WI: No Officer Purge

He was one of Lenin's #2s by 1917, and Lenin had appointed him to his most powerful position by 1922. After that he used his office to grow a support base; that's just good politics. His "backstabbing" in many instances was just taking advantage of preexisting rivalries.

He betrayed people, hell yeah, but more to maintain power rather than attain it.
The only way to get rid of Stalin is to have a far more public falling out after the Georgian Intervention and to have a more suitable successor than Trotsky.
 
They were romanticized like you wouldn't believe; Bolsheviks loved cavalry charges, and there was very much a cult of the Red Cavalry that was only supported and prolonged by buffoons like Voroshilov and Budyonny.
Unlikely. So long as Lenin is alive, Stalin is safe.It's not a question of necessity or skill, it's a matter of faith. Are you a True Believer or not?This is going to be seen as completely unacceptable by pretty much everybody, Party and Army. Most of the Army leaders were sincere Bolsheviks and believed in the supremacy of the Party.
He was one of Lenin's #2s by 1917, and Lenin had appointed him to his most powerful position by 1922. After that he used his office to grow a support base; that's just good politics. His "backstabbing" in many instances was just taking advantage of preexisting rivalries.

He betrayed people, hell yeah, but more to maintain power rather than attain it.

Ah, I see. Well... time to go back to the original Russian Revolution and have a different part of the radical left take over.:( Although... you did get a TL where the Soviet Union successfully invests in things like tanks and aircraft, along with having much better leadership. Even kept Trotsky in without making him leader. Impressive.
 

sharlin

Banned
If there was no purge the Russian armed forces might be in better shape and considering that the new Russian tanks were far in advance of the German ones (T-34 and KV-1 naturally) can you imagine what would happen if the Soviets managed to also start producing the planned KV-3 with its either 85mm gun or the fearsome 107mm gun.


KV-3 Specifications

Designation: Tyazhyeliy Tank KV-3
Crew: 5 (cdr, gnr, ldr, dvr, co-dvr)
Weight: 149,914lb/68,000kg
Length: 30’4”/9.25m
Height: 10’2”/3.10m
Width: 11’2”/3.41m
Armament: 1x 107mm ZIS-6 gun, 2x 7.62mm DT machine-guns.
Ammunition Stowage: 44x 107mm, 2772 x 7.62mm.
Armour Thickness: Up to 130mm
Engine: V-2SN supercharged 12-cylinder diesel, 2368cu in/39 litre, 850hp.
Suspension: Transverse torsion bar
Maximum Speed: 19mph/30km/h
Road Radius: less than 124 miles/200km


Or the even bigger and better armoured KV-5 both of which were planned but due to war breaking out, never went into production.

KV-5 Specifications

Designation
Tyazhyeliy Tank KV-5
Crew 5 (cdr, gnr, ldr, dvr, MG gnr)
Weight
220,462lb/100,000kg
Length
36’5”/11.10m
Height
13’1”/4.00m
Width
12’11”/3.95m
Armament
1 x 107mm ZIS-6 gun;
3 x 7.62mm DT MGs
Armour Thickness
Up to 170mm
Engine
2 x V-2 12-cylinder diesel;
2368cu in/39 litre, 600hp each
Suspension
Transverse torsion bar


Imagine Panzer IIIs and IV's coming up against them. The Germans were not prepared for the T-34 and the KV-1 how would the do against a better armoured, better gunned KV.
 
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iddt3

Donor
Not Stalin, Bolshevism. Violent systematic purges were the norm of Bolshevik rule since the beginning. The Officer Class had become an alternative powerbase to the Party; Tukhachevsky and Stalin loathed each other. And more than a few officers remembered Stalin's less-than-stellar performance during the Civil War. Bolshevik culture also disliked the idea of replacing horses and trains with tanks and planes.

Point, the purges were inherent to the system, Stalin just used them most famously and broadly.
 

iddt3

Donor
They were romanticized like you wouldn't believe; Bolsheviks loved cavalry charges, and there was very much a cult of the Red Cavalry that was only supported and prolonged by buffoons like Voroshilov and Budyonny.
Unlikely. So long as Lenin is alive, Stalin is safe.It's not a question of necessity or skill, it's a matter of faith. Are you a True Believer or not?This is going to be seen as completely unacceptable by pretty much everybody, Party and Army. Most of the Army leaders were sincere Bolsheviks and believed in the supremacy of the Party.
He was one of Lenin's #2s by 1917, and Lenin had appointed him to his most powerful position by 1922. After that he used his office to grow a support base; that's just good politics. His "backstabbing" in many instances was just taking advantage of preexisting rivalries.

He betrayed people, hell yeah, but more to maintain power rather than attain it.
Lenin was looking to get rid of him by the time he died though, he thought Stalin was a thug, albeit a useful one.
 
I think the USSR would have done much better but it still wouldn't cancel out all their other problems. The purge was just another layer in their problems. It would however probably take better advantage of early German mistakes.
 
Obviously there will be lots of butterflies with this, the entire perception of the strength of the Red Army and the Soviet Union could very well convince the Germans to give more concessions to the Soviets if any pact is made. The Soviets marching on Helsinki might lead to direct Anglo-French intervention. Hitler might call off his invasion until 1942 to buy time, or alternatively he might attack in 1940...
 
It depends. Some of the officers purged were fossils whose concepts of modern war were no great improvement on the Voroshilovs and Mekhlises of OTL. If Tuchachevsky survives he might well create an army that does what Zhukov did with a mite fewer casualties than Zhukov took. In fact he and Zhukov might be a victorious analogue to Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

The problem is that the Red Army was seen by Stalin as favoring Trotsky because well, Trotsky created it and the Trotsykist bunch such as it was made up a lot of the high command. Add in that the Red Army in several occasions during the Civil War switched sides to the Whites if it could do so with a fair chance of getting away with it and you've got two reasons any Soviet dictator will want to have a tight rein on the army.

Assuming the Red Army survives and is overall much more competent and with far more modern equipment than IOTL and with the ability to decide things in its own right with much less interference from Stalin, then the Axis-Soviet War will be over by 1943 at the latest as what worked for Germany in 1940 winds up torn to bits against a Soviet army equal in numbers, vastly superior in doctrine and firepower and using airborne troops to tremendous effect against a Germany no longer willing to use them. The result would be a war where the Soviets have qualitative superiority over the Germans, quantitative parity, are ready, waiting for, and expecting the German offensive, and are building up the huge reserves of OTL that got chewed up by the early Barbarossa battles.

Barbarossa becomes seen as the most dramatic defeat in German military history and World War II becomes "Rise of the Bolsheviks" instead of the horrific, grinding Fascist-Communist bloodbath it was IOTL. Hitler becomes seen as an extremely opportunistic gambler whose gambles worked only due to mistakes on the part of his enemies, Stalin becomes the most famous dictator of the war, the German atrocities in Poland and wherever else they commit them are either major elements of Soviet propaganda and thus dismissed/whitewashed by the democracies postwar or alternately ignored by both sides.
 
Lenin was looking to get rid of him by the time he died though, he thought Stalin was a thug, albeit a useful one.

If he was looking to get rid of him, saying he was rude and incautious with power but all the other Bolsheviks should never be trusted with power is an odd way to remove him. He seems to have been trying to contain Stalin, not remove him.
 
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