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"This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity."

- Joseph Stalin, on the death of his first wife, Kato Svanidze.

What if Svanidze lives a full life instead of dying of tuberculosis? It seems that, while Stalin had already met Lenin and engaged in activities with the Bolsheviks at the time of her death, he wasn't quite the murder-happy, kill-your-friend-because-he-was-walking-with-your-wife, genocidal freak he turned out to be. Would he have still been dictator eventually, and what would be Trotsky's and Bukharin's fate in this alternate USSR?

I dunno, this seems like an interesting, human PoD that isn't explored often.
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