What if Lenin doesn't have a stroke?

[Coyote Knight]

I was having this conversation with two friends earlier, talking about what would happen to Europe and the Soviet Union if Lenin had survived much longer and didn't have two debilitating strokes. My friend Tyler suggested that if Lenin had been able to continue in a healthy state, then WWII would never have happened and socialism would've spread as far west as France.

What do the rest of you think? What would have happened if Lenin survived for at least another 10-20 years before suffering a stroke?

 

[eliphas8]

Lenin living longer may mean Stalin doesnt take power, though that is debatable depending on whether you believe he truly wanted Stalin to succeed him or intended Trotsky instead.

 

[Zeldar155]

Lenin not having a stroke usually means that there is no rise to power for Stalin, so that means the New Economic Policy of Lenin will procced instead of OTL's heavy collectivization and industrialization of Stalin. A less repressive Soviet Union(At least not the Stalin type), probably with the focus of spreading the revolution, not the socialism in one nation doctrine.

 

[Super Cicero]

Lenin not having a stroke usually means that there is no rise to power for Stalin, so that means the New Economic Policy of Lenin will procced instead of OTL's heavy collectivization and industrialization of Stalin. A less repressive Soviet Union(At least not the Stalin type), probably with the focus of spreading the revolution, not the socialism in one nation doctrine.

I'm pretty sure that Lenin saw the NEP as being a temporary measure, and would have implemented collectivisation and industrialisation eventually too. The main guy who wanted the NEP to be permanent and go further was Bukharin, and in his Testament Lenin accused Bukharin of not being a proper Marxist.

If Lenin, unlike Stalin, had allowed the German Communist Party to co-operate with the SDP, then Hitler might not have come to power and so WW2 might be avoided. However, Lenin's desire for spreading the revolution may cause a different war - as shown by his "lol lets invade poland" moment.

 

[Snake Featherston]

If Lenin lives into WWII, which he might well, the USSR could also rather easily wind up resembling Nazi Germany in practice relatively more than it did IOTL: Lenin was as unscrupulous and treacherous as Hitler, while having the same flair for speeches Hitler did, and his political ideas were Socialism in One Country to build up for a Revolution akin to Stalin's. Lenin was if anything *less* prone to realistic geopolitics than Stalin was, so I could see him repeating Stalin's policies vis-a-vis the Nazis. What I'm not entirely sure about is Lenin pulling a Purge when and as Stalin did it, nor necessarily if Lenin would have like Stalin been involved in creating the mechanisms for Deep Operations or not.

 

[Hnau]

If understand the situation correctly, Lenin's health began to degrade after he was shot twice by Fanny Kaplan. If you don't butterfly that away, his health is still going to be terrible. Lenin would probably have continued the NEP longer, but not forever. Stalin would have fallen out of favor over time, and Trotsky might be designated Lenin's successor... or not. Perhaps another individual would rise in power and show himself to be a better match for Lenin's political ideas. I think Lenin would have been quite a bit less paranoid and trigger-happy, though political prisoners will be taken and executed for sure. He would have also respected the opinions of his fellow communists more and would have allowed more free expression of opinion in the Communist Party, unlike in Stalin's CP where going against Stalin's ideas was political (and many times literal) suicide.