Pardon, I thought that with your POD, Stalin would remain in power, so the USSR would adopt Ultranationalism and Fascism.
But if you only want Stalin to become a Fascist, it could be much easier. Stalin apparently wrote several patriotic poems about his nation of Georgia when he was younger, I don't believe he ever forgot that he was Georgian. As his political views are developing, he could meet a charismatic Georgian nationalist, being swayed to Georgian nationalism rather than communism. If there is no Red victory in the Russian Civil War, Stalin could end up being a leader of Georgia since he had connections with the local political movement and was comofortable with violence.
The problem is that there was virtually no such thing as right-wing Georgian nationalism. (Some Russified Georgians became supporters of the
Russian far right but that is another matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Dumbadze)
As I wrote in a recent post:
***
The thing to remember is that while national feeling in Georgia was strong, "nationalism" in the sense of a movement for political independence was weak. As Richard Pipes writes in
The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communusm and Narionalism 1917-1923:
"The Georgians were primarily a rural people, composed of a largely impoverished ancient feudal aristocracy (5.26 per cent of the entire Georgian population in 1897) and a peasantry. The Georgian urban class was small and insignificant. It was the declasse nobility which, from the beginning, assumed the leadership over the cultural and political life of Georgia. The Georgians possessed nearly all the elements that usually go into the formation of national consciousness: a distinct language, with its own alphabet; an ancient and splendid literary heritage; a national territory; and a tradition of statehood and military prowess. In the 1870's, a cultural movement arose among the Georgian aristocracy, which, with its interest in the newly liberated peasant, assumed forms akin to Russian populism.
"The political phase of the national movement in Georgia acquired a somewhat unusual character. Whether it was due to the fact that the carriers of the national ideology in Georgia did not helong to the middle class but to an antibourgeois nobility, or whether it was caused by the general receptivity to Western ideas characteristic of the Georgians, or by still other causes, the Georgian movement became from its very inception closely identified if not completely fused with Marxian socialism. Marxism was introduced into Georgia in the 1880's and at once encountered an enthusiastic reception. In the First Duma, six of the seven Georgian deputies were Social Democrats; in the Third, two out of three. Georgian socialists did not form separate organizations of their own, but joined the regional branches of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, where they soon attained considerable prominence. They had no national demands. Noi Zhordaniia, one of the chief theoreticians of the movement, stated repeatedly that all demands for autonomy were utopian, and that Georgia would obtain sufficient self-rule as a result of the anticipated future democratization of Russia. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a small group of intellectuals, dissatisfied with this attitude, left the Social Democratic Party and founded a separate organization, Sakartvelo (Georgia), which in time transformed itself into the Georgian Party of Socialists-Federalists. Their program, close in social questions to that of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, called for the establishment of a Russian Federal Republic with autonomy for Georgia. Its popular following, however, judging by elections to the Dumas, was small. About 1910 the Georgian Mensheviks somewhat modified their views and adopted formulae calling for extraterritorial cultural autonomy for Georgia.
"The absence of territorial demands in the program of the most powerful party of the Georgian movement need not he interpreted as an indication of the lack of Georgian national sentiment. The national ideals of the Georgian intelligentsia were identified, ideologically and psychologically, with the goals of Russian and international socialism. As long as this attitude persisted-that is, as long as Georgian intellectuals believed Marxist socialism capable of dealing with the problems posed by the development of the Georgian nation, there was no necessity to advance territorial demands..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=smDy35onbtAC&pg=PA17
Also, see Natalie Sabanadze,
Globalization and Nationalism: "The reluctance to break away from Russia was largely motivated by pragmatism rather than by conformism on the part of the Georgian intelligentsia at the time. Incorporation into the Russian empire allowed Georgians to survive physically, offering protection from Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia. Russia was also seen as a Christian and hence, European power, which brought to the country not only peace but also development and a degree of Europeanization. Georgia was too weak and insecure to be left alone, exposed to hostile neighbors. Georgians therefore chose to ally with Imperial Russia and seek change for Georgia with Russia rather than against it. According to Jones, 'it was clear to the Georgian intelligentsia that Georgia’s fate was inexorably linked to that of Russia. Russia was Georgia’s 'prison guard,' but it was also the key to Georgia’s liberation.'"
https://books.openedition.org/ceup/573
It would thus be very unlikely that young Joseph Djugashvili would become a Georgian "nationalist" in the sense of an advocate of independence for Georgia (even though his youthful poetry was full of Georgian patriotism [1]). Had he done so, he would be politically isolated. On the contrary, it was overwhelmingly likely that once he managed to be conscious of modern western thought, he would become a Marxist. The real question is why he became a Bolshevik rather than (like most Georgian Social-Democrats) a Menshevik. Had he become a Menshevik he might, ironically, eventually become a sort of Georgian nationalist after all. For while the Georgian Mensheviks were opposed to nationalism, and accepted the independence of Georgia only because they really had no choice after the Bolsheviks took control of Russia and the short-lived "Transcaucasian Republic" disintegrated, once Georgia did become independent they fiercely defended not only its independence but its "historical" rights to disputed territory. David Lang wrote in
A Modern History of Georgia, "It is ironic to observe how the Georgian Social-Democrats, whose leaders were working as late as 1918 for the triumph of democratic socialism in a Russia united and undivided, were at length transformed by the force of circumstances into nationalists of chauvinistic fervour...". (My thanks to Halagaz for pointing out that quote at
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...r-of-theocratic-georgia.402039/#post-13460205)
The question is, though, how prominent would Stalin have become if he had been a Menshevik? There were so many brilliant and prominent Georgian Mensheviks that my guess is that he would be overshadowed. By contrast, the very fact that Bolsheviks were rare in Georgia helped bring Stalin to the attention of Russian Bolsheviks. Also, there is no doubt that one of Stalin's talents was for organizing things like bank robberies ("exproporations") which the Mensheviks opposed. I doubt therefore that Stalin would have had much of a role among the Georgian Mensheviks or as a leader of their short-lived Georgian Democratic Republic.
