WI: Stalin Isn't Paranoid

The latter, as it gives credence to the former. A non-paranoid Stalin would be just as unscrupulous to rise in the Soviet system (think someone more like Lenin, in all probability, or maybe a Trotsky-type with a silver tongue *and* the political slipperiness of a Borgia) and would probably be more dangerous by making his scapegoating actually plausible.

Okay, would he still want to kill someone like Tuckavesky in this timeline though? Or would losing his paranoia make him more pragmatic about certain people?
 
Okay, would he still want to kill someone like Tuckavesky in this timeline though? Or would losing his paranoia make him more pragmatic about certain people?

Nope, a pragmatic Stalin would instead see Tucachevsky's potential to give the USSR actual real-world continental dominance and thus seek to play off the Western powers against the Fascists, and when both mutually weaken each other (or in a worst-case scenario if the Fascists improbably win), then the USSR gets to be the "Big Damn Heroes" saving the day.
 
Nope, a pragmatic Stalin would instead see Tucachevsky's potential to give the USSR actual real-world continental dominance and thus seek to play off the Western powers against the Fascists, and when both mutually weaken each other (or in a worst-case scenario if the Fascists improbably win), then the USSR gets to be the "Big Damn Heroes" saving the day.

Okay, now I really want to see this timeline, especially as less damaging Stalin purges would be... interesting to say the least.
 
Okay, now I really want to see this timeline, especially as less damaging Stalin purges would be... interesting to say the least.

I might note that this timeline would in a real sense resemble much less an inversion of WWII and would about as realistic as a wank would get, namely that the group being wanked really did have these advantages, it really is facing enemies who don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of uniting against it, and is doing all this with a force disparity relative to each of its enemies greater than all of them put together. While the odds of an all-European anti-Soviet bloc of fascists and democrats and military dictatorships are extremely implausible, far moreso than the OTL Alliance of Convenience.
 
Hmm, someone really needs to make this a timeline, especially as it has very interesting long term implications for things like the Cold War.
 
Actually, I was thinking about that the other day, though I would make the POD of Stalin's First wife not dying. As the only other human being that he ever truly loved, I was thinking that it would either ground him more emotionally in reality, blunting if not destroying his paranoia, or make him want to leave the Bolshivek movement before it does gain power and settle down with his wife and forget about it.

I was more inclined to the second scenario, with him leaving and then everyone but Stalin wins the 1917 revolution, and eventually the civil War, the Second World War and... beyond? I have no idea.
 
Actually, I was thinking about that the other day, though I would make the POD of Stalin's First wife not dying. As the only other human being that he ever truly loved, I was thinking that it would either ground him more emotionally in reality, blunting if not destroying his paranoia, or make him want to leave the Bolshivek movement before it does gain power and settle down with his wife and forget about it.

I was more inclined to the second scenario, with him leaving and then everyone but Stalin wins the 1917 revolution, and eventually the civil War, the Second World War and... beyond? I have no idea.

Stalin's first wife didn't object to his being a revolutionary, IIRC. If he becomes well-adjusted *and* keeps his mastery of how to get, keep, amass, and expand his grip on power to the point of a literal snowball effect then this pretty much makes Stalin more, not less, difficult for the other Bolshies to handle. Not-paranoid Stalin who's still the only politically savvy man in a room full of nincompoops? :eek:
 
True. But, at least it wouldn't lead to the Great Purges or anything, right? A "slightly" more humane 5-Year Plan? A Red Army capable of stopping Germany sooner than the gates of Moscow? A Soviet Union that will not be trying to work its way out from under the US domination, but instead growing from a stronger base (like not killing several tens of millions of people, both in war and peace)?
 
True. But, at least it wouldn't lead to the Great Purges or anything, right? A "slightly" more humane 5-Year Plan? A Red Army capable of stopping Germany sooner than the gates of Moscow? A Soviet Union that will not be trying to work its way out from under the US domination, but instead growing from a stronger base (like not killing several tens of millions of people, both in war and peace)?

It might lead to a different version of the Purges, as the Bolshevik system was never built on being nice and kind. However the Purges would have been structured much more "rationally" in only affecting those elements of the Soviet state not necessary to forestall any potential hostility from the Nazis.
 
It might lead to a different version of the Purges, as the Bolshevik system was never built on being nice and kind. However the Purges would have been structured much more "rationally" in only affecting those elements of the Soviet state not necessary to forestall any potential hostility from the Nazis.

So instead of killing tens of millions, more like tens or hundreds of thousands, and maybe through an "improved" Gulag system that is focused more on their labor than on killing them, thought their death isn't exactly frowned upon?
 
So instead of killing tens of millions, more like tens or hundreds of thousands, and maybe through an "improved" Gulag system that is focused more on their labor than on killing them, thought their death isn't exactly frowned upon?

More like steadily working his way to ensure absolute monopoly on holding power, and probably using the SS's role in the 1937 Purge to blackmail the "Trotskyites" into permanent loyalty to Stalin, with the future irony that he intends this as a Sword of Damocles to ultimately remove any generals that show the least sign of disloyalty in the actual war. More Magnificent Bastard, less Solano Lopez.
 
More like steadily working his way to ensure absolute monopoly on holding power, and probably using the SS's role in the 1937 Purge to blackmail the "Trotskyites" into permanent loyalty to Stalin, with the future irony that he intends this as a Sword of Damocles to ultimately remove any generals that show the least sign of disloyalty in the actual war. More Magnificent Bastard, less Solano Lopez.

Yeah, kinda what I'm starting to think. But what about Trotsky himself? Would Stalin still want to knock him off, or maybe use him to get the Red Army to the peak of efficiency before an "accident" occurs?
 
Yeah, kinda what I'm starting to think. But what about Trotsky himself? Would Stalin still want to knock him off, or maybe use him to get the Red Army to the peak of efficiency before an "accident" occurs?

Trotsky was a political nincompoop so Stalin probably puts him in charge of the Coast-Defense batteries of Simbirsk just as per OTL. Nothing says not-paranoid Stalin still isn't a petty, vindictive asshole. I could see Stalin putting Trotsky in the boondocks and shamelessly using Trotsky's army to inflict the mother of all asskickings. Though one has to wonder whether this Stalin would be stupid enough to play the role the OTL one did in the rise of the Nazis in the first place.
 
Trotsky was a political nincompoop so Stalin probably puts him in charge of the Coast-Defense batteries of Simbirsk just as per OTL. Nothing says not-paranoid Stalin still isn't a petty, vindictive asshole. I could see Stalin putting Trotsky in the boondocks and shamelessly using Trotsky's army to inflict the mother of all asskickings. Though one has to wonder whether this Stalin would be stupid enough to play the role the OTL one did in the rise of the Nazis in the first place.

He might, because perhaps he would see the rise of the Nazi's as possibly a bigger threat to France and Britain than himself (as long as Poland remains a buffer state). The moment Hitler decides Poland should be split up or taken over, then Stalin might (no, WOULD) act.

I would think that, despite the anti-Communist propaganda, Germany is still reliant on Russia for natural resources. Plus, wouldn't it be the perfectly devious move to support your enemies rise to power, if then it also increases fear in your enemies enemies, who also want to see you disappear? Maybe the less-Paranoid Stalin believes that Hitler is the less of two evils right then, and then when he finally does push France and Britain over the brink, the three will exhaust themselves in war, and allowing the Soviet Union to pick up the pieces?

It has great danger, but a Magnificent Bastard, such as a less-Paranoid Stalin, could make it work out no matter the actual outcome.
 
So instead of killing tens of millions, more like tens or hundreds of thousands, and maybe through an "improved" Gulag system that is focused more on their labor than on killing them, thought their death isn't exactly frowned upon?

Which, with no sarcasm at all, is a heck of a lot better than OTL Stalin.
 
Which, with no sarcasm at all, is a heck of a lot better than OTL Stalin.

Exactly. Less Ruthless Paranoid Dictator, more Brilliant, Cunning Master Statesmen in charge of the worlds largest Nation that happens to be a communist dictatorship.

I can almost see him getting a Nobel Peace prize for "saving" Western Europe after the Allies and the Nazi's fight it out XD
 
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