Stalin killed in 1933--by accident (really!)

Matthew Lenoe in *The Kirov Murder and Soviet History* (the basic thesis of which is that Nikolaev probably acted alone) notes that

"...in August-September 1933, he [Stalin] was involved in two accidents, both of them potentially fatal. In the first, his automobile nearly collided head-on with a truck on a dark road outside Sochi. In the second a border detachment fired on his motorboat by accident near Gagra on the Black Sea. Stalin ordered measures taken to investigate each incident and prevent anything similar in the future, but he did not treat either as a potential assaissination plot..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=VTyQA8z-XQ4C&pg=PT684

So suppose one of these accidents in 1933 had indeed been fatal to Stalin? Who succeeds him as General Secretary? Or might the post itself be abolished? (Even if it is, someone is likely to become de facto head of the party; "collective leadership" seems unlikely to last.) Will his succeasors accept that the death was indeed accidental? (Maybe if the truck driver was also killed instantaneously--though even then it might be a murder/suicide by "hostile elements"...) And what changes in policy (if any) can we expect?

(We have to remember that even in the Soviet Union in the 1930's, people--including people whose deaths would be convenient for other people--did sometimes die accidentally. Thus for example, Borisov's death in a "traffic accident" has always seemed one of the most suspicious elements of the Kirov assassination--yet Lenoe, relying among other things on "the recent examination of photos of Borisov's exhumed skull by a Canadian forensics expert" concludes that Borisov really did die in a traffic accident...
https://books.google.com/books?id=EjVoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA202 )
 
Kirov or Molotov, but most likely Kirov. He was popular with many in the Party (particularly those in Leningrad) and had the organizational skills and ambition to lead.
 
The Wikipedia articles suggests he was a heavy drinker - so, though born in 1886, he'd probblydie around the same time as Stalin (in his late '60s), maybe a few years earlier.

Without a Great Purge, there will be more experienced officers ready to handle the German invasion - it's likely Kirov still signs the pact, I think, as it would buy the Soviets time in the event of a German invasion. Hence, while I don't know if they'd quite a huge buildup, the military also would presumably be run more intelligently, so they might even out in the long run.

I'm not sure what that would mean for the postWW2 world.
 
An unpurged Red Army, with an alive and kickin' Tukhachevsky and the deep battle doctrine is a nightmare for nazis. I wonder whether they would even contemplate a russian campaign; if they do so, Warsaw Pact begins no east than the Rhine :D.
 
Kirov or Molotov, but most likely Kirov. He was popular with many in the Party (particularly those in Leningrad) and had the organizational skills and ambition to lead.

Lenoe argues that Kirov's stature at the time of his death was subsequently exaggerated: "Not only did the early publications of the memorial campaign turn Kirov into a plaster saint, they also exaggerated his stature in the party leadership. Perusal of *Pravda* and even Leningrad's hometown *Leningradkaya pravda* from 1934 suggests that Kirov's public profile before his death was substantially lower than that of Kaganovich, Molotov, or Ordzhonikidze. Coverage of the Leningrad leader was comparable to that of Pavel Postyshev and other second-level party officials. The overstatement of Kirov's power and prestige during the memorial campaign contributed to later assertions that he was a serious rival to Stalin." *The Kirov Murder and Soviet History,* pp. 494-495. (BTW, Lenoe also argues that it is not true that Kirov got more votes than Stalin for re-election to the Central Committee at the Seventeenth Party Congress: "I. F. Kodatsky, from Leningrad, and Mikhail Kalinin were the only two TsK members elected unanimously. Stalin received three votes against, and Kirov four." p. 757. There were allegations in 1960-61 that there had really been two or three hundred votes against Stalin, but Lenoe dismisses them as implausible and designed to fit Khrushchev's narrative of the time--that many "honest Leninists" had tried to stand up to Stalin, but were thwarted by Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich--the last named was very conveniently accused of altering the voting results. pp. 613-614.)
 
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Molotov having a chance at getting the top job is rather interesting...

What would Gen. Sec. Molotov look like?

I do think that the USSR would continue following the same general economic policies (collectivization and 5-year-plan industrialization), but there is room for changes in nuance. It is hard to see any Soviet leader besides Stalin presiding over the sorts of purges that Stalin initiated - on the other hand, it is hard to see a Bolshevik leader at the time not using some state terror to keep the pace of industrialization up...

What was Molotov's attitude towards relations between Communist parties and other parties of the left in Europe? And what sort of approach would he have taken to Nazi Germany?

fasquardon
 
Interesting question, how would Soviet Union evolve if Stalin dies in 1933 ?

one aspect would be his Purges and executions
Stalin was not only power politician, he was highly pathological Paranoid.
it went so far that every one who became popular or doing a good job like the Leningrad party boss Sergey Kirov, was consider by Stalin as dangerous threat to Him!
At the 1934 Party Congress where the vote for the new Central Committee was held, Stalin received over one hundred negative votes.
so he start to purge the Central Committee, then Red Army of his critics
What let to Article 58 of the legal code about anti-Soviet activities as counterrevolutionary crime.

A Stalin death in 1934, Sergey Kirov. could rise inside of the Central Committee and Red Army would remain Intact.

There would still the Gulag labor camps, but it would host more criminals than political prisoner under OTL Stalin purges.
Would the power of NKVD is cut back by new Central Committee and if they pardon Leon Trotsky ?
 
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