I was reading the first chapter of Simon Montifore's Young Stalin, and it gives a pretty good layout of how Stalin ran his criminal gang in the 1910s. I got thinking with a friend of mine on a little scenario that struck me... (mostly for fun, but I think there's a pretty interesting story here)
In 1910s Georgia, would-be Bolshevik revolutionary Iosif Dzhugashvili is stuck in a major crisis. A plan that began as the biggest bank robbery in Georgia's history ends up failing spectacularly, robbing him of his muscle and bringing down the wrath of the Okhrana on him.
With nowhere else to go, a mysterious benefactor, having witnessed his rise to power in the Georgian underworld, offers him another chance. To go to America, set up a brand new criminal empire, and convert thousands of the American working class to the Communist cause.
Reluctantly, Iosif takes the chance to "melt down the cross of gold". Making landfall in New York and setting up shop in the steeltown of Pittsburgh, the would-be revolutionary changes his name to Joseph Stalin. He soon makes a name for himself in the American underworld, while finding even greater success in manipulating the Pittsbrgh steel unions to the Communist cause. But he also finds himself against a new host of enemies: the rising Mafia syndicates, rival labor unions, and the growing influence of a certain J.Edgar Hoover...
I haven't really ironed out the rest of this, but I do have a concrete ending: by the 1920s Stalin has made enough money to majorly contribute back to the Bolsheviks at home, but has also ended up pissing off a lot of people, and started a major war against the mafia. Whatever does happen because of this, he is forced back to the USSR just as Lenin's last days become apparent.
Oh, and some other fun things that me and my friend noticed...
* What happens to Trotsky?
* How might his interactions with the mafia, Jewish mob, and the other syndicates go?
* Speaking of which, I had a fun idea for a line: "I am not Russian, Mister Capone, I am Georgian!"
* Stalin taking nightly English lessons (to better communicate with his Americanized lackeys and to finally watch those American movies he loved so much without translators)
Anyone have any more interesting ideas for what could happen if this gets kicked off? Could Stalin fight a war with the likes of Al Capone and Luciano going forward? Might this push Hoover into the spotlight a few years early? How would the American underworld change?
