AHC: Perfect Stalin?

[Basedwanger]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man? Heck, forget it, what if Stalin not only lived over 100 years, but also guide the USSR to become a literal beast of a nation?
One example of this came from an in-development HOI4 mod of mine which is TNO Gus Hall‘s alt hist (an alt hist of an alt hist) where Stalin gained the trust of Lenin (who lived till 1939) and came to power instead of Bukharin, introduced four 5-year plans to the USSR without harming the peasantry, then finally crushing Ernst Rohm-led Nazi Germany and transformed the country to rival the US even more than OTL.
So what do y’all think?

 

[Mildtryth]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man?

Chances are that he'd have followed a career as a priest instead.

Seriously, revolutionary politics tend to be some cutthroat business. Wholesome sane men don't tend to get far in these circumstances, because one needs to have some measure of ruthlessness to get to the top and stay there.

 

[Alternativity]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man? Heck, forget it, what if Stalin not only lived over 100 years, but also guide the USSR to become a literal beast of a nation?
One example of this came from an in-development HOI4 mod of mine which is TNO Gus Hall‘s alt hist (an alt hist of an alt hist) where Stalin gained the trust of Lenin (who lived till 1939) and came to power instead of Bukharin, introduced four 5-year plans to the USSR without harming the peasantry, then finally crushing Ernst Rohm-led Nazi Germany and transformed the country to rival the US even more than OTL.
So what do y’all think?

Realistcly if would have ended up like this

 

[chankljp]

Ok... I will let my own political bias speak for me here, but you know the meme here on AH.com of 'Notzis'? In which people more or less some up with TLs such as 'What if the Nazis were less racists against Slavs, and actually came to the people of Ukraine and the Baltics as liberators from the Soviets?' or 'What if the Confederacy won the American Civil War, abolish slavery right afterwards, and become a prosperous developed industrialized nation with friendly relations with the US?'.

With the simple answer being 'Then this alternate polity that you propose will not be the Nazis/CSA anymore, since it fundamentally changes their founding principles.'

I would argue on an ideological level, 'extremely wholesome' and 'Soviet style Marxist–Leninism' are mutually exclusive. At best, you might get a 'ruthless and brutal, but fair' Stalin, one that still engages in paranoid purges against his rivals (Since I would argue that paranoia was a core part of who Stalin was as a person.... And granted, if he wasn't so paranoia, he might never made it to a position of power in the first place), but kill less innocent people, and especially avoid imprisoning members of the intelligentsia such as Sergei Korolev, so that their work would not have been needlessly interrupted by imprisonment. Besides that, no Lysenkoism, the rejection of genetics on ideological grounds, and the politicization of science will also be a must, in order for Stalin to approach anything even remotely 'wholesome'.

Besides that, no crimes against humanity such as the deportation/forced displacement and Russification of ethnic minorities within the USSR such as the Koreans, Tartars, Chechens, etc, would help making the USSR under Stalin a less awful place compared to OTL.

Again... In order to make Stalin even into a 'benevolent despot', we will need to change his personality and worldview so much to the point that we might as well either create an original character who managed to rise within the Bolshevik movement... Or have someone else ISOT/mindswap into Stalin, with perhaps 1927 being the best time for such a swap to take place, as it would be right after Trotsky and his supporters got purged, hence ensuring Stalin's hold on power, but at the same time, but before the really damaging actions such as mass collectivisation and the Great Terror took place. Allowing for perhaps a continuation of the NEP; And the more freedoms for the artists and intellectuals, without the state-mandated Socialist Realism art style being imposed, allowing for the Russian avant-garde movement to continue, giving the USSR more vitality and soft power.

But again, even in such a case, our Not!Stalin will still not be 'wholesome', as the USSR will still be a repressive dictatorship.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man? Heck, forget it, what if Stalin not only lived over 100 years, but also guide the USSR to become a literal beast of a nation?
One example of this came from an in-development HOI4 mod of mine which is TNO Gus Hall‘s alt hist (an alt hist of an alt hist) where Stalin gained the trust of Lenin (who lived till 1939) and came to power instead of Bukharin, introduced four 5-year plans to the USSR without harming the peasantry, then finally crushing Ernst Rohm-led Nazi Germany and transformed the country to rival the US even more than OTL.
So what do y’all think?

@Goku_San has a timeline (ongoing still) that you should go read and enjoy.... its literally what you want but minus immortality Stalin.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man? Heck, forget it, what if Stalin not only lived over 100 years, but also guide the USSR to become a literal beast of a nation?
One example of this came from an in-development HOI4 mod of mine which is TNO Gus Hall‘s alt hist (an alt hist of an alt hist) where Stalin gained the trust of Lenin (who lived till 1939) and came to power instead of Bukharin, introduced four 5-year plans to the USSR without harming the peasantry, then finally crushing Ernst Rohm-led Nazi Germany and transformed the country to rival the US even more than OTL.
So what do y’all think?

Doubtful someone 'nice' rises to the top of the USSR. No, it isn't fated to be a total evil guy like OTL Stalin, but probably no one 'extremely wholesome'. Who are even any 'extremely wholesome' Great Power leaders of that period?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Yeah, at best you'd probably get someone who commits less atrocities than Stalin and maybe handle the build-up and conduct of early-WW2 better for the Soviet Union, but they'd still commit some atrocities and be motivated by a foreign policy outlooked informed by a Marxist-Leninist philosophy that is hostile to liberal democracy. "Less evil" is not the same as "not evil".

 

[BlueTrousers]

Chances are that he'd have followed a career as a priest instead.

Unlikely - he somehow got converted to atheism whilst in seminary, despite good academic performance, which doesn't bode well for a religious career.

Other plausible careers for a non-revolutionary Stalin are as a poet, a meteorologist, or just plain banditry. Granted, that last one isn't particularly wholesome, though it's probably the one he was best suited to by temperament.

 

[LeX]

Make a wholesome and benevolent Stalin? Sure, he'd be a priest or a poet, maybe both. With the skill he demonstrated IOTL, he might even become famous for his charitable works or something.

Wholesome and benevolent Stalin who is also head of the USSR? Impossible; the best-case scenario is that he turns out to be more humane than IOTL, which would probably mean that Soviet communist rule is less destructive to its own people but also less secure in its power. Compare e.g. the Kuomintang's Taiwan or Park Chung-hee's Korea to the PRC.

Ok... I will let my own political bias speak for me here, but you know the meme here on AH.com of 'Notzis'? In which people more or less some up with TLs such as 'What if the Nazis were less racists against Slavs, and actually came to the people of Ukraine and the Baltics as liberators from the Soviets?' or 'What if the Confederacy won the American Civil War, abolish slavery right afterwards, and become a prosperous developed industrialized nation with friendly relations with the US?'.

With the simple answer being 'Then this alternate polity that you propose will not be the Nazis/CSA anymore, since it fundamentally changes their founding principles.'

I would argue on an ideological level, 'extremely wholesome' and 'Soviet style Marxist–Leninism' are mutually exclusive. At best, you might get a 'ruthless and brutal, but fair' Stalin, one that still engages in paranoid purges against his rivals (Since I would argue that paranoia was a core part of who Stalin was as a person.... And granted, if he wasn't so paranoia, he might never made it to a position of power in the first place), but kill less innocent people, and especially avoid imprisoning members of the intelligentsia such as Sergei Korolev, so that their work would not have been needlessly interrupted by imprisonment. Besides that, no Lysenkoism, the rejection of genetics on ideological grounds, and the politicization of science will also be a must, in order for Stalin to approach anything even remotely 'wholesome'.

This is pretty much spot-on, except I would argue that for communist regimes, it's not so much that they are ideologically inflexible (at least they might be more flexible than Nazism), but that their whole political structure disposes them towards brutal and inhuman leaders coming to power. If you aren't evil, you simply don't get the job.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

Make a wholesome and benevolent Stalin? Sure, he'd be a priest or a poet, maybe both. With the skill he demonstrated IOTL, he might even become famous for his charitable works or something.

Wholesome and benevolent Stalin who is also head of the USSR? Impossible; the best-case scenario is that he turns out to be more humane than IOTL, which would probably mean that Soviet communist rule is less destructive to its own people but also less secure in its power. Compare e.g. the Kuomintang's Taiwan or Park Chung-hee's Korea to the PRC.



This is pretty much spot-on, except I would argue that for communist regimes, it's not so much that they are ideologically inflexible (at least they might be more flexible than Nazism), but that their whole political structure disposes them towards brutal and inhuman leaders coming to power. If you aren't evil, you simply don't get the job.

Evil is certainly a subjective term, not every qualified narcissist plausibly a contender for head honcho need be 'evil'.

 

[LeX]

Evil is certainly a subjective term, not every qualified narcissist plausibly a contender for head honcho need be 'evil'.

I think it's sort of possible for Stalin to be remembered as a "benevolent dictator" if he can keep the body count low and avoid things like the Great Terror, dekulakization (and associated famine), and gulag system. The huge question is whether he could manage this and still be able to seize and keep power in the Bolshevik system, which was basically a race to the bottom in terms of how brutal the contestants could be.

I'd argue it's effectively very unlikely, because the Bolsheviks showed their true colors in the Russian Civil War, outpacing every other faction (including their fellow communists) in how disgustingly evil they could be.

 

[chankljp]

Evil is certainly a subjective term, not every qualified narcissist plausibly a contender for head honcho need be 'evil'.

Well, so is the term 'wholesome'. I am not going for an ad hominem here, but the OP self identify as a 'commie'. Hence, working within that ideological framework, the definition of 'wholesome' is going to be fundamentally different from what a liberal democrat, a conservative, a democratic socialist, or an anarchist would consider to be 'wholesome'. To start with, if you are starting from a Marxist–Leninist framework, you might very well consider him ending Lenin's NEP and the imposition of communist satellite states on Central Europe to be a 'wholesome' thing... Which goes without saying, a lot of people, especially those such as myself who start from a Wester-inspired liberal framework, would find highly objectionable. Heck, a Hoxhaist/'anti-revisionist' might even say that in order for Stalin to be more 'wholesome', he needed to go even further with his actions, and purge even MORE people (Starting with Khrushchev, plus killing Tito when he was staying at the Moscow's infamous 'Hotel Lux' before WW2), have LESS freedoms for his citizens (The Maoist perspective, in which they blame the USSR's fall as a result of them not having their own Cultural Revolution).

So.... To keep things short, the original post already started with a highly subjective assumption. Hence, of course everyone responding will end up having their subjective views influence their answers as well.

Now, if we went with a starting premise that does not make a moral judgement, something along the lines of 'What if we have a more effective/less brutal Stalin?', that would be a different question.

 

[peeter]

A perfect stalin who’s a “good guy” doesn’t get close to becoming the leader of the USSR. The Bolsheviks from the start were full of blood-thirsty psychopaths eager for power. From a realpolitik perspective the main mistake Stalin made was purging the military like he did. There was never gonna be a smooth or “humane” way of collectivization and industrialization nor would the soviets accept one post-NEP. Stalin’s political purges as horrific as they were was ultimately successful in consolidating power to himself and those absolutely sycophantic to him to do whatever he told them to do.

You simply can’t have a “benevolent” dictator for the Soviet Union pre-ww2.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

I think it's sort of possible for Stalin to be remembered as a "benevolent dictator" if he can keep the body count low and avoid things like the Great Terror, dekulakization (and associated famine), and gulag system. The huge question is whether he could manage this and still be able to seize and keep power in the Bolshevik system, which was basically a race to the bottom in terms of how brutal the contestants could be.

I'd argue it's effectively very unlikely, because the Bolsheviks showed their true colors in the Russian Civil War, outpacing every other faction (including their fellow communists) in how disgustingly evil they could be.

Plus delimitation of the borders in Central Asia... his choices were kinda evil lol

 

[chankljp]

Plus delimitation of the borders in Central Asia... his choices were kinda evil lol

I suppose if you start from a communist perspective (Which for the record, I absolutely do not), you can use Walter Duranty's line of, 'But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs', when downplaying the full horror of the Holodomor.

It does not matter if an ATL Stalin was not a power hungry, paranoid despot. With him instead being a 100% genuine and sincere Leninist who believe his ends justify his means, and is a good person endlessly tormented by the sacrifices he needs to make in the name of the 'greater good' of world revolution... Heck, it does not even matter if he somehow manages to via his brutal means actually create a communist utopia (Which from my perspective, is utterly impossible)! He is still not going to be 'wholesome', the same way that almost all political leaders, even the well respected ones, have plenty of skeletons in their closets.... And the Soviet system is one that ensures there will be plenty of those no matter what.

 

[Garrison]

A small challenge for y’all but also a definitely-not-big question for a commie like me, what if Stalin was an extremely wholesome sane man? Heck, forget it, what if Stalin not only lived over 100 years, but also guide the USSR to become a literal beast of a nation?
One example of this came from an in-development HOI4 mod of mine which is TNO Gus Hall‘s alt hist (an alt hist of an alt hist) where Stalin gained the trust of Lenin (who lived till 1939) and came to power instead of Bukharin, introduced four 5-year plans to the USSR without harming the peasantry, then finally crushing Ernst Rohm-led Nazi Germany and transformed the country to rival the US even more than OTL.
So what do y’all think?

HOI4 is not a basis for a rational discussion, the real world is far more complicated. And your alt-Stalin is unlikely to become leader of the USSR and if he did the history of the 1930s-1950s would be all but unrecognizable, and the idea of him living to 100 borders on ASB.

 

[MrHappy]

our Not!Stalin will still not be 'wholesome', as the USSR will still be a repressive dictatorship.

I know I'm coming to this discussion at the point where a consensus may have been reached, but may I suggest "St-ain't-lin" as the Notzi-esque facsimile?

 

[jacob ningen]

Unlikely - he somehow got converted to atheism whilst in seminary, despite good academic performance, which doesn't bode well for a religious career.

Other plausible careers for a non-revolutionary Stalin are as a poet, a meteorologist, or just plain banditry. Granted, that last one isn't particularly wholesome, though it's probably the one he was best suited to by temperament.

given Bialik Ill go poet(although Volozhin wasnt a seminary) or Mathematician

 

[chankljp]

I know I'm coming to this discussion at the point where a consensus may have been reached, but may I suggest "St-ain't-lin" as the Notzi-esque facsimile?

Well, mind explaining your views of why this is the case? I am interested in hearing your perspective on this matter.

 

[chankljp]

HOI4 is not a basis for a rational discussion, the real world is far more complicated. And your alt-Stalin is unlikely to become leader of the USSR and if he did the history of the 1930s-1950s would be all but unrecognizable, and the idea of him living to 100 borders on ASB.

Especially in the context of a HOI4 alternate history mod... A HOI4 alternate history mod that even the dev themselves fully acknowledge as starting with an unrealistic premise.... And said scenario existing within the said HOI4 mod as an in-universe ideological wank that is widely mocked as being unrealistic and silly.