Lavrenty Beria. Probably one of the most evil men in world history. Let’s say this prick becomes the leader of the Soviet Union.
What happens?
What happens?
WI; Lavrenty Beria becomes leader of the Soviet Union?
- Thread starter SlickerVyn
- Start date
Based on which source you read, he’s either Stalin 2.0, or the Deng xiaoping of Russia.
Lot's of very bad things to young women and girls unfortunate enough to be in grabbing distance of the black lada prowling the countryside.
Beyond that his USSR might not actually be that bad. He was an amoral asshole, but seems to have been administratively competent and basically sane. He was an opportunist rather than an idealist so policy blunders like the Virgin Lands Campaign, retention of Lysenkoism, active continuation of the Cold War, and Sino-Soviet Split could be avoided. Not sure he'd actually go through with marketization as some have suggested, but something as simple as extending the quality control measures of the military industries to the rest of Soviet manufacturing could be a neat way to create cushy retirement postings for his fellow butchers.
Somehow, I doubt it. Beria, from what I know, was a power-mad dog of a man. I feel like he'd actually reverse some policies and be worse than Stalin, clamping down even harder on civil liberties to tighten his grip. He was the head of the secret police.
Really implausible that Beria gets power. Even Stalin loathed him deeply and was even once freaked out when heard that his daughter has been alone with Beria. Only reason why Stalin didn't give bullet for Beria was that Stalin needed him. And other Stalin's inner circle men hadn't much more love towards Beria.
Why?
He was a superb organiser and was pro detente with the West even at that early stage. The Soviet Union would have benefited from his leadership.
To become leader he would have had to develop support within the inner circle and/or eliminate his enemies ( definitely not beyond him).
His problem was timing. Stalin's death was too soon for him to do either. Stalin surviving for weeks longer, but fairly incapacitated, or just a general decline with no stroke would have provided the time for him to plot his succession to power.
And for the record, yes he was a dreadful human being but so were Stalin, Kruschev, and many other leaders with whom the West had to deal. Geopolitics isn't a morality play, but a game where every nation seeks benefit for itself. The personal conduct of a a nation's leaders is irrelevant.
He was surely good organiser but probably was too detente with the West on eyes of Politbyroo.
Surely. But he just managed to get more enemies.
I think that problem was that Stalin lived too long. There was already forming anti-Beria opposition. Probably his best shot would had been between 1945 - 1948.
Presumably 1948, after the successful nuke test...the man who negated the US nuclear advantage...
Ignoring that he was one SICK fellow, I don’t think he would have been any better the Stalin as far as the USSR was concerned. As he would have been as hard if not harder handed then Stalin was and even more feared. I tgink the purges would have cont and anyone he didn’t like or didn’t think he could control would have been ousted or just “disappeared “. The use of force to strong arm control would have been even worse. Until someone finally killed him. And that would have been a long line of contenders to kill him as everyone hated him.
it would have been a simple question of if he could survive long enough to remove any threats such as the politburo. Which obviously the politburo knew and thus why they removed him first.
And while the movie was not 100% accurate it was a reasonable good if shortened version of what happened.
From an external point of view he propab would have been easier for other countries to get along with politically.
it would have been a simple question of if he could survive long enough to remove any threats such as the politburo. Which obviously the politburo knew and thus why they removed him first.
And while the movie was not 100% accurate it was a reasonable good if shortened version of what happened.
From an external point of view he propab would have been easier for other countries to get along with politically.
Beria's different. Beria's reputation was horrendous. Like, so bad even Stalin didn't want his daughter alone with the man. And Beria knew this and when he accidentally was alone with her, got as far away as possible to ensure he couldn't be accused of... well. You know.
Machiavelli remarked it's better to feared than loved, but a leader shouldn't be hated. Beria was reviled. It's not a question of if he gets assassinated, but when and by who.
Crazy Boris
Banned
I don’t think he’d last long enough as leader of the USSR if he somehow managed to crawl into that position to really do much of anything. The second word reaches the rest of Soviet leadership that Beria has taken the top spot, they’re gonna act fast to take him down by any means necessary, and they’ll be hailed as heroes for doing it.
Nobody liked him. Khrushchev only allied with him out of convenience and tossed him aside when he was no longer needed; Stalin despised him and was terrified when he learned his daughter was alone with him (and wanted to remove him by 1953); so on, and so forth.
The CPSU didn't operate via Fuhrerprinzip: even if it did, Stalin wanted to get rid of Beria as other gifted administrators like Ivan Serov rose through the ranks of the NKVD. Beria would need some form of support, and given that people either hated him for being a pedophilic [arguably serial] murderer, hated his liberal policies (the big one which ultimately got him arrested and executed was the idea of giving East Germany to the West), or both, he had no shot at becoming anything close to the paramount leader.