WI: Svetlana Stalin and Sergo Beria married?

[Zulfurium]

According to Montefiore's book Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar, Stalin suggested three different marriages to his daughter Svetlana, these were Sergo Beria, Yuri Zhadanov and Stepan Mikoyan - all sons of some of his magnates. Of these, at least according to the book, Svetlana was in love with Sergo Beria and wanted to marry him but Sergo's parents were extremely worried that Stalin would think they were trying to set themselves up as his heirs and as such forbid the match. Svetlana would go on to marry Grigory Morozov more to get over the heartbreak than anything else (according to her).

Sergo Beria, not only being Lavrentiy Beria's son, was also a colonel in the Red Army and responsible for the missile Design Bureau One. He was responsible for the bugging of Churchill and Roosevelt both at the Tehran and Yalta conferences, and was generally quite close to Stalin at this point in time.

My question is, what if Svetlana Stalin/Aliluyeva and Sergo Beria got married in 1944? How would this change the power dynamics in the Soviet Union at this point in time? Would the Beria's be able to succeed Stalin in this case? Or would it, like they thought, bring them to a swift end?

 

[The Byronic Hero]

Would she avoid Lavrentiy's lecherous advances? The man had serious issues and this may set up an event that leads to the elder Beria's execution. If one believes that Beria was responsible for Stalin's death, this may avoid his death and allow the Doctor's Purge to go through. Now THAT has butterflies galore!

 

[Zulfurium]

If you look at Beria's conduct with his daughter-in-law, it was practically flawless to my knowledge. She looked up to him and he treated her very well. Add to this the fact that Svetlana is the daughter of Stalin and there is absolutely no chance of him doing something that would compromise him to that degree. Beria was ice-cold, deeply calculated and utterly malevolent - but he was also one of the most competent of Stalin's magnates. He demanded and received perfection with the tasks he was given, from the NKVD through running the war industry and being in charge of the Soviet nuclear program. He was able to play the power games of the inner court at a level few others could compete at, but was also more than willing to insult his competition - something that worried his wife greatly and would play a part in turning the other magnates against him.

The question is rather if Beria would have a better relationship with Stalin in the post-war period or if it would be worse. With Beria bound through marriage to the Stalin family he would be the obvious heir apparent - and with a far stronger claim to succession than he had IOTL - at the same time this clearer bond might provoke Stalin's paranoia and lead him to turn against Beria. I think it might be interesting to examine a world where Beria is able to succeed Stalin, leaving the Soviet Union following a Stalinist bent and potentially turning the Soviet Union into a de facto dynastic empire.