The "Best" Replacement for Stalin

So my thoughts have been drifting into the realm of Soviet history and politics recently. (Can you blame me?)

Obviously, there's a lot of Alternate history written about Stalin and the other contenders to leadership of the Soviet Union. Some even argue Stalin's brutal drives for industrialization and his purge of non-Russians and dissidents were what allowed Russia to survive WWII.

I ask you folks- who would have been the best candidate to lead the USSR? Trotsky is the most commonly named candidate, but his 'World Revolution' probably would have ended badly and he was pro-agriculture himself. So which Party member could have made the best leader? Molotov? Bukharin? A surviving Lenin (assuming he wasn't shot)? How would they deal with the famines, Depression, Nazis, etc?

Discuss, please!
 
My choice would be Kirov.

Essentially a hardliner like Stalin but not paranoid. I suspect his approach would be based on his record in the South and in Leningrad. Basically pragmatic and able to be flexible and work with other leftists as long as they accept the supremecy of the Bolsheviks.

So a continuation of industrialization but without the terror. Probably too a continuation in modified form of the NEP.
 
My choice would be Kirov.

Essentially a hardliner like Stalin but not paranoid. I suspect his approach would be based on his record in the South and in Leningrad. Basically pragmatic and able to be flexible and work with other leftists as long as they accept the supremecy of the Bolsheviks.

So a continuation of industrialization but without the terror. Probably too a continuation in modified form of the NEP.

Would Kirov have cooperated with the Nazi regime?
 
I am not convinced Trotsky would be as bad as some have said.

To quote from When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics

"The alternative to the autarkical development strategies of Bukharin and Stalin was formulated by Trotsky.... Trotsky identified low labor productivity-rather than the threat of dependence on the capitalist camp-as the most critical problem for Russian economic development. And the solution, he decided, was to encourage foreign trade and capital imports, to transfer the advanced technology of America and Europe to the USSR, and to achieve thereby a rapid tempo of industrialization and a high level of a productivity.

Development based on Russia's indigenous engineering and metallurgy would merely bind the USSR to a primitive technology, require an industrialization period of ten to twenty years, and result in low quality products".

I mean, a wide eyed exporter of the Revolution this ain't.
 
Would Kirov have cooperated with the Nazi regime?

I am sure he would have allowed German research and military training on Soviet territory as in OTL. What would happen when Hitler came to power would be a complete suspension of such arrangements. I cannot imagine anyone but Stalin making such convoluted and strange ideological reasons for supporting the cooperation.

No profitable trade with Germany once the Nazis are in command.
 

hammo1j

Donor
It seems that a society has to go through several stages to reach our modern democracy.

1. Kingship/Dictator with absolute Power enforced by absolutely loyal henchmen.
2. Nobles/ruling class with power to elect a Leader.
3. Democratic franchised leader.

It seems that certain things have to exist in that society for the stage to advance. Thus we have the big trouble of going from 1. to 3. in a few years in Iraq.

I think Russia was at Stage 1 so Stalin would have to be an absolutely ruthless dictator just to preserve his own position. What comes by definition with ruthlessness is so often over-brutality and paranoia. So we would want a Stalin with just enough brutality and paranoia to survive but not as in OTL with enough to almost destroy the SU. He would have to empower the hierarchy of his own party with a view of taking the process onto step 2 which is the level China is at now.

I am trying to think of such a character in history and may be the current Chinese leader might fit the position.

One of the ways that Stalin could have secured the loyalty of his people is through Wars of Expansionism which was the standard way of doing things with Medieval Kingships.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Were there any Internationalists that had any chance of becoming Top Dog instead of Stalin, besides Trotsky that is?
 

Goldstein

Banned
It seems that a society has to go through several stages to reach our modern democracy.

1. Kingship/Dictator with absolute Power enforced by absolutely loyal henchmen.
2. Nobles/ruling class with power to elect a Leader.
3. Democratic franchised leader.

It seems that certain things have to exist in that society for the stage to advance. Thus we have the big trouble of going from 1. to 3. in a few years in Iraq.

The problem in Iraq isn't that they have gone from 1 to 3, but that foreign imposition of a political system, tends to derive in disaster. Theres a lot of coutries that went from 1 to 3 without any serious problem.

In this case, the SU doesn't need a "moderate brutality", and political reformism doesn't imply a best case scenario. They need a leader who supports industrialization, doesn't trust the Nazis, isn't expansionist, and isn't willing of reaching the term "state terrorism" to never seen heights. Just that.
 
I am not convinced Trotsky would be as bad as some have said.

To quote from When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics

"The alternative to the autarkical development strategies of Bukharin and Stalin was formulated by Trotsky.... Trotsky identified low labor productivity-rather than the threat of dependence on the capitalist camp-as the most critical problem for Russian economic development. And the solution, he decided, was to encourage foreign trade and capital imports, to transfer the advanced technology of America and Europe to the USSR, and to achieve thereby a rapid tempo of industrialization and a high level of a productivity.

Development based on Russia's indigenous engineering and metallurgy would merely bind the USSR to a primitive technology, require an industrialization period of ten to twenty years, and result in low quality products".

I mean, a wide eyed exporter of the Revolution this ain't.

Well, if this is true, Trotskij was quite different from the fireeater usually depicted.
 
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