What would the effects be of Stalin (say) suffering an incapacitating but non-fatal stroke in 1936 be? What would a plausible way of so incapacitating or killing Stalin be in the 1934-1936 period?
Obviously the Great Purges as OTL are largely stopped in their tracks...I can't imagine that the Soviet leadership here will be more friendly to the NKVD than they were after Stalin's actual death in 1953, and though some murders may continue on simply by inertia or in case Stalin wakes up, most of them will be avoided. Will this substantially affect *Barbarossa? In fact, with the likelihood that nothing even remotely like Molotov-Ribbentrop is signed here, will WWII even happen?
What are the economic effects? Is collectivization stopped or even reversed? Is the Soviet/Stalin emphasis on heavy industry stopped or ended (which could have some interesting butterfly effects on Chinese development...assuming the Communists win the war, of course, and that Mao will listen to non-Stalin Soviets)?
Does Bukharin regain a prominent place in Soviet politics (he was theoretically rehabilitated between 1934 and 1936, and with the death of Stalin it seems possible that certain figures will reenter the political scene)? In fact, does Trotsky attempt to stage a comeback?
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I'm working on a timeline involving Stalin getting taken out in such a way, and I want to make sure I'm not doing something ridiculously stupid before I post it.