What if Joseph Stalin died on June 22, 1941, the first day of Operation Barbarossa (and before anyone asks if he gets assassinated, let's assume he dies from a heart attack or stroke caused by the shock of learning that Hitler had indeed betrayed him and attacked the USSR)? What happens next with Stalin dead on the first day of the Great Patriotic War? Who succeeds him as leader of the USSR after his sudden death? How does this affect the Soviet war effort?
WI: Stalin dies on June 22, 1941
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Deleted member 1487
Too many variables to say, but I think Beria more likely than not just seizes power himself and runs the war as dictator due to his fear of all the other potentials purging him, including the military leadership. He wasn't in power very long by this point, so didn't build up OTL levels of trust with the other members of Stalin's team as he had in 1953.
The question is could any other Soviet leader do what Stalin did. Moving the factories to the east so rapidly, enforcing stand and die orders etc. I'm sure whoever took over might want to do the same things, might order the same things, but would the average Russian work as hard and as long and suffer as much for someone other than Stalin. Whether by inspiration or fear, Stalin could get results from the average Russian that nobody else could - especially one who had just stepped in. If Beria takes over, yes he can cntrol by fear for a while but everybody hated him, and he had well known "habits" that further turned people away from him. He also had no "chops" as a pre-1917 revolutionary or companion of Lenin.
marathag
Banned
I bet 'Stalin the Martyr, treacherously slain by fascists' would be more effective than 'Stalin, stuck in a funk for half a week and didn't bother with any radio broadcast for 10 days'
You would get the State Defense Committee with Beria, Mikoyan and Molotov.
I'd doubt they would issue the 'No retreat' orders that got so many dead and captured that his 'There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors' policy
so there was no chance of a Soviet Gen. OP Smith "Retreat, hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction' but stood their ground till destroyed.
You would get the State Defense Committee with Beria, Mikoyan and Molotov.
I'd doubt they would issue the 'No retreat' orders that got so many dead and captured that his 'There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors' policy
so there was no chance of a Soviet Gen. OP Smith "Retreat, hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction' but stood their ground till destroyed.
That will probably be the official story with the losers of the post-Stalin power struggle being charged with "poisoning" Stalin even though it was actually a shock-induced stroke/heart attack.
Trading space for time they would eventually get organized. The Nazi policies gave the country no other choice. Hitler was doing it to liberate anyone.
So it's either by committee wearing the germans down by attrition or someone jumps to the forefront. Unfortunately anyone with that sort of gumption had probably been purged already.
Any suggestions for "Hero of the Hour"? Maybe Alexey Kuznetsov?
So it's either by committee wearing the germans down by attrition or someone jumps to the forefront. Unfortunately anyone with that sort of gumption had probably been purged already.
Any suggestions for "Hero of the Hour"? Maybe Alexey Kuznetsov?
So, who do you think would come out on top in the brief power struggle after Stalin's sudden death?
Beria and Molotov are almost certain - Beria has the KGB and Molotov has pretty much every legal lever of power (since he was the premier). I've also heard people mention Malenkov instead of Mikoyan as a third leg for the troika. Personally, I don't know enough about either man's careers in the 30s and 40s to be able to comment.
Kalinin is also a possibility, though perhaps not a long lived one. Or maybe his passivity would be an advantage to his holding out longer...
Honestly, I doubt there'd be a power struggle.
We forget in the west that the Soviet leadership were Communists. They really believed in their revolution and in Marx, Lenin and Stalin's theories. They also weren't stupid, so the Fascist invasion arrives, I expect the first reflex would be that they fight for their Revolution against its external enemies and that either they hang together or the Nazis will hang, shoot or gas them together.
Once the war is done, there may be a power struggle. Or maybe the division of power through wartime would have gotten comfortable, and the Soviet system will continue being run by troika, with members being replaced as they died.
Or maybe Beria's pragmatism and Molotov's idealism would clash, perhaps over what to do with Germany as Britain and America start turning their occupation zones into a tool of the Cold War. Or maybe not, since without Stalin, there may BE not Cold War. As I understand it (though I still haven't been able to substantiate it) everyone but Stalin was in favour of basically accepting American primacy in return for aid (which is what accepting Marshall Aid would have meant for the Soviets).
I also suspect a dead Stalin would be more powerful as a dead martyr than he was as a living saint.
Would they really? Beria strikes me as an arch-pragmatist, so I can see him listening to whatever advice the generals give him. Molotov and whoever the no. 3 are are likely to be more idealistic, so I can see them sometimes distrusting the military. On the other hand, no-one would be Stalin, so they all know they need to listen right from day 1, whereas Stalin took time to realize that his bubble of fear meant he was, well, living in a bubble. So likely the new guys on the job listen to their generals much closer in the early war. So what would these generals tell them?
On the one hand, they can try to defeat the Wehrmacht like their ancestors crushed Napoleon - by withdrawing and letting attrition and logistical challenges bleed the enemy until they could land a killing blow. On the other hand, they knew very well how costly it had been for Russia to have Napoleon's army roving around its wealthiest provinces. And they knew that technology had changed, meaning the Wehrmacht could maybe pull surprises Napoleon couldn't do. Also, giving up great tracts of land to the Wehrmach would be bleeding their credibility just as it would bleed German logistics. So defence in depths comes with certain heavy costs and risks. From our privileged position in their future, we know that defence in depth would be better than what the Soviets tried in OTL. But even in the future, we don't know if the troika would be overthrown if, say, they lose Kiev or Smolensk.
So if they have a confident general who tells them: "I can stop the Germans before they reach Minsk", they're going to want to listen to him.
As to the "no prisoners of war" policy, if draconian measures to make their own troops terrified of not fighting the invader with every fibre of their being seem like they'd help stem the initial German assault even by a hair, I think they will take them. On the other hand, if the Soviets do end up adopting a strategy of fighting retreat, they'll be encircled and forced to surrender far less often, meaning they would be far less likely to see a need to cast those who surrender as traitors.
So I don't think "no Stalin" magically means the Soviet politicians avoid all Stalin's mistakes. But like a snowball growing as it rolls down a slope, lucking out on the right choices early on can push the politicians towards better choices down the road.
fasquardon
Everyone points at Beria, but I'm not sure he would be able to stand on his own.
Perhaps the military could intervene?
Deleted member 1487
Eh, I've read a recent Soviet scholar who claims that as bad as Beria was the stories about him being a rapist among other things was probably floated by the people that purged him to justify his purge. Not that he wasn't a heinous mass murderer, but the stories about his personal life were probably false.
This is the book that is from:
https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Team-Living-Dangerously-Politics/dp/0691145334
He was probably cheating on his wife, but it is unlikely anyone would care about that enough to be blackmail material.
In peacetime probably not, but war does offer political cover for him if he can pin blame for Stalin's death/the invasion on purged rivals. The military is too cowed to try and act against the NKVD, especially if Beria threatens their leadership into political passivity, which isn't too hard given that Zhukov is not yet who he would become in the military and Shaposhnikov wasn't in good health. The major commanders that might organize resistance were wrapped up fighting the war.
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What evidence did Fitzpatrick present to support that?
I've wondered myself if the accusations against Beria were fabricated. But on the other hand, I can see no motive to make it up. If Malenkov and Khrushchev wanted Beria purged, there were a thousand other accusations they could make, and had already been made before.
On the other hand, Beria was pretty new to the job (he'd come to it in 1938) and his competitors are far more established. And vitally for a power struggle among Communists, had much larger power bases in the Party. And I am not aware of Beria having any reknown as a theorist. So... I suspect that if Beria tried for power, he'd be crushed from all sides. My feeling for it is that the Party, the state and the military would see his grab as an illegitimate coup. At least in 1941. Now, over time that can change, as Beria could accumulate more levers of power while getting rid of competitors by blaming them for failures on the front. But I could see that being dangerous for morale. So would Beria really try it during the war, or instead build up his position for the post-war power struggle.
fasquardon
Khrushchev's main "case" against Beria at the time IIRC didn't really revolve around rape charges at all, they charged him with various counts of treason, ranging from the dubious to the obviously absurd (being a British spy). Malenkov was at best a reluctant participant in the anti-Beria conspiracy, multiple sources present evidence that he tried to get Beria off with a demotion to Minister of Oil Production rather than arrest/execution (the one that comes to mind immediately is Joshua Rubinstein's The Last Days of Stalin, I've seen other sources that say this but can't remember the titles ATM). My personal belief is that while he probably did use his high office to pressure women into sex on some level, he wasn't the Law and Order:SVU type character that he is often painted as.
In any case, there was literally zero chance of him taking power if Stalin died in 1941, and there's no reason to think he'd try to- he was little known to the public outside of the Caucasus, and OTL wasn't even made a full member of the Politburo until 1946. Even if he wanted to do so he wasn't stupid enough to think he'd succeed.
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I'd forward the idea of an initial five-headed hydra of Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Zhdanov and Beria and then, after the inevitable bloodbath and backstabbing, Beria gets killed, Voroshilov takes a powder and Kaganovich, Khrushchev, Malenkov and some utter nobody with a stolid Russian name fill out the cast to create an appearance of an even bigger council. In reality, Molotov would be the face of the regime with have more power than other, but after the war it'd be a race to the bottom between Khrushchev, Zhdanov and Malenkov and I got dibs on Nikita, just as in OTL. Here's my rationale:
Voroshilov on paper has the credentials and one would require a military man to look good in front of a poster at time of war. He gets in, but does nothing with it, or screws up so bad somewhere that he is given a chance to walk away.
Molotov has the highest rankings and has the name value. It is bad enough to lose Stalin the All Consuming at the start of the war, but now one needs to put the best foot forward and Molotov certainly had the most credibility. Also, in making my list, I weighed heavily towards survivors. And Molotov was a survivor.
That's how Mikoyan gets on this list. He is on the Politburo, he's the Foreign Trade guy and then there is the Baku 26. In the strange and confused history of Soviet occupation and local responses in the Caucasus the Baku 26 is a messy mystery. There were 26 Commissars in the Baku Commune in 1919, Mikoyan among them. When Baku was about to be overrun by British backed counter-Revolutionary forces, they fled, were captured and were executed. All of them, except one man. Mikoyan. How he survived is a mystery to this day. But the fact that he did, and that being the only man of a 26 men team who came home and was not accused (even at the height of paranoia) of selling out his comrades... Mikoyan gets on the list and lasts, quietly.
Zhdanov - the forgotten monster. Zhdanov was sent by Stalin to re-integrate Estonia in the loving bosom of the Soviet Union in 1940 and came back, blood dripping from elbows, to be his satrap in Leningrad during the siege. Zhdanov finds a seat at the table.
Beria - three years into his reign as newest Chekist and momentarily the man needed to make sure NKVD does its duty. But Beria had a shit ton going against him. First of all, he's Himmler, minus the charm. Second, everyone knows it. Third, he's a Mingrelian. Georgia is not as important now as when Stalin is alive. Stolid Russian names should be on the marquee when discussing the defense of the Motherland and here comes this fellow whom even educated Russians would call a "black-ass," if they should they could get away with it. Beria gets it in the neck. I am not sure how true the rape charges are, but I just want to say this - everyone sure seems to believe them. Though there is one element of the stories that dovetails too neatly into official history: Soviets were prudes. They may have talked of sexual liberation in the salad days of the October Revolution, but they sure looked down upon sex as soon as they won the Civil War. Beria the Rapist gets an easy hate and purging a pervert is easier for everyone to accept, considering the rest of the charges in the OTL '53 purge read like lunacy today (he was accused of being a Japanese spy, IIRC). There is also the fact that when Yagoda (the now thankfully forgotten Chekist leader) was purged, there was a lot made about the fact that foreign pornography and a dildo were found among his possessions when his house was tossed. As I said, the Soviets were prudes.
Now then the folks I have climbing up the pole once the dust settles:
Kaganovich. I weighed this list heavily towards survivors, and how Kaganovich, one of the few out and out Jews who never hid his identity, managed to survive the dog-whistle anti-Semitic horseshit years of Stalin must be counted for him. And then there is also the fact that in '41, when told his brother was showing "rightist" tendencies, Kaganovich said nothing to protest it, but called up his baby brother and then his brother shot himself and Kaganovich said nothing of it later. Kaganovich was also in charge of Heavy Industry and the Bolsheviks had a hard-on for industrial capacity. Kaganovich either gets a bullet in the back of the head or a seat at the table, there is no in-between, and considering Kaganovich was a capable man, I say he gets a seat.
Khrushchev. As I said, I like survivors. And considering how many died and how few lived when Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee... Khrushchev might not have been anyone's idea of a leader at this time, but he outlived stats that are utterly insane to fathom. Then there is the fact that while Zhdanov went to Estonia, it was Khrushchev who went to Poland to supervise the orgy of killing that went on there in '39 on the Soviet side. But the reason I don't see him making the initial table is because Stalin's death in June of '41 would find him stranded in Kiev and supervising the defense of the whole of Ukraine against Nazis. And rushing off to Moscow would then be interpreted as abandoning his post in the time of war. Also, nobody would be in a hurry to get him a seat, unless Kaganovich (his mentor) drags him there. But I think Nikita would simply bide his time and wait for the right moment to strike.
Malenkov. We get a funny vision of Malenkov, the born loser, a pudgy puffball whose big claim to fame was to be on the other side of Nikita in the struggle. But in '41, he was a man on the make. It was he who was in charge of the cadres of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, effectively making him Stalin's Bormann, minus the personal influence. Malenkov's power, however, would have been noticed and he was not yet a full member of the Politburo. Thus, in the immediate aftermath, he would be left to lie fallow.
Once again, I like survivors, and that is why I think as in OTL, in post-war scramble, Khrushchev gets the nod. He survived Moscow. And I like winners.
Voroshilov on paper has the credentials and one would require a military man to look good in front of a poster at time of war. He gets in, but does nothing with it, or screws up so bad somewhere that he is given a chance to walk away.
Molotov has the highest rankings and has the name value. It is bad enough to lose Stalin the All Consuming at the start of the war, but now one needs to put the best foot forward and Molotov certainly had the most credibility. Also, in making my list, I weighed heavily towards survivors. And Molotov was a survivor.
That's how Mikoyan gets on this list. He is on the Politburo, he's the Foreign Trade guy and then there is the Baku 26. In the strange and confused history of Soviet occupation and local responses in the Caucasus the Baku 26 is a messy mystery. There were 26 Commissars in the Baku Commune in 1919, Mikoyan among them. When Baku was about to be overrun by British backed counter-Revolutionary forces, they fled, were captured and were executed. All of them, except one man. Mikoyan. How he survived is a mystery to this day. But the fact that he did, and that being the only man of a 26 men team who came home and was not accused (even at the height of paranoia) of selling out his comrades... Mikoyan gets on the list and lasts, quietly.
Zhdanov - the forgotten monster. Zhdanov was sent by Stalin to re-integrate Estonia in the loving bosom of the Soviet Union in 1940 and came back, blood dripping from elbows, to be his satrap in Leningrad during the siege. Zhdanov finds a seat at the table.
Beria - three years into his reign as newest Chekist and momentarily the man needed to make sure NKVD does its duty. But Beria had a shit ton going against him. First of all, he's Himmler, minus the charm. Second, everyone knows it. Third, he's a Mingrelian. Georgia is not as important now as when Stalin is alive. Stolid Russian names should be on the marquee when discussing the defense of the Motherland and here comes this fellow whom even educated Russians would call a "black-ass," if they should they could get away with it. Beria gets it in the neck. I am not sure how true the rape charges are, but I just want to say this - everyone sure seems to believe them. Though there is one element of the stories that dovetails too neatly into official history: Soviets were prudes. They may have talked of sexual liberation in the salad days of the October Revolution, but they sure looked down upon sex as soon as they won the Civil War. Beria the Rapist gets an easy hate and purging a pervert is easier for everyone to accept, considering the rest of the charges in the OTL '53 purge read like lunacy today (he was accused of being a Japanese spy, IIRC). There is also the fact that when Yagoda (the now thankfully forgotten Chekist leader) was purged, there was a lot made about the fact that foreign pornography and a dildo were found among his possessions when his house was tossed. As I said, the Soviets were prudes.
Now then the folks I have climbing up the pole once the dust settles:
Kaganovich. I weighed this list heavily towards survivors, and how Kaganovich, one of the few out and out Jews who never hid his identity, managed to survive the dog-whistle anti-Semitic horseshit years of Stalin must be counted for him. And then there is also the fact that in '41, when told his brother was showing "rightist" tendencies, Kaganovich said nothing to protest it, but called up his baby brother and then his brother shot himself and Kaganovich said nothing of it later. Kaganovich was also in charge of Heavy Industry and the Bolsheviks had a hard-on for industrial capacity. Kaganovich either gets a bullet in the back of the head or a seat at the table, there is no in-between, and considering Kaganovich was a capable man, I say he gets a seat.
Khrushchev. As I said, I like survivors. And considering how many died and how few lived when Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee... Khrushchev might not have been anyone's idea of a leader at this time, but he outlived stats that are utterly insane to fathom. Then there is the fact that while Zhdanov went to Estonia, it was Khrushchev who went to Poland to supervise the orgy of killing that went on there in '39 on the Soviet side. But the reason I don't see him making the initial table is because Stalin's death in June of '41 would find him stranded in Kiev and supervising the defense of the whole of Ukraine against Nazis. And rushing off to Moscow would then be interpreted as abandoning his post in the time of war. Also, nobody would be in a hurry to get him a seat, unless Kaganovich (his mentor) drags him there. But I think Nikita would simply bide his time and wait for the right moment to strike.
Malenkov. We get a funny vision of Malenkov, the born loser, a pudgy puffball whose big claim to fame was to be on the other side of Nikita in the struggle. But in '41, he was a man on the make. It was he who was in charge of the cadres of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, effectively making him Stalin's Bormann, minus the personal influence. Malenkov's power, however, would have been noticed and he was not yet a full member of the Politburo. Thus, in the immediate aftermath, he would be left to lie fallow.
Once again, I like survivors, and that is why I think as in OTL, in post-war scramble, Khrushchev gets the nod. He survived Moscow. And I like winners.
Now that is a solid piece of analysis.
I don't think the Soviet top council would be 5. It's too big. If it starts as 5, it'll be 3 within months simply based on who has the work-ethic to be at the meetings most often. But all of those men will definitely have shots at the top.
Personally, my bet is that Molotov would be the top guy.
fasquardon
Khrushchev would be at a major disadvantage in 1941 compared to his position in 1953; first, it was the war that really solidified his relationship with Zhukov which multiple times would prove to be his trump card in the 50s power struggles, and that might well be totally butterflied. Second, OTL Khrushchev's allies had also been in control of the security services from 1951-53, which would leave Beria/Malenkov hamstrung even though Beria got himself re-appointed to his old positions following Stalin's death.
Zhdanov would also be at somewhat of a disadvantage compared to postwar- Leningrad was what really put him in pole position to succeed before his death. He'd have somewhat of a shot though.
I agree that Molotov is the likely choice in the end, though the others aforementioned would be possibilities (I have a really hard time seeing Voroshilov being the guy though), as well as some not yet mentioned who might emerge as dark horses such as Andreyev, or (not right away, but eventually) Scherbakov if his OTL death in '45 is butterflied.
Anyways, would the fact Stalin's death was a heart attack or stroke caused by shock be publicly revealed or would there be some BS cover story about how "he was poisoned by the Nazis"?
My bet is that it would be announced as a cowardly attack by fascist wreckers, who believed their only chance was to decapitate the leader of the workers and peasants, not realizing that the masses were already mobilized by Stalin's spirit!
Or something like that... I mean, it makes for a better martyrdom than "his heart exploded when he heard the tanks had crossed the border".
fasquardon
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Assuming, as mentioned, that the leadership manages to club together an interim power sharing agreement then they probably bow to the militaries advice to pull back from Kiev when the Red Army's entire leadership begins shouting at them that they need to withdraw. That's huge.
So maybe the Soviets try to hold their ground until Kiev, but then after that decide to switch to a fighting withdrawal strategy?
fasquardon