably fulfill all of the map junkies' wildest dreams :p
 
Well, there's also the fact that a lot of them genuinely loved Stalin. Maybe not Beria and Khrushchev (who really were more opportunists rather than ideologues), but Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and so many others . . . no, they believed in and, yes, loved Stalin.

It's kind of sweet in a very dark, twisted sort of way :eek:

Yes, those guys were never going to turn on Stalin. Molotov didn't even complain once when Stalin had his wife arrested in the late 40s. Beria would turn on him, but he couldn't just go off and do it by himself. The loyalists would come down on him like a ton of bricks.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Yes, those guys were never going to turn on Stalin. Molotov didn't even complain once when Stalin had his wife arrested in the late 40s. Beria would turn on him, but he couldn't just go off and do it by himself. The loyalists would come down on him like a ton of bricks.
Indeed. They would only turn on him (and even then it would probably be Beria leading the charge) when it became clear that he was an incompetent, bumbling coward who really had no grasp or control over the situation...which is basically what would have happened in the "Stalin Flees Moscow" scenario I offered.

And no, I don't count his initial nervous collapse/week-long bender at the beginning of Barbarossa as a sign of that; basically everyone at the time was acting like that.
 
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