WI: Bukharinist USSR

Fenris

Banned
No doubt this has been done to death, but I was curious and I wanted to ask.

How would the USSR develop after the death of Lenin, if it were Bukharin and not Stalin holding the reins? Bukharin strikes me as a much more reasonable type than the other Soviet leaders at the time (from what little I've read of him). Would the USSR have managed to industrialize up to at least OTL 1939 levels by.....well, 1939, and emerge triumphant at the end of *World War 2? Would the USSR have survived, or even prospered, up to the modern day?

*Assuming a roughly convergent war occurs.
 
Bukharin might well prove pragmatic enough to form a solid alliance with the democracies to prevent a German resurgence under any variant of fascism, and he certainly would have a different approach to the Popular Front issue than Stalin did. If Bukharin played his cards right the USSR might wind up militarily weaker than its Stalinist variant but Germany would never have the military ability to launch Operation White, much less Operation Barbarossa, in any time before the USSR, UK, and France would work to collapse it.

Bukharin, however, would still be a bit of a self-righteous bloody-minded dick because all the Bolsheviks were. He would not alter the existence of concentration camps or the focus on collectivization as both of these were goals going all the way back to Lenin. He is unlikely, however, to execute the massive and audacious purges of Stalin's dictatorship and for that reason the USSR may well wind up a lot stronger.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Why do people entertain the notion of Bukharin taking over the USSR? He had neither the desire, will, nor support to run the place. He was the definition of a "salon Bolshevik;" he much preferred being an aloof intellectual and the "darling of the Party" to actual governance. He would absentmindedly doodle caricatures of his comrades during Politburo meetings, for Chrissake; hardly executive material.

I'd rate him just under Trotsky in terms of likelihood of ruling the USSR.
 
So, Bukharin is not likely to seize power by actively overthrowing Stalin.

What if Stalin were to die suddenly (accident, natural causes) sometime in 1928? Trotsky and his closer supporters are far from power (Trotsky just exiled to Kazakhstan) and Stalin has not yet turned on Bukharin by ending NEP and hurrying collectivization.

Bukharin is the most prestigious communist left, but he does not want to hold power. Does he stay in power because nobody else has the prestige to seize it (everyone else would ally to keep Bukharin on top), or get replaced, and when and by whom? Trotsky recalled from exile? One of Stalin´s minions? And which of them?

When was Kirov the logical heir of Stalin?
 
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