What if Stalin dies/is deposed during 1941?

A lot of the people on this thread seem to be making the argument that without Stalin the Soviet Union would collapse due to the infighting that would inevitably follow, but it seem to me that a full scale invasion by an army of genocidal maniacs would probably offer a very strong incentive for the post-Stalin political leaders of the Soviet Union to cooperate, and at least defer the internal blood-letting until the present danger has been dealt with.
 

Deleted member 1487

A lot of the people on this thread seem to be making the argument that without Stalin the Soviet Union would collapse due to the infighting that would inevitably follow, but it seem to me that a full scale invasion by an army of genocidal maniacs would probably offer a very strong incentive for the post-Stalin political leaders of the Soviet Union to cooperate, and at least defer the internal blood-letting until the present danger has been dealt with.
The problem is who is in charge. People are making the assumption because there is no clear successor to organize things and a lot of bad blood between say the military and NKVD. Whomever accumulates ruling level powers during the war would keep them after it, so already there is a struggle with the military, secret police, and civilian government. Beria is paranoid about his future (rightly) as is everyone else about him.
 
Alexander: Fully agree. Of course it would unite the nation a bit, BUT

Things take time... and to hammer out any agreement between the personalities would not be an easy task.

That is in this time frame a collapse might happen.

Could they even agree about anything while Stalin was still around?

We also need to bear in mind that 1941 is not 1945 or later. The power bases were not fully established.

Ivan
 
From an outside perspective it would make sense for all the possible successors to work together to fight the Nazis.

However the way things had been going I think a lot of them would worry that if they weren't in control they would wind up dead. Therefore the threat of being killed by your Soviet competitors would be more immediate than being conquered by the Germans.

A ruling by committee plan where 3-5 people have equal power seems the least likely to work, would they really be able to fully trust each other? Or would they be looking over their shoulder worried about being stabbed in the back and looking for the chance to stab them in the back first.

I think the best chance for the USSR would be for someone to seize power fast and do any necessary purging right away so there aren't any questions of who is in power. The longer the struggle drags out the more it benefits the Germans.
 
Fully agree, Paul.
The problem is: who was strong enough to become the next dictator?

Whoever wanted to be the next 'king of the heap' had to have the support of party, army or NKVD.

I think this is where the wheels really would come off. Stalin had made sure that nobody would be strong enough (or clever enough) to challenge him.

If we look at the closest competitor in 1945 - Zhukov - well, he was also 'promoted sideways' (sort of).

.. and all infighting would benefit Germany.

If we look at a 'do nothing' strategy for the first four weeks (until July), Germany might have been able to take more prisoners as more troops would be sent to the 'front' in the border areas.

Even so, even if Germany had no need for fighting anything, it is still doubtful if they could have occupied the huge territory they aimed at.

Administration and pacifying and just be seen to be in occupation would zap resources galore.

Ivan


Ivan
 
Now I'm curious as to how the rest of the war turns out, and if this turns into an all out Nazi, or even Axis, Win. Somehow, I expect the PoD is too late to prevent Pearl Harbor;* what can the "Allies" (which TTL are pretty much the Commonwealth and the US) do now?

*(Sakharin possibly being easier pickings notwithstanding)
 
A lot of the people on this thread seem to be making the argument that without Stalin the Soviet Union would collapse due to the infighting that would inevitably follow, but it seem to me that a full scale invasion by an army of genocidal maniacs would probably offer a very strong incentive for the post-Stalin political leaders of the Soviet Union to cooperate, and at least defer the internal blood-letting until the present danger has been dealt with.

I think the internal blood-letting is less of an issue than an issue of leadership. In a time of crisis, a single strong decisive leader tends to do better than a committee. And of course, said leader has to make the right decisions too. The lack of a strong #2 makes that transition difficult in 1941 as there is no time for the successors to decide. Perhaps a decisive personality could emerge from the vacuum quickly ala Churchill in 1940. But a total collapse is just as likely if the various factions fail to rally around someone quickly for work to protect their fiefdoms.
 
Ivan - I think the only chance would be if one of them somehow found out Stalin was dead before the others and had time to plan any necessary purges and put himself into the best possible position before Stalin being dead is known by everyone. For example Beria is summoned to visit Stalin and finds him dead but tells the guards and everyone else that Stalin is ill and ordered not to be disturbed.

Otherwise as you said no one was in a strong enough position to easily claim and hold power.

Now I'm curious as to how the rest of the war turns out, and if this turns into an all out Nazi, or even Axis, Win. Somehow, I expect the PoD is too late to prevent Pearl Harbor;* what can the "Allies" (which TTL are pretty much the Commonwealth and the US) do now?

*(Sakharin possibly being easier pickings notwithstanding)

If the USSR collapses and and the UK hangs in the war and Pearl Harbor happens and Germany declares war on the US I would think the UK would then decide to stick it out. Germany would still have a lot of work occupying the vast amount of territory they captured. If they decided to start building an amphibious capability to invade the UK that would take them awhile and meanwhile the US would be reinforcing the UK and building up their Air Force. I don't think the Germans would be able to obtain air superiority to ever make it across the channel.

On the other hand DDay happening in 1944 doesn't seem likely either. The US/UK would probably eventually win in North Africa by overwhelming the Germans from both sides after an Operation Torch event happens. The Germans would be able to put more resources into the Luftwaffe and air defense which would make the allied bombing efforts more costly and less effective. The Axis would be able to put a lot more forces into France and Sicily and other possible invasion points, so I'm not sure what the allies would do. They could wait until nuclear weapons were available, however German air defenses would be much stronger than Japan in 1945 so they would probably want to wait until they had multiple bombs and then plan a large raid with lots of aircraft to ensure success, so I could see the war drag into late 1945 or 1946. But as long as the allies decide to stick it out they should eventually win since the Germans were so far behind in their nuclear programs.

The best the Germans could hope for is the US/UK to grow tired of the war before they have nukes and accept a peace treaty and enter into a cold war.
 
Top