What if Joseph Stalin and his inner circle die from bubonic plague in 1937?

Nell_Lucifer

Nell_Lucifer

I have this tendency of finding obscure bits of information while looking through stuff that in most cases is not related to what I am searching for, this being the case, and post them here in the hope that it would start an interesting discussion.

This is from 'The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today’s Russia' by Raymond A. Zilinskas

In late 1933, the Vaccine-Serum Laboratory and the Special Purpose Bureau were combined to create the RKKA Military Medical Scientific Institute, which continued to be headquartered at Vlasikha. In 1934, the institute was renamed the RKKA Biotechnical Institute. An accident in 1937 led to its relocation to Gorodomlya Island, located on Lake Seliger in the Kaliningrad oblast, about 350 kilometers northwest of Moscow. The reason for the move was that the deputy director of the institute, Abram L. Berlin, unknowingly infected himself with Y. pestis during an experiment to develop a new anti-plague vaccine. After being infected, but before he showed symptoms, Berlin traveled to Moscow to report on the vaccine’s progress. While there, he infected two other people, and all three died of bubonic plague. Fortunately, the local health authorities acted quickly and effectively, thereby preventing the disease from spreading. However, Kremlin officials concluded that the institute had endangered Moscow’s population and therefore ordered it to be relocated far away from the city. Berlin was the first known Soviet BW research scientist to be killed by a pathogen under study.
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But what if the local authorities were slower to react? Or failed to contain the infection from spreading? With the assumption that those government officials who received Berlin to hear his report end up spreading the virus to Stalin and his inner circle? Perhaps infecting the majority of the Moscow Soviet Government in the Kremlin?

And just to note, I don't think this will be a mass death scenario for Moscow or the Soviet government as a whole, but perhaps a slightly worse San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 in terms of casualties. So less than 300 people maybe? Anyway, what do you think will happen to the Soviet government now that the Moscow leadership got axed? Who will fill the vacant seats in the Soviet apparatus?
 

jlckansas

Stalin is one thing but suppose he is sent to the Lubyanka for some reason when he visits. He would infect not just the prisoners there but a large contingent of the NKVD Headquarters there and could make Stalin go really purge happy with that happening in Moscow. Nikolai Yezhov was head of the NKVD at the time and Beria was still Georgia dealing with a Purge there.
 
Nell_Lucifer

Nell_Lucifer

nbcman said:
The quoted article is incorrect on what oblast the BW facility relocated to. It is in the Tver oblast northwest of Moscow. 'Kalingrad oblast' in 1937 was part of Nazi Germany's East Prussia.
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Ah, I did not notice that mistake so thank you for pointing it out. I hope that is the only mistake in the article...
jlckansas said:
Stalin is one thing but suppose he is sent to the Lubyanka for some reason when he visits. He would infect not just the prisoners there but a large contingent of the NKVD Headquarters there and could make Stalin go really purge happy with that happening in Moscow. Nikolai Yezhov was head of the NKVD at the time and Beria was still Georgia dealing with a Purge there.
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Stalin or Berlin? I am not sure how convenient that would be, basically infecting both the Kremlin and Lubyanka, though I guess it is possible some other infected government official goes to the NKVD building to deliver documents or something.

Would that mean the highest authority of the NKVD be Beria?
 

Drizzt

The Bubonic Plague made the biggest dent in OTLs human population growth chart, compared to which the two World Wars were merely a scratch. It's hard to speculate over whether the new regime will be better than Stalin or just as bad and less competent. But either way once news gets out that the Soviets were experimenting with weaponizing Mankinds biggest trauma the international fallout is going to be huge. Meaning the country ruled by the worlds worst Charlie Chaplin impersonator is suddenly going to to be looking like the better option to side with purely by default even if we are talking about a localized outbreak.
Should they fail to contain it and it spreads to outside the USSR, then we are talking a butterfly thunderstorm.
 
Nell_Lucifer

Nell_Lucifer

Drizzt said:
The Bubonic Plague made the biggest dent in OTLs human population growth chart, compared to which the two World Wars were merely a scratch. It's hard to speculate over whether the new regime will be better than Stalin or just as bad and less competent. But either way once news gets out that the Soviets were experimenting with weaponizing Mankinds biggest trauma the international fallout is going to be huge. Meaning the country ruled by the worlds worst Charlie Chaplin impersonator is suddenly going to to be looking like the better option to side with purely by default even if we are talking about a localized outbreak.
Should they fail to contain it and it spreads to outside the USSR, then we are talking a butterfly thunderstorm.
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I am unsure if that could happen, bubonic plague outbreaks were, if not common by the 30s, recent in human memory, so one happening in the Soviet Union would probably not raise any eyebrows. From the 1860s to 1920s there were from dozen of casualties to millions attributed to the plague.

And, keep in mind that the next year, if Kliment Voroshilov survives, he would declare to the world that the Soviet Union has both chemical and biological weapons and it is willing to use them. (Stalin was a bit upset with him for that even if there was no outrage from the wider world)
 

Sam R.

Nell_Lucifer said:
Anyway, what do you think will happen to the Soviet government now that the Moscow leadership got axed? Who will fill the vacant seats in the Soviet apparatus?
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The Party elects a new leadership. At this point as competence was being terminally measured the second or third wave leadership is competent, and follows the direction of the party (ie: high stalinism).

So you get people talking about the continuity between Stalinism and collective leadership on a policy level historically, so "Blame the Vozhd" becomes less viable historiographically. Maybe in the 1980s we get a mass culpability analysis outside of libertarian communism (including the libertarian trotskyism).

yours,
Sam R.
 

raharris1973

Well, we'll get to find out how dispensable Stalin and his team are to protect the regime from Fascism. Basically, if they are at, above, or below "replacement level" compared with the lower echelon figures who will take over from the lower and wider party circle once they are dead.
 

Cudymcar

An accident in 1937 led to its relocation to Gorodomlya Island, located on Lake Seliger in the Kaliningrad oblast, about 350 kilometers northwest of Moscow. The reason for the move was that the deputy director of the institute, Abram L. Berlin, unknowingly infected himself with Y. pestis during an experiment to develop a new anti-plague vaccine. After being infected, but before he showed symptoms, Berlin traveled to Moscow to report on the vaccine’s progress. While there, he infected two other people, and all three died of bubonic plague
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This is all hearsay. Berlin worked at another institute, in Saratov. The bit about him being in Moscow after accidentally infecting himself is true, but it happened in December 1939. A dozen people had died.
 
Nell_Lucifer

Nell_Lucifer

Cudymcar said:
This is all hearsay. Berlin worked at another institute, in Saratov. The bit about him being in Moscow after accidentally infecting himself is true, but it happened in December 1939. A dozen people had died.
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Do you have a source for that? I would like to look more into it as this one seems unreliable. Either way. the question still applies, though in December 1939.
 

Cudymcar

Nell_Lucifer said:
Either way. the question still applies, though in December 1939
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Two Politburo members are alive and well: Zhdanov in Leningrad and Khrushchev in Ukraine.
The Winter War is going on.
Barbarossa in one and a half year.
Operation Pike is in preparation.
Maybe Japan tries something again in Mongolia.
 
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