Stalin killed in 1920

Hi! I read somewhere that Stalin was nearly deposed around 1920 or so by more moderate members of the Communist Party. What would have happened had the moderates killed him off?
 
I always assumed that Trotesky would be in the position to take over after a get rid of Stalin P.O.D. He was hardly moderate.
 
I always assumed that Trotsky would be in the position to take over after a get rid of Stalin P.O.D. He was hardly moderate.

No! Trotsky would never be able to take over. He was even less popular than Stalin was at that point. Kamenev or Zinoviev are much more likely candidates to take over.
 
Stalin's death would be seen as a tragedy for the Soviet state by the few people who are interested enough in the early history of Soviet politics to know of the man. He'd be seen as Lenin's hatchet man and his death would mark the end of a balanced Soviet nationality-policy. Were Stalin somehow removed this leaves Lenin (who will still have his stroke anyway) putting someone like Smirnov in Stalin's place, with Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky as the major contenders.

Smirnov would be both General-Secretary and having a lot of influence with the Cheka so he's a good substitute-Stalin figure who'd simply do what Stalin did and amass personal power and shoot all potential opposition. Albeit with far more of a Zinovievite approach to things than a Stalinist one. A Smirnovite dictatorship, however, may wind up being far more of a co-operation of general-secretary and head of the Cheka/OGPU/NKVD/genericalphabetsoup.

Which might actually wind up with a Cheka that verges into an SS-style state within the state.
 

MSZ

Banned
No! Trotsky would never be able to take over. He was even less popular than Stalin was at that point. Kamenev or Zinoviev are much more likely candidates to take over.

Or Sergey Kirov. IIRC he was quite popular in the Communist Party even during Stalin's reign of terror (1934 Party Congress).
 
Or Sergey Kirov. IIRC he was quite popular in the Communist Party even during Stalin's reign of terror (1934 Party Congress).

He's a bit too young to take over in 1920 and while he was a focal point of anti-Stalin sentiment the man himself was hardly critical of Stalin and was actually very hardcore Stalinist (which makes Stalin's offing him more dickish than it already sounds on the surface, he never was a Stalin opponent).
 
Top