Stalin Dies, January 1945

As title says - Stalin dies in January of 1945. Let's make the death accidental - he chokes to death or somesuch - and the Soviet Union is leaderless.

What next?
 
The top leaders probably form some kind of temporary arrangement to carry on the war. After the war is over, we will see some vicious power struggles in the Kremlin, which likely ends with some sort of uneasy triumvirate/clique on top.

There won't be an open struggle for power while the war is still on.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Molotov most likely emerges on top, as Beria is too universally loathed to ever takeover. So we get (incredibly long-lived) Hardliners who were more Stalinist than Stalin running the show until the '70s or '80s barring some internal catastrophe.
 
I wonder how a Stalinist USSR in the Cold War would turn out? That's a question that's been on my mind for quite a while.
 
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