What? Molotov and Kaganovich were very well known and powerful by '36; they oversaw Collectivization, for example.
If Stalin dies before the Purges, Tukhachevsky may very well launch a coup (that rumor actually has more credence that it is often afforded). In fact, I'd say that's the most likely scenario since Tukhachevsky is well loved and he loathed Stalin's clique. Whether he kills them all off or not is up in the air, but there's an awfully good chance.
If not Tukhy, then probably a troika between Molotov, Kaganovich, and Yagoda. Yagoda's not going to seize power because he wasn't really the power-grabby type; he cared more about the perks than responsibility/authority.
Yep, seeing that Stalin is dead before he turns on Tukhachevsky I was going to nominate him, but you beat me to it.
How necessary is it for Tukhachevsky to have a coup and rule in his own exclusive name, versus playing the game the way Lenin intended and merely be a part of a ruling committee?
Tukhachevsky would weigh in on behalf of the military and rising technocracy--Tupolev (and on a lower level, Sergei Korolev, as a protege of Tupolev's) went down--fortunately for him and the USSR, not fatally--in the wake of Stalin's takedown of Tukhachevsky. Thinking well of the latter man as I do, I like to think that with Stalin gone, he sets aside all thought of a coup, which if he was plotting would have been more about saving Russia and the Revolution than self-glorification, and resolves to throw his influence behind rebuilding the Party leadership as a central
committee which can, by allowing diversity and debate among itself, restore the "democratic" part of Lenin's "democratic centralism." So he seeks allies who represent other factional interests within in the Soviet Union to balance himself; they all agree to rein in the power of the secret police and subject investigations of alleged disloyalty to careful central oversight.
Keeping Tukhachevsky and his proteges in place in the military ought to offset quite a bit of material shortfalls relative to OTL when Hitler finally does attack (as I am sure he must eventually). Keeping his technological proteges in place might have a bit less helpful impact since OTL Stalin kept them handy in
sharastras (sp?)--concentration camps for technically talented people, where they were put to work on their specialties instead of the usual Gulag labor. Still, one would think that with the confidence of the regime behind them they'd do a bit better work. Less intense push for official Plan targets might actually result in more useful products actually available anyway, if a bit of realism in setting goals comes with more realistically strict demand that these more sane goals actually be met, with less de facto margin for corruption and inefficiency.
The big butterfly then--since the greater competence and moral solidity of a coalition Kremlin might be offset by less pressure on the Soviet workforce to perform at all costs--would be politics. Presumably a coalition Kremlin would pursue a Popular Front foreign policy against Hitler. Assuming that Hitler is totally unmoved by the change in regime in Russia, and the western European Versailles powers also are unimpressed by the change of cast there, presumably things would go much as OTL in the west--meaning that Litvinov's blandishments for a firm stand against Hitler at Munich go unheeded and Hitler gets Sudentenland, and then gobbles up Bohemia and takes proxy control of the rest of Czechoslovakia as OTL (except for the parts minor allies like Poland and Hungary seize.)
What then? OTL Stalin, the supreme cynic, switched over to an alliance with Hitler, and his totalitarian control was such that Russia followed suit with scarcely a murmur behind him (and I only say "scarcely" because I have read the muted murmurs of dissent in diaries and the like in my Soviet history class--but carefully muffled they were!) Can a coalition of people like Tukhachevsky, Kirov, Molotov, et al even do that if they want to? Or must Russia stand back aloof, glowering at everyone to the West, the Nazis and the perfid bourgeois nations alike?
That wouldn't be such a bad position for them to take actually. Close the borders, sit back and watch. I think with or without a pact with the USSR Hitler would attack Poland more or less on schedule anyway. The Soviets won't want to invade Poland from the east only to engage Hitler immediately--but they just might. Or ask the Poles if they would like a little
effective help that their western allies can't unfortunately give them. They might be told no--then invade anyway to get some depth for their defenses, and unapologetically negotiate a cease-fire with Hitler telling the West forthrightly that it is none of their business since they were no help. The Poles might say yes, in which case after some nasty battles on the front Hitler might offer a truce (not being ready for Barbarossa yet, what with France on his borders and all) again with similar results--part of Poland "protected" by the Soviets, the rest conquered by Hitler. The Poles in the East would be angry the Soviets gave up but probably things could be a lot less ugly between them and the Soviets OTL.
Or the war might stay hot between Hitler and the Soviets from that point on, going back and forth--it certainly would put a spike in Hitler's plans for dealing with the west first before concentrating on attacking Russia.
I can see the Soviets committing only the minimum of forces necessary to hold Hitler at bay as long as the battlefield was Poland anyway, only putting in really big forces if it looked like the western Entente was going to prevail and start advancing into Germany itself. They'd be roundly criticized and hated ITTL for their cynical behavior by Poles and westerners alike.
Perhaps they'd have AH posts seventy years later about how much more decisive Stalin would have been.
