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What if Stalin dies from a heart attack from shock of german invasion of soviet union(POD :instead of breakdown Stalin have a heart attack),can soviet union defeat german army without Stalin?
What if Stalin dies from a heart attack from shock of german invasion of soviet union(POD :instead of breakdown Stalin have a heart attack),can soviet union defeat german army without Stalin?
Also something I was thinking about in my mind. I been watching documentary over the Stalin years of Soviet Union. If Stalin died during the Germany advancement into Russia, the Russia would be mostly taken care of. Though, the Soviet would still fighting till the end. US would help out along with the UK and Germany would still be defeated by 1945.Curious about this one too, I wonder how it will affect the red armys performance
I have no idea who might succeed Stalin - Beria has a decent shot if people are looking for a "strong" leader like Stalin, but almost everyone had grievances with Beria because of the whole Great Terror thing, so who knows. The massive defeats such as at Kiev would probably be avoided though, maybe the winter 41-42 counter-offensive avoided, and the USSR probably just does better in the war all-around.
I think what we need to consider here is that (a) everyone knew that Stalin directed the purges - Beria just so happened to be a willing henchman, and everyone still rallied around Stalin to fight the Germans, since they felt they needed a "strong leader" like they did during collectivization, and (b) Beria had only been in control of the Cheka for a couple years, and the worst of the Terror was conducted by Yezhov, which may be some sort of mitigating factor.Everyone HATED Beria. If there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's planting a knife in his back or pushing him down a flight of stairs. His best move is to buy a train ticket to Turkey ASAP. You'll notice OTL he did not live out the year after Stalin died, I see no reason for it to be any different now.
I have no idea who might succeed Stalin - Beria has a decent shot if people are looking for a "strong" leader like Stalin, but almost everyone had grievances with Beria because of the whole Great Terror thing, so who knows. The massive defeats such as at Kiev would probably be avoided though, maybe the winter 41-42 counter-offensive avoided, and the USSR probably just does better in the war all-around.
Everyone HATED Beria. If there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's planting a knife in his back or pushing him down a flight of stairs. His best move is to buy a train ticket to Turkey ASAP. You'll notice OTL he did not live out the year after Stalin died, I see no reason for it to be any different now.
What if Stalin dies from a heart attack from shock of german invasion of soviet union(POD :instead of breakdown Stalin have a heart attack),can soviet union defeat german army without Stalin?
However, the big changes are post war. Stalin's biggest foreign policy blunders are between 1945 and 1953. It's hard to see anyone else, even Molotov, messing things up as hard as Stalin. Certainly, if Molotov is in charge, we don't see the Soviet Union preparing to savagely repress its Jews. Molotov was married to a Jewish woman (though Polina Semyonovna was not religious) and just isn't anywhere near as paranoid as Stalin.
I don't agree that the war would play out mostly the same. Stalin is the one that pushed forward defense and allowed advocates of defense in-depth to be slandered as traitors during the purge, and most importantly in 1941 he deployed most of the reservists being called up to the central front in front of Moscow in the early Fall rather than to prevent an encirclement of Kiev, and refused to order the Red Army to withdraw before it was too late.
The insane counter attacks helped diminish German strength enough to foil Typhoon, but having the additional hundreds of thousands not destroyed in the initial encirclements would've been even better in foiling Typhoon and Case Blue the following year.
Some of the early disasters likely still happen, but I say the war goes a lot better for the Soviets in this timeline.