WI: Stalin's self-transformation

He can still provide more support than OTL, but not necessarily enough for the HA to win outright--just enough so they don't get exterminated. This isn't about love for them, but good PR for him.

OTL he was almost Snidely Whiplash about it--he called the HA "criminals" and said they were doomed anyway without heavy weapons, but guess who was in the best position to help supply them?
PR? The thread is about Stalin caring about his people and his soldiers, not about him trying to be elected US president. And what does he do when the HA turns those heavy weapons on his Soviet troops? They already have a history of doing it before.
 
PR? The thread is about Stalin caring about his people and his soldiers, not about him trying to be elected US president. And what does he do when the HA turns those heavy weapons on his Soviet troops? They already have a history of doing it before.

If he wants good relations with the Allies postwar, him not being so much an ass is helpful.

And why are you so certain the HA would be the ones who started it? OTL it was the Soviets who were willing to fight alongside the HA when there were Germans to be fought and then betrayed and murdered them and OTL it was the Soviets who sat outside Warsaw and let the Germans kill all of them.
 
If he wants good relations with the Allies postwar, him not being so much an ass is helpful.

And why are you so certain the HA would be the ones who started it? OTL it was the Soviets who were willing to fight alongside the HA when there were Germans to be fought and then betrayed and murdered them and OTL it was the Soviets who sat outside Warsaw and let the Germans kill all of them.
He wants good relations so far as it will stop the West from deciding to destroy the Soviet Union and invading (which coincidentally was something supported by the Warsaw Uprising's biggest patron). Again. That would mean things like no Berlin Blockade and being less aggressive at the negotiating table (although OTL Stalin was by all means a masterful negotiator). It does not mean allowing a huge potential fifth column to exist in what is suppose to be his neutral buffer state. Especially if it puts the lives of his Soviet citizens in danger.

Its a calculated risk by Stalin. There is a very large possibility that Polish partisans will use those weapons to fight Soviet troops. There's also not just the possibility but the probability that the Home Army will act against Soviet interests in the post war Poland.

If the Home Army had been coopted by the USSR, then its a different story as they are less of a risk. That would include repudiating the London based government in exile and joining with the soviet Polish Forces, and in that case Stalin would be glad to use and assist the Polish Forces.
 
You're all assuming Stalin believed the West was actually "good", yet just in the way of absolute power and entrance of the USSR onto the world stage....if anything, we'd see the same socialist regimes, albeit in a more humanitarian form.

More like a radically different form. The CP might achieve predominance in Czechoslovakia, but in Hungary and Poland they're going to be reliant on coalitions for the foreseeable future, coalitions in which they're a junior partner to a SDP at best, and to a Peasants Party much more often.

This radical difference means for example no 49 purge, which means that Zhadanov is going to come up against problems getting permission for the 49 purge in Leningrad.

It gets interesting rapidly—does this mean that the CPA doesn't waste its resources fighting a political coal strike? Does this mean that the 1946 political and economic strikes in US rail and coal are restrained by the CPUSA?

Exactly how soft on Capitalism are you making Stalin. Are you, or have you ever, been in receipt of debentures?
 
Stalin publicly announcing he'd come (back) to Jesus would likely end up with him getting shot, plus his issues seem to have been there for awhile--apparently he'd been a vindictive jerk in the monastery too.
Stalin publicly doing anything in 1945 makes it normal & acceptable in the U.S.S.R. The magnates who lived in bowel-trembling terror of Stalinist whimsy, wouldn't dare move against him. Also this would be a popular move given the prevalence of Christians in the U.S.S.R.

Perhaps Stalin pays more attention to why there was so much (initial) collaboration with the Nazis and realizes that he's oftentimes his own worst enemy?

That way, when the USSR starts winning, there's a lot less assholery on his part.
He did that OTL to an extent.

*Perhaps rather than leaving the Home Army to be massacred in Warsaw (and overtly squashing them elsewhere in Poland), he has his minions contact them and drive a hard bargain--the HA must permit pro-Soviet border adjustments and make other concessions to get his help. That's vindictive in a different way than OTL--postwar the fanatically anti-Communist Home Army and London Poles are going to be, to be perfectly blunt, his bitch.
You underrate just how deluded the London Poles/Home Army were, even Churchill was utterly sick of them by 1944. They wont agree to border adjustment even facing immolation & with the Red Army already occupying the territory in question.

*Preventing the mistreatment of German civilians by Soviet soldiers on the grounds this will make his chunk of Germany harder to govern in the long run? If the Soviets were the ones bringing American spam and putting an end to the bombings, they'd be hated less.
They could be more pro-active, but the Red Army acted largely on it's own initiative in this regard. The general reluctance to reign in Soviet troops was understandable given the circumstances of OTL.
nding the DPs back (OTL the British and Americans sent many of them back and around half were killed and the other half sent to the gulag). If there's a concern they could be an enemy in the future, he could insist they be resettled in South America or South Africa, somewhere far away that they can't cause him problems.
The ones who served in German uniform were traitors & deserved whatever they got. The others well. Which countries would willingly take a massive influx of refugees? Why simply have the Soviets treat civalian DP & POWs better?
 
The others well. Which countries would willingly take a massive influx of refugees? Why simply have the Soviets treat civalian DP & POWs better?

There were huge numbers of residents of New York City with Holocaust tattoos, so yes, countries did willingly take massive influxes of refugees.

And yes, the USSR didn't need to actively screw over the POWs.
 
While i know who your talking about (i think) i have no idea what DP stands for. :eek:
There were huge numbers of residents of New York City with Holocaust tattoos, so yes, countries did willingly take massive influxes of refugees.

And yes, the USSR didn't need to actively screw over the POWs.
Columbia River Cossack Host please! :D
 
Which countries would willingly take a massive influx of refugees?
Ironically enough, the USSR. WW2 has butchered their population and demographics and they have plenty of land Stalin wants colonized. And its not like they get much immigration.
 
There were huge numbers of residents of New York City with Holocaust tattoos, so yes, countries did willingly take massive influxes of refugees.

And yes, the USSR didn't need to actively screw over the POWs.

Hmm, the Holocaust surviours were by comparison quite few in number and they ended up quite spread out. Compared to the huge numbers of people from other nationalities. In the 1940'sthere is an upper limit on how many refugees the USA & neutral countries will accept at once. Particularly when the Soviets were actively pressing to get thier DP's back and swearing on a stack of Marxist Classics that they would be treated ''fairly''.

The other main problem is the sheer numbers, there were about five or six million Soviet DP's & POWs in the western-zones...

Ironically enough, the USSR. WW2 has butchered their population and demographics and they have plenty of land Stalin wants colonized. And its not like they get much immigration.
Indeed, this was one reason the Soviets wanted those DP's back. Another was Stalinist malevolence towards those DP's who fought/collaborated with the Nazis or with anti-Soviet groups.
 
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