Non Slavic soviet leaders

[Icepicked Lurker]

I’m working on a TL largely focused on the early Soviet Union , and would like to at least attempt some non Slavic leaders at any point in the TL
However it’s rather difficult to find any with any sort of national standing

 

[FieldMarshal]

Well, Stalin was a non-Slavic General Secretary, so there’s him.

Later on, Nazarbayev might not be a bad choice. IOTL Gorbachev offered him the post of Vice President in 1990 but he turned it down.

 

[Whiteshore]

Well, Stalin was a non-Slavic General Secretary, so there’s him.

And his main rival Trotsky was a Jew.

 

[Icepicked Lurker]

Trotsky and Stalin are, put it this way, taken care of
I’m more looking for like, fifties and beyond
People who were OTL purged are also options

 

[Whiteshore]

People who were OTL purged are also options

In that case, Kamenev was half-Jewish.

 

[FieldMarshal]

Trotsky and Stalin are, put it this way, taken care of
I’m more looking for like, fifties and beyond
People who were OTL purged are also options

Maybe Boris Pugo? He was Latvian and managed to worm his way to Minister of Interior Affairs by 1990.

 

[Seleucus]

Trotsky and Stalin are, put it this way, taken care of
I’m more looking for like, fifties and beyond
People who were OTL purged are also options

Beria is quite high-profile for a fifties leader. And you could double down with Georgia with Shevardnadze

 

[Napoleon IV]

There's speculation that Andropov was looking at making Heydar Aliyev (who later became leader of Azerbaijan) Premier.

 

[David T]

Beria is a possibility in 1953--but only by a successful MVD coup. Otherwise, there is no way Stalin would be succeeded by another Georgian--or probably by anyone else from the Caucasus like Mikoyan. And anti-Semitism among other things would probably bar Kaganovich.

Kuusinen in the 1950's was more the elder statesman type than the likely General Secretary type.

Of course there actually was a Jewish Party Secretary before Stalin: Sverdlov. Admittedly, the post was not as powerful as General Secretary would be, but if Sverdlov had not died in 1919, who knows?

None of the Central Asians on the Politburo, from Mukhitdinov on, seem to me likely to rise to the very top. Their position was largely a symbolic gesture. "As Khrushchev explained to him [Mukhitdinov], the new international situation meant that Moscow needed someone at the center who knew how to reach out to the world's Muslims." https://books.google.com/books?id=tpnAAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT343

 

[David T]

Of course Lenin himself was partly non-Slavic (he had German, Jewish, and apparently Kalmyk ancestors). That's one problem with the initial question: the mixed ancestry of many Russians. Another example: Frunze, who theoretically might one day have become a contender for power if he had lived, was half Moldavian.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

What about a more democratic Soviet Union that survives, and they elect a non-Slavic but Russian-speaking leader in the 2000s?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Of course there actually was a Jewish Party Secretary before Stalin: Sverdlov. Admittedly, the post was not as powerful as General Secretary would be, but if Sverdlov had not died in 1919, who knows?

Napoleon IV actually did that timeline.

 

[Zajir]

Shevardnadze as leader of a post-1991 Union of Sovereign States?