What if for some reason Stalin died on that date and Molotov took over? The question is does the chaos in changing leaders outweigh the fact that Stalin won't be there to interfere at all with Red Army plans?
What if for some reason Stalin died on that date and Molotov took over? The question is does the chaos in changing leaders outweigh the fact that Stalin won't be there to interfere at all with Red Army plans?
Let's say heart-attack...let's see...Time of national Emergency...
I can see the Red Army making a deal with Beria and Molotov, making Molotov the New General Secretary...
Unless someone decides to blame the whole thing on Molotov (Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) and then a compromise candidate can be looked for...maybe Kalinin, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Zhukov, Malenkov...
The power struggle might be bad; I'd suppose Stavka maintains national defence, but there may be break-aways and disloyals. If nothing else, morale takes a huge bust as the personality cult backfires.
The power struggle will be rather damaging for the Russian leadership, but I still think the Germans would suffer a similiar fate as OTL.