Let's say Stalin is assassinated by a Old Bolshevik coup in 1936, supported by the half-purged army, and Bukharin is installed as Party Chairman, who promptly reorganizes the government so that the General Secretary no longer has power of appointments, and begins a program to introduce some aspects of representative democracy in the USSR, and decentralization of the economy in favour of the local Soviets. Could such a thing happen, and if so, what would happen next?