[Donna]

It seems that Joseph Stalin never really groomed a successor. All of his sons appear to be losers, and he was surrounded by people who - rightly or wrongly - he wouldn't trust. Khruschev's rise to power seemed to ultimately rely on a paranoid regard for Lavrentiy Beria among the party elites.

Who was close to Stalin?

He didn't seem much interested in conservatively preserving his legacy as Kim Il-Sung did, and both relished in their styled personality cults. Mind you, he at least had a compotent (although weird) issue.

Or were ideas of hereditary or close-relation succession simply too taboo in Soviet politics (even under Stalin) and associated with Tsarism?

[Oxymoron]

Stalin was an egoist, he thought he would live forever he didnt want to take the risk of losing power to a succesor prematurely. The logical choice would have been Zhukov in my opinion.

[Donna]

Zhukov doesn't fit into the whole elitist structure of Soviet politics. He participated in the civil war and then made a career out of soldiering for the Soviet Union. This wasn't some bourgeois democracy where a general can suddenly become a statesman over night without deposing civilian government, even if he was a national hero.

[Thunderhawk]

Zhukov made an ass out of himself by demanding the Soviet government spend less on nuclear arms and their development, and insted spend more on conventional armed forces.

[Oxymoron]

Soviet government spend less on nuclear arms and their development, and insted spend more on conventional armed forces

Perhaps he was correct.

[Smilin' Dave]

Khruschev's rise to power seemed to ultimately rely on a paranoid regard for Lavrentiy Beria among the party elites.

They had problems with Malenkov's policies too. IIRC Malenkov was inclined to conciliation in foreign affairs while pushing for expanding production of consumer products. Khrushchev on the other hand presented a more sophistocated economic policy and had a different approach to foreign policy (still pushing coexistence, but from a different angle).

Who was close to Stalin?

Molotov and Kaganovich... right up until he sidelined them in the 1950s. Much the same was said about Zhdanov and Kirov in their day Maybe it was a question of there being a cycle? Stalin couldn't keep anyone too close to him for too long, and his death came unexpectedly (for him at least) while he was at the end of such a cycle. Had he died earlier, one of the other candidates might have had a better position.

He didn't seem much interested in conservatively preserving his legacy as Kim Il-Sung did, and both relished in their styled personality cults.

I think Stalin was more interested in his material legacy, rather than a physical one in the form of a child. I don't know Kim il-Sung's background well, but Stalin's situation never gave him much time for looking after his kids, which might have been a psychological barrier.

Or were ideas of hereditary or close-relation succession simply too taboo in Soviet politics (even under Stalin) and associated with Tsarism?

Hereditary rule would have contradicted Stalin's attempts at political structure normalisation post WWII. Red Tsarism was something of a fringe theory, and remains so.

Perhaps he was correct.

The Soviets ultimately got more value from their conventional military than their nuclear forces.

[Rojik of the Arctic]

Hereditary rule would have contradicted Stalin's attempts at political structure normalisation post WWII. Red Tsarism was something of a fringe theory, and remains so.

IIRC Stalin once told Beria that he wouldn't be able to succeed him because two Georgians in a row wouldn't be looked upon kindly by the people. This could mean anything or it could mean nothing as it could have just been Stalin playing games, but it suggests that your statement is has some validity.

[Spotacus]

Didn't Stalin die quite suddenly. Dictators often play their subordinates against each other. I think he was more concerned that someone might depose him.

[Celtic Communism]

The post-war Stalin was no longer the dictator of the Soviet Union in the sense he arguably was during the war and in the 1930s i.e., he no longer was directing every top layer of the government. His main concerns were diplomacy and the people's democracies and Maoist China. His subordinates enjoyed virtually no interference from Stalin after the war. As for a 'successor', Stalin disliked all Politburo members after the war. Every single one of them.

It is commonly assumed he wanted Andrei Zhdanov to be his successor but there is no real evidence to my knowledge that this was actually Stalin's intentions.

[Arthur2sheds_Jackson]

Andrei Zhandov was being groomed as his successor immediately after WW2 but he died of a heart attack brought on by alcoholism in 1948.

By then Stalin was far too paranoid to trust anyone else.


*EDIT* this is my 1500th posts and it's only took me 6 years to get there.

Quality not quantity with me

[Potemkin]

Didn't Stalin die quite suddenly. Dictators often play their subordinates against each other. I think he was more concerned that someone might depose him.

That basically sums it up.

Andrei Zhandov was being groomed as his successor immediately after WW2 but he died of a heart attack brought on by alcoholism in 1948.

Zhdanov was probably Stalin's closest collaborator after WWII, but he died of natural causes, aggravated by the poor quality of medical treatment he received. Stalin chose to interpret the doctors' incompetence as a plot to assassinate the top Soviet leaders, which led to the notorious 'Doctors' Plot' purge of the early 1950s, which had anti-Semitic overtones. However, it is unknown whether Stalin intended Zhdanov to actually succeed him. I suspect not; Zhdanov's chronic alcoholism, while tolerable in a subordinate, would have been a serious problem if he had been the leader of the Soviet Union at such a critical time in its history.

[albionfagan]

Stalin wouldn't have wanted Beria to succeed him.

I always thought he was closest to Molotov out of all his cronies, mainly because he spared his life instead of killing him

[Potemkin]

Molotov's wife had been arrested as a British agent, so Molotov was under a cloud. In fact, the mainstream view among historians is that Stalin intended to purge Molotov in the near future along with several other Soviet magnates, such as Mikoyan and (possibly) Beria. His sudden death rather conveniently prevented that from happening, of course.

[Rojik of the Arctic]

Molotov's wife had been arrested as a British agent, so Molotov was under a cloud. In fact, the mainstream view among historians is that Stalin intended to purge Molotov in the near future along with several other Soviet magnates, such as Mikoyan and (possibly) Beria. His sudden death rather conveniently prevented that from happening, of course

Agree. From all I have read had Stalin lived another couple of years another blood purge was on the cards. Once again it would have involved those at the upper echelon of the party. Molotov, Mikoyan and Beria, certainly, and Khruchev and Zhukov possibly. Stalin wanted no successors. There was Stalin and then there was the rest - all expendable and existing at his pleasure.

[redcarpet]

No one as far as I know. Maybe the NKVD Chairman......who knows.

[Lensky1917]

He didn't seem much interested in conservatively preserving his legacy as Kim Il-Sung did, and both relished in their styled personality cults.

Maybe because Stalin did not want anybody to be compared to him.

I don't think any Russian leader is ever going to match his legacy.

Maybe it was a question of there being a cycle? Stalin couldn't keep anyone too close to him for too long

Are you saying Stalin had commitment issues?

He had no problem having others committed.

[Smilin' Dave]

He had no problem having others committed.

Punitive psychiatry was a later phenomena in the Soviet Union, so I disagree

[Doomhammer]

You guys might find this interesting:

Archangelis a novel by Robert Harris set in modern Russia. It was published in 1998, and adapted for television by the BBC in 2005. Archangel is also available under the title Aurora.

Plot summary

While attending a conference in Moscow, an historian named Christopher "Fluke" Kelso is met by an old man named Papu Rapava, who claims to have been present at the death of Joseph Stalin. Immediately after Stalin's death, Lavrenty Beria supposedly took measures to secure a black notebook, believed to be Stalin's secret diary. Rapava spent years in Kolyma after the authorities tried to extract the book's location from him, but he never revealed it – and still has not, though he knows that shadowy agents are still watching him in case he should go near the mysterious thing.

Kelso eventually locates the notebook, which Rapava left to his daughter just before being recaptured and tortured to death. It proves to be the memoirs of a young girl chosen by Stalin to be the mother of his secret heir. Following the trail to the remote northern city of Arkhangelsk, Kelso comes face to face with Stalin's son.

Raised in a log cabin filled with Stalin's personal effects, writings and recorded speeches, the son is a physical and ideological copy of his father – it is revealed that he murdered the husband-and-wife KGB agents who had raised him from infancy when he decided they were untrustworthy. Young Stalin has been told that he would be sent for when it was time for him to assume control of his country, and he believes that Kelso is the promised messenger.

Stalin overcomes a special-forces unit sent to eliminate him (alarming Kelso by his ruthless and dispassionate use of violence) and boards a train headed for Moscow. At each station, ever-larger crowds gather to witness the apparent resurrection of the famous dictator, and it appears that he might be able to simply stride through the doors of the Kremlin and assume command.

As he steps off the train in Moscow, Rapava's daughter, who has made her way into the crowd at the train station, takes out her father's pistol. The novel ends there.

They also made a TV show in 2005, starring Daniel Craig as Kelso.

(Note: I hear "Kelso" is loosely based on Prof. Norman Stone)