Best leader for the Soviet Union, post Lenin?

Leon Trotsky would not have started WWII or been some crazy world revolutionary.

He called for World Revolution which would probably have destroyed early Soviet Union's chances of recognition, I mean Europe was scared of them as t was, what do you think they'd do when they're calling your your people to overthrow you in violent revolution.

The great officer purge would not occur.

That's wishful thinking at its worst. Do you know what he did to his own soldiers?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Leon Trotsky would not have started WWII or been some crazy world revolutionary.

It was Trotsky who called for a crash course of Industrialization before Stalin did. Stalin, when he got in power, stole Trotsky's plan.

Mainly Leon Trotsky was against collectivization of the peasantry because of the starvations and shortages it created.

The great officer purge would not occur.

Acctually Trotsky wanted to force collectivization on the peasantry well before Stalin got the idea. Trotsky always considered NEP the worst mistake the USSR ever made.
 
He called for World Revolution which would probably have destroyed early Soviet Union's chances of recognition, I mean Europe was scared of them as t was, what do you think they'd do when they're calling your your people to overthrow you in violent revolution.



That's wishful thinking at its worst. Do you know what he did to his own soldiers?

See, the thing is we don't know if Trotsky could have implemented his 'world revolution' even if he wanted to. I mean, that takes a lot of gall to do, and he wasn't a total retard--he'd at least see improving the state of the nation as a means to that, as anyone with a lick of sense would. As for officer purges...irrespective of his attitude to soldiers, how did he treat officers? I think he would appreciate that a command with some smart people in it is something to keep.
 
Acctually Trotsky wanted to force collectivization on the peasantry well before Stalin got the idea. Trotsky always considered NEP the worst mistake the USSR ever made.

Trotsky's attack on Stalin's collectivization program was why Trotsky was kicked out of the Bolshevik party.

Trotsky was vicious during the Civil war especially with his own soldiers. However the officer purge was part of the search for Trotskyites. It involved charging Tuchavesky with "rightist Trotskyism."

Trotsky knew how to organize an army considering he was the guy who organized the Red Army. If he were to be in power the Army wouldn't be considered an enemy of the Party.
 
Leon Trotsky would not have started WWII or been some crazy world revolutionary.

Not too sure about that. Trotsky wasn't exactly the brightest in terms of foreign politics. His invasion of Poland was to link up with Germany was because of his belief of a Permanant Revolution was that the Soviet Union could not survive without the help of a more industrialized country.

It was Trotsky who called for a crash course of Industrialization before Stalin did. Stalin, when he got in power, stole Trotsky's plan.

Yup. Trotsky wanted a command economy with five year plans in 1924. It probably be would have been less brutal than that of Stalins but still brutal.


Mainly Leon Trotsky was against collectivization of the peasantry because of the starvations and shortages it created.

I agree with yourworstnightmare, he considered the NEP a horrible mistake and a step backwards towards capitalism. He saw the economic effects of it as a scissor crisis - a rising price of grain in comparison to the lowering price of city goods. Trotsky did not think too fondly of any farmer that made some sizeable profit from the NEP.

The great officer purge would not occur

Maybe. Maybe not. Trotsky was nearly as ruthless as Stalin but he was still a military man.
 
Forced industrialization was a large scale failure and the need for ruthlesness a self-serving myth. Czars had created the basis for Soviet industrialization and Soviet leaders did not take full advantage of it but instead hampered progress. This was especially evident in longer term as technical competency of Soviet Union became dramatically worse as fully sovietized generation of engineers gained control in work life.


Run this through your head: Soviet soldiers feared their own government more than they did the SS, and the SS were some first rate butchers. If that doesn't say Stalin was a monster, then what does.
 
Run this through your head: Soviet soldiers feared their own government more than they did the SS, and the SS were some first rate butchers. If that doesn't say Stalin was a monster, then what does.

I don't think that's necessarily true.
 

Cook

Banned
The best scenario would have been if Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky had played “Purge him before he Purges you” on Joseph Stalin.

Tukhachevsky was a brilliant general who could have strengthened the defences of the Soviet Union.

Without Stalin’s Purges the Soviet economy would have been far stronger, it’s industry could have been run by professionals instead of Party Toadies and the Red Army would have had Generals in charge of divisions instead of lieutenants when Hitler attacked.
 
Trotsky would not have committed anything like the Great Purge. If he wound up in the driver's seat of the USSR, then he would have been in control of the military more-or-less from start to finish. It would be a firm base of support for him, not a worrisome source of political rivals.
 
I like Trotsky and all, and the simplistic analysis of his complex and often contradictory positions on most matters of import to the Union do him a disservice, but of all the available leaders of the 20s, Bukharin is by far my first choice. Trotsky was despised too much by the Politburo and had become too used to the use of terror and execution to re-order and discipline an organisation - though it was successful, and far less bloody than later purges, it speaks to a mindset that very well might deal with the eternal problem of the peasants by making war on them as Stalin did.

Bukharin was well-liked by... Everyone, championed a freer, more open style of Communism, could open relations to Europe, and was above all a smart, flexible, charismatic Old Bolshevik who could do great things. By the 20s Russia's cultural and scientific revolution was in swing and experiencing an incredibly boon even in the face of the post-war devastation and restrictions of the Leninist years, and a more balanced Soviet economy, almost guaranteed by Bukharin's policies, would not only improve its health, wealth and power in the shot term but likely guarantee the permanent survival of the Soviet Union and the Second World in perpetuity.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
From what I gather, Kirov was sympathetic to a lot of Bukharin's ideas. If Kirov survives and manages to unseat Stalin, you'll probably see a better USSR that follows Bukharinist communism.

Bukharin himself, though well liked, was no leader. He was an intellectual who much preferred doodling and writing poetry to doing anything administrative, and was really much more of a courtier than a potentate, and certainly not the type of person you'd want (or who'd want to) run the country.
 
Top