WI: Stalin dies post-power consolidation but pre-Great Terror?

This has long been my dream TL idea, but I think I'm too much of a perfectionist and would get bogged down way too quickly so I'm just going to have a light discussion on it!

So: after having the Right Opposition and Left Opposition neutered/banned and basically entirely filling the government with his cronies but before Kirov is murdered, what happens if Stalin, say, rather publicly trips on the stairs and snaps his neck? Just doing some research, it does seem like Molotov would be the prime suspect for taking power, although depending on when this happens, Kirov could be a plausible candidate. What do you think? Plus, what are the immediate and long-term effects?
 
A significant number of those who were expelled, both in the Right and some amongst the Left Oppositions, ended up recanting their opposition and rejoining the Party. I agree that Molotov would be a key figure, probably Kaganovich as well, as these two had the most organisational power but I could see them letting some amongst the Rights, like Rykov, return to the Party and organise a tentative alliance - depends on what challenges they face in the early 30's. Alternatively, if there was any sort of suspicion regarding Stalin's death, that could be exactly the excuse needed for the leadership to purge whoever they wanted much like Kirov's death was Stalin's excuse.
 
I'll repeat a post of mine from a few months ago:

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IMO Kirov's importance was magnified by his assassination, and he had not really stood much chance of being Stalin's successor. The best work on Kirov is Matthew Lenoe's The Kirov Murder and Soviet History (the basic thesis of which is that Nikolaev probably acted alone in killing Kirov). Two points Lenoe makes:

(1) One should not exaggerate Kirov's stature in 1934. "Not only did the early publications of the memorial campaign turn Kirov into a plaster saint, they also exaggerated his stature in the party leadership. Perusal of Pravda and even Leningrad's hometown Leningradkaya Pravda from 1934 suggests that Kirov's public profile before his death was substantially lower than that of Kaganovich, Molotov, or Ordzhonikidze. Coverage of the Leningrad leader was comparable to that of Pavel Postyshev and other second-level party officials. The overstatement of Kirov's power and prestige during the memorial campaign contributed to later assertions that he was a serious rival to Stalin." The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, pp. 494-495.

(2) Lenoe also argues that it is not true that Kirov got more votes than Stalin for re-election to the Central Committee at the Seventeenth Party Congress: "I. F. Kodatsky, from Leningrad, and Mikhail Kalinin were the only two TsK members elected unanimously. Stalin received three votes against, and Kirov four." p. 757. There were allegations in 1960-61 that there had really been two or three hundred votes against Stalin, but Lenoe dismisses them as implausible and designed to fit Khrushchev's narrative of the time--that many "honest Leninists" had tried to stand up to Stalin, but were thwarted by Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich--the last named was very conveniently accused of altering the voting results. pp. 613-614.) Of course that there were any votes at all against any of the leaders--especially Stalin--was suppressed, and in later memory that may have been inflated (or deliberately exaggerated) into suppression of a huge number of anti-Stalin votes.

IMO Molotov has the best chance. He was respected as a hard worker. Not imaginative, but it is doubtful that the Politburo wanted someone imaginative at the time. Andreyev, though a full Politburo member since 1932, was not of the same stature. Zhdanov was not even a candidate member of the Politburo until 1934. It's way too early for Malenkov. Kaganovich's Jewish origins would probably be enough to disqualify him. Former "Right Oppositionists" like Bukharin and Rykov would have a better chance of surviving than if Stalin had lived, but I can't see them returning to the really powerful offices. Former "Left Oppositionists" had even less chance of a return to power.

BTW, a Stalin death in 1933 is quite plausible. "...in August-September 1933, he [Stalin] was involved in two accidents, both of them potentially fatal. In the first, his automobile nearly collided head-on with a truck on a dark road outside Sochi. In the second a border detachment fired on his motorboat by accident near Gagra on the Black Sea. Stalin ordered measures taken to investigate each incident and prevent anything similar in the future, but he did not treat either as a potential assassination plot..." https://books.google.com/books?id=VTyQA8z-XQ4C&pg=PT684 We tend to forget that even in Stalin's USSR, sometimes people (including people whose deaths would be convenient to others) really did die by accident...
 
@David T

That’s pretty interesting. So let’s say we lose Stalin in the 30s then. How will that affect the USSR in WW2 and in the Cold War?

I figure the USSR would still be with the Allies against the Nazis
 
A Kaganovich-led USSR during the 30s, especially during the rise of Nazism, would be fascinating.

For one, Hitler's anti-semitism may result in him refusing to even countenance a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with a Soviet Union explicitly led by a Jewish leader.
 
Fascinating stuff, David! Hadn't ever considered that this question had been asked before, guess I should have looked for it. Molotov does seem like the obvious choice, then, although Kaganovich does bring up some interesting foreign policy conundrums as Cregan pointed out. I can easily see Kamenev/Zinoviev returning to more minor positions, as well as Bukharin, although obviously they wouldn't be as prominent especially in the wake of Stalin's death. The question then becomes what the geopolitical reaction to this is, as I can imagine that Nazi-Soviet relations would be pretty heavily impacted. The "social fascist" concept might be ended earlier, as well.
 
Most likely we'd see a collective leadership with Molotov as first among equals. Assuming Stalin dies in one of the near-fatal incidents from 1933 David outlined above, Molotov would have already been the equivalent of "prime minister" (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars) since 1930. It would be highly unlikely that Molotov would take both the positions of Chairman and General Secretary at the same time, seeing as Stalin himself didn't do that until 1941. I'm guessing a new troika comprised of Molotov, Orjonikidze, and Kaganovich, with Molotov relinquishing the Chairman post to become General Secretary and one of the latter two becoming Chairman.
 
A Kaganovich-led USSR during the 30s, especially during the rise of Nazism, would be fascinating.

For one, Hitler's anti-semitism may result in him refusing to even countenance a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with a Soviet Union explicitly led by a Jewish leader.

Could mean better relations with the USSR and the rest of the Allies, though I’m wondering if we’d still have an Iron Curtain... (I figure it would probably not divide German though)
 
A Kaganovich-led USSR during the 30s, especially during the rise of Nazism, would be fascinating.

For one, Hitler's anti-semitism may result in him refusing to even countenance a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with a Soviet Union explicitly led by a Jewish leader.

I'm skeptical of this idea that Hitler would refuse to do a deal in his interest just because Kaganovich was in charge of the USSR (and as I outlined above it's highly unlikely he'd be sole leader); for example, would Hitler have refused to negotiate the Munich Agreement if Leon Blum were still the PM of France? I doubt it.

Worth noting that Molotov and Kaganovich lived until 1986 and 1991(!) respectively, even if they didn't live quite as long ITTL or eventually chose to retire, they could be in charge of the USSR for a reallly long time assuming nothing causes them to prematurely lose power.
 
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