WI: Technocratic Soviet Union after Stalin death?

Was it possible? What if after Stalin death (maybe earlier than OTL) someone less devouted to Stalinism or communism took power in Soviet Union (yes, I'm thinking about retired from Red Army Zhukov) and tried to establish new, non-aligned with stalinism faction inside Communist Party? Young graduates from universities and polytechnics would be great for that aim and after some years it could maybe create technocracy.
 
No, Zhukov is not going to take over. But arguably Malenkov might have been more "technocratic" than Khrushchev. See my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/qgdNtrB8IGs/iVOEg-16qfkJ where an accident removes Khrushchev as a possible successor to Stalin and enhances Malenkov's chances:

"Let's assume that Malenkov does manage to eliminate Beria, and also that
(with the aid of Mikoyan and others) he manages to prevail over Molotov
and Kaganovich, who want to change as few things as possible. How would a
Malenkov-led USSR differ from a Khrushchev-led one? Certainly some of
Khrushchev's "hare-brained schemes" would never have been adopted,
especially the obsession with corn ("we must raise corn in Yakutia and
perhaps Chukotka") and the sale of the Machine Tractor Stations to the
collective farms. [1] And foreign policy might be less based on bluff
and bluster than in OTL. Some of Stalin's most irrational policies would
be quietly dropped, and the Stalin cult would be toned down, but without
any denunciation like the 1956 not-very-secret speech. Also, it should be
remembered that it was Malenkov who first proposed devoting more resources
to consumer goods instead of concentrating on heavy industry--a position
that Khrushchev denounced as a "right deviation." And when Malenkov said
that a third world war would lead to the "end of world civilization"
Khrushchev objected that this kind of talk was "theoretically mistaken and
politically harmful." (I am not saying this to portray Khrushchev as a
Stalinist fiend. On both the consumer goods issue and the nuclear war
issue Khrushchev very likely agreed with Malenkov, and was simply
denouncing the latter's "heresies" to win the support of unreconstructed
Stalinists like Molotov for his own ascent to power. I am merely saying
that at least for a while Malenkov did seem *less* Stalinist than
Khrushchev.)

"Of course Malenkov had plenty of blood on his hands (he had regained power
largely as a result of the "Leningrad affair" which had involved the
frame-up and killing of Kuznetsov, Voznesensky and other Leningrad party
leaders). But the same can be said of all his colleagues, including
Khrushchev. So I am not sure we can infer from this that Malenkov would
have governed by terror to a greater extent than Khrushchev.

"In general, I would say a Malenkov USSR would be more "rational", more
"technocratic", less governed by "enthusiasm" than Khrushchev's. This is
not entirely praise of Malenkov or criticism of Khrushchev, since some of
Khrushchev's "enthusiasms"--e.g., for rehabilitating many of the victims
of Stalin--were good things. Others, however--besides the "corn mania"
and other things I have mentioned, there was the antireligious campaign--
were not."

***

In another post I noted that Malenkov appears to have been more open to the reunification of Germany as a "bourgeois-democratic" country than Khrushchev. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/Z-eAjLyqJZg/XRJrrtbDsUwJ
 

Deleted member 1487

Wasn't post-Soviet communism effectively in practice a version of technocracy, just with some silly ideology on top? And non-aligned faction? The USSR was one of the cores of the world political dichotomy and there is no way in hell that a technocracy would be treated any different than communism by the US.
 
What if Korolov the space guru, becomes a senior advisor to Malenkov? His genius could have been used as a survival of the trials in 37, to straighten out reduce the temperature of the international society!
 
The talented technocrats were either killed or scared into submission. Need to get rid of Stalin earlier to have this outcome.

Wasn't post-Soviet communism effectively in practice a version of technocracy, just with some silly ideology on top? And non-aligned faction? The USSR was one of the cores of the world political dichotomy and there is no way in hell that a technocracy would be treated any different than communism by the US.

Yes and no. It was a technocracy on paper but when the facts conflicted with ideology, ideology won.
 
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