Even as a democracy, had that somehow continued, Czechoslovakia would have wanted membership, as a hedge against any *chance* of a resurgent Germany.
Even as a democracy, had that somehow continued, Czechoslovakia would have wanted membership, as a hedge against any *chance* of a resurgent Germany.Why wouldn't there be? It might even include someone like Tito in it given the Soviets wouldn't be as harsh with him as Stalin was and having a big alliance of socialist states ready to fight against the western democracies is the perfect thing for Moscow.
Malenkov woldn't have gotten the top post in 1945
Immediately post-war Zhdanov and his Leningrad faction was very much ascendent and Zhdanov was considered heir apparant. Molotov and Mikoyan haven't fallen out of favor yet and Molotov was definitely the other "big gun" on the Politburo, representing the older generation of Bolsheviks who had worked with Lenin.
If Stalin died then Zhdanov probably gets party secretary while Molotov becomes Premier. Z will bring his allies like Alexey Kuznetsov and Nikolai Voznesensky to the center just like how Khruschev brought his Ukrainian clique like Brezhnev in otl. I give Beria like maybe a 25% of survival in any post-Stalin power struggle.
Khruschev prob never gets his shot at power because in 1945 he wasn't nearly as powerful as he became by 1953 after Molotov and Mikoyan fell out of power and the Leinignraders got purged by Malenkov and Beria. The funny option is if he somehow becomes foreign minister instead of Vishinsky.
After Z croaks in 1948 I guess there's gonna be a a knife fight between the Leningraders and the old guard led by Molotov for control of the party, very difficult to figure out who wins that one. The army might intervene as they did in otl 1953 and 1957.
Stalin’s relationship with Andrei Zhdanov demonstrates perhaps better than any other how fine-tuned his control of his deputies could be. Far from being a relatively independent and purposeful figure with ideas and potential claims of his own to the top post, Zhdanov comes across as a confused, bewildered, and largely unwitting agent, perpetually searching for cues from the leader. His control over Zhdanov was such that on several occasions Stalin was able to cajole Zhdanov into fronting attacks that harmed Zhdanov’s own allies, his son, and, often, his own interests.
Zhdanov was returned from his Finnish exile only in December 1945. Until then he was not even close to an heir apparent. And of course, Malenkov will do everything to prevent his new ascent.Immediately post-war Zhdanov and his Leningrad faction was very much ascendent and Zhdanov was considered heir apparant
If you mean General Secretary, there is no such a post since 1932.If Stalin died then Zhdanov probably gets party secretary
Molotov hates Vyshinsky and will fire him from Foreign Office immediately after Stalin's death, so in TTL Vyshinsky may be made a scapegoat like Beria was IOTL.The funny option is if he somehow becomes foreign minister instead of Vishinsky
interesting completely forgot that he didn't make a political comeback until 1946Zhdanov was in Leningrad until his return to Moscow in November '45. I think his ability to operate independently of Stalin was limited, as do Khlevniuk and Gorlizki:
Yeah so I guess at this point Malenkov becomes party leader and Molotov becomes PremierMalenkov was at the first peak of his political career in 1945. Along with Beria he had run the GKO's Operations Bureau, and had begun his career as a Central Committee secretary before the war. He had been part of Stalin's inner circle for sometime, while Zhdanov was still on the outside. He's a shoe-in for the position.
Allow me to be 'educated' in this:
Was there not talking about a big loan from the US that Truman torpedoed?
as I recall something I must have read somewhere, Beria was involved in securing this which would have made him a big hero.
The utter destruction of Western part of USSR would have been easier, but that didn't go anywhere. Must have generated some ill-feelings.
Balancing heavy-industry and consumer goods could not have been easy. Without heavy industry (building say tractors) agriculture cannot be expanded. Without heavy-industry it is not possible to build ships to carry goods, etc. Without consumer goods the population might not be happy for long.
Who had the magic insight?
Beria was (as I understand it) very interested in aligning with US.
That could have avoided a lot of tension, especially if the big loan had been granted.
The processes and difficulties of postwar reconstruction of the labor force can be seen clearly in the following two case histories. At the Kirov Machine-Building Works in Leningrad (formerly the Putilov Works), the number of workers fluctuated erratically in the three years after the siege. In 1944 the plant's work force grew by 5,638 workers, in 1945 it shrank by 430, and then in 1946 it rose by 1,178.106 Each change seems to have caught plant officials by surprise and made planning for training and production nearly impossible. Higher labor turnover afflicted the entire heavy machine-building industry. Overall, 27.2 percent of work- ers in the industry'S plants reportedly left their jobs in 1945 and 30.5 percent in 1946. 107
Living and working conditions for the plant's labor force were difficult. A doctor at the plant's clinic reported in 1945 that the factory did not have even one functional women's bathroom and that in the cafeteria there were only 100 plates and 10 glasses for every 300 people. 108 In addition, 40 percent ofthe plant's workers in late 1945 lived in barracks- a hardship that many workers found particularly irritating because alternate housing had been found for all the engineering-technical personnel. 109 Compared to the horrors of the siege, these difficulties seem trifling, and it is probably fair to say that Kirov workers were better cared for than most residents ofpost-siege Leningrad. But, as the Soviet Union began peacetime reconstruction, the Kirov plant had to compete for workers, especially skilled workers, with enterprises across the country, and the deprivations of war-ravaged Leningrad weakened its drawing power. As a consequence, in the 1940s the Kirov plant's work force, like the Leningrad population as a whole, went from being one of the most educated and most highly skilled in the Soviet Union to one that was relatively unskilled and undisciplined.