WI stalin dies at the start of german invasion of soviet union

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?
Curious about this one too, I wonder how it will affect the red armys performance
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.

Funny thing is... I actually want to see a AU Time Line of this and the outcome. Stalin was a ruthless bastard. It would be unique to see how the communist party would continue onward. Might make a good AU story out of it.

In fairness, I doubt even with Germany advancing and Stalin dead the Nazi would have have Russia to them. Soviet soldiers would have battled in the winter and the remaining generals would have help reorganize them to battle them in the harsh winter of the country.

So even with that said. I would say no. I still want to see my idea pitch made into a story by someone who can do it. (hint hint, free story idea, hint hint) It would be hard for even the best German generals to attack them in the winter.
 
Of course they CAN win but Stalin dyeing at a bad time and setting off a power struggle is a way the Soviets lose the war.
 
In the opening weeks it might help. The members of STAVKA & the PolitBuro were not stupid. they'd probably function as the the system was set up for a few weeks, and avoid some of Stalins dumber decisions in July. If anyone is 'eliminated; in June or July its Beria.

By the end of July all bets are off. The members of the Politburo & STAVKA might continue to function as a government with the usual friction, or they might fall apart.
 
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.
 
Of all the full members of the Politburo in June 1941, Molotov was probably the most dominant figure. Technically, though, Lazar Kaganovich would have had nominal authority as Deputy Chairman - and Lazar could be a ruthless SOB on par with any Soviet communist.

In truth, though, Stalin's death would leave a vacuum, with probability of some struggle to full the void after an initial period of collegial exercise of power - the chief players at that point being most likely Kaganovich, Molotov, and Zhdanov, I suspect.

It could be that Stalin being gone also removes some of his poor strategic decisions in the opening months of Barbarossa, but there's really no question but that the Soviets are going to experience some gruesome losses. And that will only intensify the battle for power. Without knowing how it plays out, it's hard to say.

But Stalin's death would certainly encourage Hitler into thinking he had a quick victory in his sights.
 
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.
 
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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 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.

OTL in 53 Beria got screwed, but when the very future existence of the USSR is up in the air as in 41, I think he's got a better shot.
 
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 don't think Beria has much of a chance at all. His power expanded enormously during WW2. So at the start of Barbarossa he's really a minor player. He's not had the power or the proven record of wins that allowed him to be a contender after 1953.

Also, it's worth remembering that the Bolsheviks were actually a pretty competent bunch. They knew fine well that the state security services, like the army, could be a threat to Party control. For this reason, they are liable to be suspicious of Beria, so I rate it as very unlikely that he will be allowed to get far if he goes for the top job.

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 are your sources here? As far as I have been able to tell, in 1941, Beria isn't very hated at all. So far as I can tell, he's seen kinda like Khrushchev. A comical little lickspittle who happens to be good at some jobs. And after 1953, the hatred of Beria is, so far as I can tell, driven mainly by the fear that if he wins, all his competitors will be brutally purged, rather than allowed to gracefully retire.

In other words, as far as I can tell the pack of murderous zealots don't seem to have been overly troubled that Beria was a raping murdering piece of human garbage.

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?

The Stalin breakdown, if it happened at all, is vastly over-rated and lasted two days at the most, not the 10 days generally claimed.

However, I don't think Stalin dying now changes too much about early Barbarossa. The poor performance had more to do with things like the Soviets deploying the bulk of their forces too far forwards (like all the German's enemies at this point in the war, they underestimated how deep the Germans could penetrate) laid their telephone lines above ground where German advance forces could easily find them and cut them, were suffering from over-rapid expansion which meant units didn't have enough training, equipment or officers, and ultimately just didn't have any good options (the "right" choice at this point was to pull the army back in a fighting retreat - but this surrenders 10s of millions of Soviet citizens to the not-so-tender mercies of the Nazis and in any case, fighting retreats are one of the most difficult military manoeuvres to pull off - even more so because the Soviet doctrine hadn't been thinking in terms of defence-in-depth - they'd been thinking in terms of defence-by-counter-attack to keep the enemy off balance and unable to concentrate forces to achieve decisive advances - a doctrine that they didn't have the officers or the equipment to pull off).

I think the Soviet political leadership would have remained in control. Molotov has the bulk of the power in legal terms (on paper, he had more power than Stalin at the start of the war, being premier and foreign minister) and has the respect of his collegues and enough competence that I think he would emerge as the first among equals. Do the Soviets deploy a cult of personality around him the way they intensified Stalin's cult of personality during the war? Maybe. Likely they select one of the core team to be the figure head to slot into the "Tsar" role in war propaganda. But Molotov may be too humble to take that role himself and his colleagues may want to keep him from getting too big for his boots. Possibly Kalinin acts as a figurehead father to the people since he was titular head of state and was also seen as a fairly non-threatening figure by his collegues.

I also agree that Kaganovich would be important in the regime. I'm not so sure Beria and Zhdanov would be important though. They were men who rose under Stalin's WW2 regime. I'm not so sure they'd be able to rise so high without Stalin. Among lesser figures, the safe ceiling to new men's rise is lower.

Without Stalin, the Soviet Union won't be so different. It's run by a bunch of rabid Stalinists after all. However, foreign policy could be very different. Molotov has at least been outside the country, has actually met Hitler, is likely to be less paranoid (but not too much less paranoid) when dealing with the Western Allies. We could see slightly closer cooperation between the Allies in war-time. 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.

fasquardon
 
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.
 
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.

Molotov had genuine talent in foreign affairs (see Churchill's assessment of him). One interesting question is how long Molotov would actually last. In OTL he made it to 1986. If he even makes it to the mid-1970s, that's Stalinism for half a century, without the Khrushchev thaw.
 
The Soviet Union and 2 a degree many of the peoples were fighting for existence. I think that the Nazis still eventually lose.

I presume almost any not Stalin relates better with the West
 
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.

The PoD here is Stalin dies at the start of Barbarossa. The Purges had started 5 years before and were pretty much over. Stalin dying now doesn't change his slanders being effective. And in any case, even if Molotov & co wanted to shift to a defence in depth strategy, there's no time to distribute plans to the fronts and move the men and material - the Germans are already on top of them and are doing a very good job of disrupting Soviet communications. By the time the Soviets restored command and control after having their telephone lines cut, there pretty much were no armies left on the boarder and the Germans were already chewing into the reserves.

As to deploying the reserves in front of Moscow, not doing so risks Moscow falling. The German thrust towards Moscow in OTL was very hard fought indeed and while the Soviets were losing, they were wearing the Germans down - much more so than we used to believe in the era before Western historians gained access to the former Soviet archives. By the time the Germans arrived at the city itself - right on the edge of their logistical capabilities - they did not have enough umf left to make a push to take the city. However, had the Soviets not committed everything to frustrating the German's main push here, they really don't know what would happen (and indeed, even today we don't know how that would have gone) and gambling on the capital is extremely risky. Personally, I can't make the call and say the Soviets in OTL blundered by not sending their reserves to the Ukraine, but what we can say for sure is that the Soviets, even without Stalin, are going to face the same tough choice, and the safest bet for them is to prioritize the defence of Moscow.

As to the the "insane counter attacks", that had pretty much nothing to do with Stalin. That was the doctrine Tukachevsky had devised (and which sorta got thrown out when the man himself was purged, but never really went away, it just got renamed). The reason the counter attacks were "insane" was because the Red Army didn't have the officers, training and equipment to pull them off. Once the Red Army finished the post Winter War reforms in 1943 (which had been substantially delayed by Barbarossa kicking off), then they are able to actually implement their doctrine and the counter attacks were not only sane, but they were often very effective (the Soviets still made some blunders, but that's just unavoidable when learning how a theory works on a real army, fighting on real terrain with real equipment and fighting a real enemy - even the Germans blundered badly while learning how this "modern war" stuff worked - they'd just started learning the lessons 2 years before anyone else). Armies cannot change doctrine on the fly. Someone other than Stalin could say what they liked (just like Stalin could say what he liked) but the Red Army could only be themselves. An order from the top saying "fight like the French or it's the Gulag for you" or "fight like the Germans or you'll be shot as a traitor" would be worse than useless.

fasquardon
 
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