Comrade Trotsky is the defender of Socialism

Lets imagine the following scenario. Lenin never has his third stroke and his testament is read out at the 12th Party Congress in 1923 by a frail but firm Lenin. As a result Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev are removed from their positions and insteed Trotsky becomes General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee in 1923 and Kamenev his second in command in the USSR.
Trodsky and Kamenev continues Lenin's more conventional Socialism and for instance Lenin's experimental program where small farmers are allowed to trade and own small parts of land are continued. Thusly no famine in the USSR in 1920s and 1930s.

With Trotsky not suffering from the parnoia which Stalin had the Sovjet Millitary is never stripped of its best and brightest and insteed the Sovjet Armed forced are modernized in the 1930s with capital earned with Trading with the West and with Western Business allowed to build factories in the country in 1920s and 1930s.

Thusly having a more friendly Socialist State which is still not a democracy but neither the evil dictorship which Stalin created in the OTL.

Come the election of Hitler in Germany in 1933 how does Comrade Trotsky act? Does he follow the same path of the OTL Sovjet Government? With him now having a strong economy and better millitary?

Come 1939 what about the Finland/Sovjet war? Will that happen?
 
Last edited:
I may sound blunt, but you need to familiarize yourself with "Search" function of this forum. Trotskyite USSR is discussed on this board at least monthly. BTW, it is Trotsky, not Trodsky.
 
I may sound blunt, but you need to familiarize yourself with "Search" function of this forum. Trotskyite USSR is discussed on this board at least monthly. BTW, it is Trotsky, not Trodsky.

That spell error is fixed. Then Talking alternate history I find it important with new aspect of the discussion. Thats my opinion Canadian Man.
 
Lenin also demanded in the testament that the politburo be enlarged tenfold, and filled with communist workers essentially fresh from the factories, to secure the proletarian nature of the party, and to insure against it being fractured by personal conflict and ambition.

So, under those circumstances, I have a hard time seeing Trotsky as anything near a personal autocrat.

In fact, it was probable this demand that made Trotsky, despite his later explanations, cooperate in the suppressing of the will: The bureaucrats in general feared for their power and privilege, Trotsky feared for the Napoleonic dictatorship (and European conquest) that he was imagining for himself.
 

DusanUros

Banned
With Trotsky not suffering from the parnoia which Stalin had the Sovjet Millitary is never stripped of its best and brightest and insteed the Sovjet Armed forced are modernized in the 1930s with capital earned with Trading with the West and with Western Business allowed to build factories in the country in 1920s and 1930s.

And thus dies Socialism. Free commerce and free market in a socialist state? USSR just became capitalist there. Great, an entire revolution for nothing.
 
Although I feel slightly ill indirectly defending Stalin, Trotskyism does not equal "Communism with the bad bits left out". Trotsky and the others on the left of the Bolshevik Party were all for collectivisation and industrialisation, not to mention unending world revolution. Stalin pinched the former for pragmatic economic reasons. Trotskyite Russia might be free of some of the more manic excesses of Stalin but you're ultimately looking at an autocratic state, kulaks in the GULAGs and plenty of hapless plebs being crushed under the wheels of the state in the drive for modernisation. On top of that expect a more militarised USSR (Trots was keen on labour armies wasn't he?), possibly a more elitist CPSU, as Stalin really opened the flood gates so loyal newcomers could be given the top jobs over the Old Bolsheviks (Trotsky would have a similar goal but he'd probably let a few key bigwigs stay if they were loyal to him, while he might look to the Red Army for his true powerbase) and also Western-Soviet relations a probably worse as regardless of the logistical and military problems of 1919, Trotsky probably hasn't given up on the idea of riding to the English Channel (reminds me, cavalry might have a more prominent role in the military, at least until the Red Cossacks exit the steppe and enter Western European trench systems)
 
(reminds me, cavalry might have a more prominent role in the military, at least until the Red Cossacks exit the steppe and enter Western European trench systems)

That's not necessarily a really bad thing. Cavalry proved quite durable and good at not getting encircled on the Eastern Front. They were scaling the cavalry brigades down before the war, and forming tonnes of new ones in '42.

More depends on whether the old cavalry officers stay on, and which ones precisely.
 
That's not necessarily a really bad thing.
Just wanted to add. Russians mostly stopped to train cavalry for white weapon melees in 1890s (Nicholas granted old historical names back to regiments in 1908, but it was purely symbolic, everyone, from hussars to cuirasseers, used same training manuals). Since then Russian (later Soviet) cav was a dragoon (mobile infantry) force, intended to fight dismounted. They still had sabres, but it was considered a secondary weapon.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Although I feel slightly ill indirectly defending Stalin, Trotskyism does not equal "Communism with the bad bits left out". Trotsky and the others on the left of the Bolshevik Party were all for collectivisation and industrialisation, not to mention unending world revolution. Stalin pinched the former for pragmatic economic reasons. Trotskyite Russia might be free of some of the more manic excesses of Stalin but you're ultimately looking at an autocratic state, kulaks in the GULAGs and plenty of hapless plebs being crushed under the wheels of the state in the drive for modernisation. On top of that expect a more militarised USSR (Trots was keen on labour armies wasn't he?), possibly a more elitist CPSU, as Stalin really opened the flood gates so loyal newcomers could be given the top jobs over the Old Bolsheviks (Trotsky would have a similar goal but he'd probably let a few key bigwigs stay if they were loyal to him, while he might look to the Red Army for his true powerbase) and also Western-Soviet relations a probably worse as regardless of the logistical and military problems of 1919, Trotsky probably hasn't given up on the idea of riding to the English Channel (reminds me, cavalry might have a more prominent role in the military, at least until the Red Cossacks exit the steppe and enter Western European trench systems)

Indeed. Besides the fact that Stalin basically stole his economic plan for ruthless forced industrialiaztion and collectivization from Trotsky, the latter was the one all about turning Russia into the armed stronghold of world revolution. A Trotskite USSR may get a bit less purges, but it is not radically nicer to its subjects, and to the West it looks even more terrifying. Trotsky in all likelihood gets a bloody nose in his first attempt to invade Europe in 1919-21, then it settles down to build up Soviet industry and military for the next two decades, then it's on the rampage again, all the while remaining brazenly hostile to capitalist powers and sponsoring Communist subversion and insurgencies in Europe and Asia. Say major support to Chinese, Indian, South East Asian Communists, major intervention in the SCW, renewed invasion of Poland/Romania/Finland in the 1930s, as well as major intervention in the early Chinese Civil War. In all likelihood, the Western powers grow to regard the USSR as the true global bogeyman, looking the other way as Germany does its number on Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and WWII gets to be an anti-Soviet crusade. Who cares about the rights of Czechoslovakia in London when you have say a Communist Spain, or the Red Army making inroads in Persia ?
 
Thats something I didn't even think about actually, a Trotskyite USSR's more obvious effect is there's no alternate current of thought in World Communism, as I doubt the more pragmatic 'Right' elements would be much of an inspiring creed. Taking Spain as the obvious example, the PCE and POUM will assumingly be united, however without the distance of being in opposition, I have a feeling quite a few Trotskyites in OTL will be his fiercest detractors, maybe giving the Anarcho-Syndicalists a boost?

I'd be interested to see how in a climate of actively seeking world revolution, how the Comintern works. I doubt the Communist Parties will have any more freedom than OTL but Trotsky might be keen on using them as a fifth column rather than geopolitical pawns.
 
Top