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if it wasn’t the 50s , but 1946 I would actually send weapons and support to the Greek civil war. absolutely headass maneuver. without the Tito/Stalin split things would have looked very different going into the 50s
Preventing that split probably would have prevented the Sino-Soviet split, which was a result of the same intersocialist tensions. Yugoslavia would’ve been able to avoid the IMF and marketization path it was forced to take and meaningfully increased the economic sustainability of the socialist bloc. Definitely Stalin’s biggest error.
I want to read more of the thought from that time period, because it definitely seems to coincide with the Americans having nuclear weapons at a time when the soviets didn’t- I can see the rationale to not want to be contesting something that is so essential that it risks a wider war, but by getting bluffed into inaction they effectively surrendered in the long run.
dont forget spanish civil war
TBH, the bottleneck with sending aid to Spanish Republicans was the merchant fleet. USSR managed to get some aid through France, but this pathway was constantly obstructed.
Yes, and they couldn’t send help by the sea because they would be attacked by Germany in the North and Italy in Mediterranean, and Soviet fleet was not prepared for such massive convoy missions.
USSR did send help by the sea, but many transport ships were lost due to attacks by Italian submarines and Nationalist fleet.
The USSR sent a ton of aid to the republic.
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Make sure that Khruschyov, Gorbachyov, Yeltsin, Kosygin, and Liberman have nothing to do with the politics and the economy of the USSR.
Resume the project of transitioning to a 6-hour working day.Gorbachev was a teenager in 1950. You’d be better off making sure he got a better political education than he did, though really his problem was just that he was a likable, competent bureaucrat who was also a completely uninspired dumbass when it came to leadership so he let his policy get written by anticommunist extremists. Without Khrushchev’s dumbass failures and revisionism, without Brezhnev’s failure to correct course, without Andropov’s early death, and without longstanding systemic rot that allowed a large liberal bloc to form and give everyone the dumbest brainworms possible, Gorbachev would just be some friendly party official competently carrying out what he was told to do.
Taking out Khrushchev’s bloc is probably the single most decisive thing: without their liberalization reforms and general revisionism the Soviet economy continues growing rapidly, the Sino-Soviet split probably doesn’t happen, and without China opening up as a base of labor and a market for capital from the US the US hits a hard wall in the 1970s with no solution to maintaining capitalist growth.
Gorbachev was a teenager in 1950
I fail to see how that makes him harder to deal with.
You’d be better off making sure he got a better political education than he did
Firstly, what makes you think that the issue was education and not him becoming a lib in spite of it?
Secondly, if it was, indeed, education that was at fault, what would you change, then?though really his problem was just that he was a likable, competent bureaucrat who was also a completely uninspired dumbass when it came to leadership
He was quite literally a liberal self-admittedly dedicated to destroying the USSR by the time he got the position.
so he let his policy get written by anticommunist extremists
He was an anti-communist PoS.
and without China opening up as a base of labor and a market for capital from the US the US hits a hard wall in the 1970s with no solution to maintaining capitalist growth
I wouldn’t be so sure, considering that there was the whole rest of the colonial world to exploit. It would just be more dispersed, I’d wager.
Secondly, if it was, indeed, education that was at fault, what would you change, then?
Oust the liberals from academia and also prevent the dumbass spiral towards liberalization caused by Khrushchev’s bloc’s reforms and the tacit acceptance of the “second economy” that the post-Stalin USSR had. Without all those conditions he’d just be some guy.
I wouldn’t be so sure, considering that there was the whole rest of the colonial world to exploit. It would just be more dispersed, I’d wager.
China was unique in that it had a massive well-educated population and at least some infrastructure ready to go, while primarily lacking industrial capital. It was basically the conditions of post-war Japan on a much larger scale, and the incorporation of Japan into the US economy as a colonized industrial base was basically the same phenomenon decades earlier: a way to increase the US’s overall material wealth in consumer goods without the cost of scaling up production domestically.
The opening of China as a market had an even bigger effect and came at an even more opportune time, however, because it happened right as American industrial capital was aging and needed to be replaced anyways, and as a lot of local labor pools were almost fully utilized. That is, American industry was running up against material barriers to further expansion and was coming up on costly replacements and upgrades, and China solved both of those: with a huge pool of educated workers, lots of room for new development, and an eagerness to buy fresh industrial capital, it became possible for American industrial companies to get larger factories with more workers than they could have had in the US for the same cost as upgrading their existing factories, or to shift some of their production entirely to Chinese companies and just serve as middlemen.
In short, they got a cheaper investment that cut their ongoing costs and increased their supply, enabling rapid growth and letting them avoid the wall of full-exploitation that they’d run up against. There really wasn’t any other place that could offer the same benefits at the same scale as China.
And without the recovery of the US and the seeming wealth in consumer goods that outsourcing to China enabled, a generation of Soviet students don’t get the dumbest brainworms ever by mistaking American colonial plunder for some sort of secret magic efficiency of markets.
Oust the liberals from academia
How would you determine who is a liberal and who is not? Also, you are risking ousting too many liberals there (consider the fact that people who already live well and want even more - like highly educated scientists, engineers, or famous performance artists - seem to be rather likely to be liberals) in the sense that ousting them would leave you with too little an educational and research, outputs.
and also prevent the dumbass spiral towards liberalization caused by Khrushchev’s bloc’s reforms
How? What actions would you take?
China was unique in that it had a massive well-educated population and at least some infrastructure ready to go
I hadn’t considered that part.
Yes there probably needs to be some kind of political class purge, but the general population was exhausted from purges, rapid industrialisation, and then WW2. The USSR needed to stop trying to match the US militarily and rely on nukes for defence rather than an insanely big and expensive conventional force. Invest those resources into culture and raising living standards instead.
I’m not saying ‘kill them’. I think that banishing them from the party forever would be enough.
Yes there probably needs to be some kind of political class purge, but the general population was exhausted from purges, rapid industrialisation, and then WW2.
This was exactly what they did, liberalised, and as we can see it ended up with cornboy in seat.
The USSR needed to stop trying to match the US militarily and rely on nukes for defence rather than an insanely big and expensive conventional force.
This would be suicidal mistake. It would very quickly led to the point where US would proxy warred everything (whacha gonna do russkies, nuke us to defend some place in Asia?) and it USSR would be quickly in point where they would have to choose either use the nukes or don’t and both answers would meant its destruction.
Invest those resources into culture and raising living standards instead.
Maybe just push the communism button outright if that’s such a great idea?
I know that’s what Kruschev tried to do, but he went about it in the worst possible way, so I don’t think his failure is proof that the aim was wrong. What would you say the alternative was?
And wasn’t the bloated conventional military one of the primary reasons for the economic stagnation of the 70s? Most of those forces were just standing around waiting for an invasion that never came, and it never came because of the nuclear deterrent. Even in Afghanistan the USSR didn’t really utilize its professional forces, they used conscripts instead - let alone in the various proxy wars
I know that’s what Kruschev tried to do
Liberalisation predates Khrushchev, Stalin started it and Beria continued with Malenkov. For example huge mistake was not discretely sidelining Zhukov when his looting came to light, since he was really the hinge of Khrushchev’s coup. What should they do? Imo listen to Zhdanov, as he was essentially correct (which future proven greatly). Also they shouldn’t trust west, should help Greece and trust Tito more.
And wasn’t the bloated conventional military one of the primary reasons for the economic stagnation of the 70s? Most of those forces were just standing around waiting for an invasion that never came, and it never came because of the nuclear deterrent. Even in Afghanistan the USSR didn’t really utilize its professional forces, they used conscripts instead - let alone in the various proxy wars
The invasion did came multiple times, but not openly (it would be openly if Soviet army was weaker, nukes were MAD only in theory for most of that time) and was defeated each time. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan, not counting all other proxy wars. If any of those were lost now you would be cursing Soviet leadership why they weren’t better armed. Again back to fundamental error of not treating the west like west treated them.
And wasn’t the bloated conventional military one of the primary reasons for the economic stagnation of the 70s?
From what I gather, the major factors for that were the unwillingness of the post-Stalin leadership to slow down industries in the short term in order to modernise equipment, as well as Kosygin and Liberman’s reforms (which also contributed to the lack of modernisation of industrial equipment).
Molotov or Malenkov would have likely pursued the same policies as Stalin, but with the understanding that some things did need to change - just not in the ways that Khrushchev did. They would never have denounced Stalin, they never would have gone the route Khrushchev did with his market reforms, and they wouldn’t have given liberal intelligentsia so much leeway as he did.
I’d be shocked if Stalin had ever even heard of Yeltsin in the 50s.
I have heard of Yeltsin, and if I were to be transported into the body of Stalin in the 50s, I would act on that knowledge.
”Never let this random construction worker into the party. Trust me, it’s essential for the future of the Soviet nation.”
police sketch hanging on the wall of every party office
Unironically me.
Oh, I wasn’t being ironic.
I don’t believe in great man theory, but I still think everything would’ve turned out better if these few naive liberals had never become politicians.
Restart the chiskas effective immediately after ww2 and try to increase the education quality in the youth league so as to build the pool of quality cadres that will replace the old leadership with new leadership. Probably find or have trusted allies find for me exemplary party youth league leadership to accelerate their own rise to positions of power so as to ensure a more administrative, bureaucratic, and party positions have increased inputs from wider Soviet society instead of just the old guard of it. Due to the Great Patriotic War hollowing out the population pool between the children and the elderly, trying to find the best candidates to ensure a continued ideological transmission between the most experienced and the least experienced is critical for the continued existence of the Soviet system while ensuring those who will carry forth the torch will be the most exemplary of the Soviet people.
Probably during and after the chiskas, I’d want to try and politically maneuver Molotov into a more solid position while reempowering Kaganovich to try and get him and Khrushchev to essentially switch places on the politburo. I’d probably also try to convince Mikhail Suslov to work closer with Molotov and Kaganovich while maneuvering Nikolai Voznesensky to replace Aleksey Kirichenko as well as maneuvering the Zhadanovites Kuznetsov and Kosygin as well as the youthful Brezhnev into the presidium as well. If possible I’d try to play Zhukov and Beria off against each other while setting the Groundwork to repoliticize the military and reintroduce civilian checks upon them while diluting the strength of the NKVD
Try to ensure that should I die early, Molotov and/or Kaganovich will be the leading premier or legs of a troika.
Probably reorganize the comintern under the name of the comiform proper and direct all the popular communist parties of europe to actively work to peacefully take power while providing full material support in all forms to ensure their security and financial stability in both winning electoral power and building economic and infrastructure dual power structures to act as shields against state repression, while providing full material support and funding to all militant communist parties that are fighting to liberate their nations.
Work the Comecon into a multi-national socialist economic system that fully integrates the economies of its constituents into an international non-dollar common market alternative to the rising dollar, and work to create an international version of the gosplan that works in conjunction with national gosplans to work on uniting all member states into a true federative economic powerhouse that uplifts the workers steadily towards collective prosperity.
Task Soviet foreign intelligence to hunt down and either capture or kill every fascist mongrel that escaped west. I don’t want mossad claiming the glory of hanging monsters like Eichmann like a soap on a string, I want that fucker dragged all the way to moscow alongside every other rabid dog so they can have their legacies and names dragged in the mud and destroyed publicly before getting proper Nuremberg hangings and having their ashes thrown into the sewers.
Probably tell the inner circle that it’s okay to say I made some mistakes after my death, like an 80/20 ratio.
Also probably start easing off the alcohol, tobacco, and fatty foods and try to start taking low doses of aspirin and walking daily.
Maybe flip a coin on actually trying to assassinate John Wayne.
Actually investigate the Soviet archives to see what’s actually true and what’s full of shit, and possibly set up a commission with the task of slowly and methodically disseminating the truth to the world to counteract the inevitable cold war bullshit that’s to come.
See what writings Stalin left that can be put together into an actual decent biography and glimpse into his life and thoughts so we don’t have to deal with jackasses like conquest, semenbag, or kotkin. Also I wanna see if he actually was a Robin hood like mother fucker.
See if Beria is as much of a a creep as he is accused of being. If yes, gonna be a real shitstorm trying to figure out how to transition power out of his hands without having to get the axe out. If no, then he just sort of sucks as a right opportunist and should be kept at an appropriate and comfortable distance.
Probably push for building the nuclear triad a bit earlier than historically expected and use it as a shield against direct u.s intervention in non-aligned military conflicts with communist involvement as much as possible.
Too much work in the maybe 3 years to be done. I’d at least at minimum want a more smooth transition of power that keeps Khrushchev and Zhukov from overthrowing the presidium
Watch the red army choir perform.
Try driving a t-34.
Go to a sauna.
Try and smuggle a bunch of cool shit into Alaska and task some agents to build a long-lasting proper time capsule so modern me can go have a fun treasure hunt, assuming that when I die as Stalin I get to go back to the alternate timeline world as I am and enjoy the fuck out of some prime memorabilia.
wow, you really thought this through. maybe we should start building the appropriate tech to transport you into the body of 1950s Stalin.
Are you completely sure you aren’t Stalin right now?
Immediately change my mind of supporting the garbage state known as Israel
“Yeah we can create a Jewish state. It’s called Bavaria.”
He kind of did that with the JAO, which is neither Jewish majority nor autonomous nor an oblast.
Ah a Holy Roman Empire situation
Shave the mustache off, just to mess with people.
Make a public statement about how fossil fuels will lead to climate change. Not because it would do anything, but so that I could say in 2024 “look at how Stalin was right.”
Veto UN invasion instead of boycotting, keep European communist parties armed, go on estrogen, make sure there’s yuri in space instead of Yuri in space (sorry Yuri)
Manchurian Candidate Golda Meir when she was ambassador.
Make the Jewish Autonomous Oblast a serious proposal on good land to create a communist Israel that isn’t built on Palestinian land.
slaps roof of GDR you wouldn’t believe how many israels we can fit in there etc.
Yeah it’d work a bit better if your autonomous Jewish territory was located in the same place as at least one of your major Jewish population centers
I’m not sure making a mini-ethnostate is ever a good idea, even if it was to undermine another one.
adopt a large adult son to train as my successor
I dunno, maybe get into other types of utensils? Like, why limit yourself to eating grain with giant spoon when you could have a giant bale of hey using a fork. What about a giant spatula or a pizza slicer, just put that thing straight through the kulkas house. Also, you have two hands, dual wield that shit.
Bong rip.
Did Stalin have the power or influence to just randomly kill Khrushchev?
whenever I play as the Soviet Union in hoi4 I always purge krushchev, just on principle
No, but Khrushchev was heavily involved in Yezhovshchina, way more than enough than needed to send him to the wall.
Aside from ending
and his circle of vultures’ careers ASAP maybe invest more in computing for logistical handling and get focused on miniaturization like the Murikkkans were starting then, but with an emphasis on reduction of raw material, and further assistance in logistics (again), rather than the consumer-heavy and military focus the US had. Also moar fast trains. Ideal world try to set up even more foreign exchange programs to influence more future leadership abroad.your grandma
Invest in computers instead of nuclear
