Eternal Revolution

This is going to be an attempted thread examining in my own way how history might have gone differently had a certain man been killed at Tsaritsyn. I'll be looking at the way some changes might have been made and how well some countries would have fared and what changes might come because of that.

Prologue:

September 1919 Tsaritsyn,

The crack of rifle fire and the stucco rattle of a distant machine gun hardly bothered the man named Stalin. The 'Man of Steel' as it were sat on his horse and watched the battle from afar. The outlying buildings were holding a group of White troops who had held up his attack on the nearby village. Slipping past the sentry lines they had entrenched themselves during the night and attacked the column of men he had sent to discipline the nearby village. Stalin knew it had to be treachery, there was no other way those Whites could have slipped through the lines and attacked them. He still hadn't holstered his service revolver after punishing the traitor. The corpse of the White officer assigned to him lay in a puddle of blood just up the road. He knew they were all conspirators against the revolution. He'd make sure any other White officers were dealt with when he returned to the city proper. Now for the men in his immediate line of sight.

The men under his command pressed forward towards a small house that looked like it had been a shop until recently. That was where a number of the enemy had holed up. If they took it, or just burned it down, they would push the remainder out and hunt them down. He smiled mentally. Movement in a building close by caught his attention. He craned his head to look and saw a muzzle flash just before the bullet took him in the throat. He was thrown from his horse, his gun going off into the air before he dropped it from limp fingers. He managed a choking, gargling scream before he hit the ground. His comrades closed in around him and fired at the window where the shot had come from. They called for a doctor but by the time it was too late. Stalin's blood had fed the soil of Mother Russia. The Man of Steel was dead.
 
Great idea! I am interested to see how the USSR would develop without Stalin; I am interested to see who takes over after Lenin.
 
Great idea! I am interested to see how the USSR would develop without Stalin; I am interested to see who takes over after Lenin.

Well so far I'm seeing Trotsky as one of the obvious successors, his main opponent now would be Bukharin while he'd probably be sparring with his other allies over the NEP and its 'correct' institution.
 
The Polish-Soviet War

The question of the Polish lands of what had once been Imperial Russia was one that brought up considerable conflict in the early days of the new Soviet Union. It was perhaps a task that only Russia, with its vast amounts of manpower could contemplate. To fight an eastward invasion of the Ukraine, launch a westward invasion of Poland, as well as fight an internal civil war. The wisdom of this act is still questioned in modern historical circles. Though the Curzon Line had been drawn by the Paris Peace Conference, none on either the Polish side or the Soviet side.

Though there had been a low level war fought between both the Poles and the Russians since 1919 it would not be until 1920 that both sides fully realized the scope of the war they were fighting. The Soviet Union decided to launch an offensive to push the Poles from the border, and in Lenin's mind hopefully create the impetus for a Soviet invasion Westward to spread the Revolution. The Poles in the meanwhile had agreed to launch an offensive before the Soviets, and thus Operation Kiev was launched.

At first it turned out to be a success for the Poles which crushed the Soviet 12th Army and ejected the 14th from the Ukraine. All seemed to be going well for the Poles, that is until the Red Army counterattacked. The Polish advance ran straight into the Soviet advance and in a series of short bitter engagements was repulsed. Most notable were the actions of the 1st Cavalry Army under Semyon Budyonny who in a series of brutally repeated attacks with his Cossack cavalry unhinged the line of the Polish armies in the south and sent them into retreat. The Soviet armies went on a string of victories and it was thought that they would be capturing Warsaw within the year. To accomplish this task Leon Trotsky was appointed commander of the Soviet War effort in Poland. Although he opposed the war he dutifully took his place at the head of the army and prepared for the coming battle.

July 1920

Leon Trotsky sat inside the command tent glaring daggers at the map before him. He was faced with a near impossible task no matter how confident those in Petrograd might be. His supply lines were to long, his soldiers were exhausted and he didn't even have enough rifles to put in their hands. He had resorted to ordering his commanders to strip down the dead and captured Poles for weapons. Even so he could continue the campaign as far as Warsaw, then perhaps force the Poles to sue for peace giving them time to clean house in Russia.

Even the map seemed to laugh at him. If the Poles were determined enough they could break gaps in his hugely stretched forces. Thankfully they seemed to bewildered to contemplate a counter attack. In the meantime he would press the offensive.

He was confident in his commanders. On short notice he had placed Mikhail Tuhkachevsky in charge of the Lviv/Lwow front which covered his northern flank. He himself led the Western Front now. In the South Yegorov, one of Bukharin's disciples, was in charge, he and Budyonny were relentlessly pressing their attack and driving the Poles west. He had been asked to put Bukharin in charge of one flank but had been loathe to as he despised the man and found him better at cleaning house behind the lines in Ukraine rallying their local allies. Instead he led and was confident of his next attack. He traced a finger on the map to Warsaw. Yes, Warsaw would fall he told himself, there was no doubt of that. With that he left the tent and began issuing orders.

 
The Battle of Warsaw

On August 14th 1920 the storm broke over Warsaw. Trotsky had been preparing the attack for weeks and the planned date for the attack (August 12th) had come and gone as Trotsky instituted a last minute build up of artillery shells. This had the unintended effect of worrying the Poles who moved forces forward as Pilsudski mistimed the start of the Soviet attack. When the attack never materialzed on the 12th the Poles decided to reorganize their front to better anticipate what they assumed would be a more coordinated attack along their flank by the Cossacks. This proved to be a fatal error.

Trotsky, unaware due to faulty intelligence of the Polish maneuvers began the attack with a massive artillery barrage and a near suicidal rush of all his units in the center of the line. This had the dual effect of catching the Poles as they were maneuvering their forces as well as confusing them to where the hammer would fall. When reports that Budyonny was massing for a calvalry attack on the center materialzed the Poles rushed their forces from the South to meet Trotsky`s charge on the center. This took pressure off the Soviet flank and blinded the Poles to the true danger of the battle.

Here on the Vistula Trotsky forced a crossing utterly overwhelming the Polish 5th and pressing relentlessly West and South, he hoped to cut the Poles off from Gdarisk, the only means of Polish ressuply. The plan hit a snag however when a raid by Polish cavalry group launched a raid on the Russian flanks near the bridgehead. This attack was unexpected and caused mass confusion among the Soviet ranks until Trotsky himself led a counter attack and furiously drove the army South.

The Polish in the center though making some headway against the Bolsheviks were shocked when communications from their rear announced the appearence of no less than four Russian armies. It is at this point that the Poles panicked. Elements of the army that were ordered to counter attack were in reality miles away from the front attempting to re-engage the Russians on the left flank who had suddenly assaulted them. All Polish units in the North were fleeing before the Russian advance making it a sweeping Russian attack. Only in the center was there any good semblance of order as the Polish troops fought a fighting withdrawl to Warsaw.

This was to prove pointless as Trotsky`s forces swung behind Warsaw, effectively trapping the bulk of those forces while in the meantime Budyonny`s infamous cavalry finally did charge and brush aside the disorganized Polish forces who attempted to counter attack from the South.

Warsaw was effectively under siege.

By the 20th Warsaw was effectively surrounded and the Polish troops within, including Pisudski, while the remnants of the Polish forces were harrased by Russian cavalry and advance guards as they withdrew and attempted to regroup. Trotsky consolidated his forces around Warsaw and settled in for a siege. He did not intend it to be a long one.

Seven days later Bolshivek forces had pressed into the outskirts of Warsaw. Polish forces were in the meanwhile busily regrouping and had launched a number of poorly coordinated attacks against the Russians surrounding Warsaw. Troops under Tuhkachevesky were already at the Border of East Prussia and remained stationary or sending any available divisions to aid in the capture of Warsaw.

By August 30th it was finished. Soviet forces had secured Warsaw and the body of Pilsudski was found in the ruins. Polish forces along the German border were disorganized and almost in a state of collapse. Here the Red Army could have pushed and crushed them, the world feared an imminent Communist invasion of Germany.

This however did not materialize. Despite the fears of the West the truth was that the Bolshivek forces were overstretched, undersupplied, and ill prepared to launch another attack. The truth was the Reds were spent, the capture of Warsaw had taken more out of them than they could afford. Trotsky knew he could not risk sending even more troops West and nor could he easily supply his overstretched army. Indeed he had barely had enough supplied to complete the storming of Warsaw. He was nearly out of artillery shells. A different solution was needed.
 
Well so far I'm seeing Trotsky as one of the obvious successors, his main opponent now would be Bukharin while he'd probably be sparring with his other allies over the NEP and its 'correct' institution.

We had many threads on this... The consensus seem that Trotsky have MAJOR things against him. He will probably not head USSR.
 
Well so far I'm seeing Trotsky as one of the obvious successors, his main opponent now would be Bukharin while he'd probably be sparring with his other allies over the NEP and its 'correct' institution.
Kirov could be a likely successor, though I don't know if he'd rise so high if he wasn't seen as a counterweight to Stalin.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Are we supposing that the successful breaking of Red Army radio communications ciphers by Polish cryptographers did not happen here?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Well so far I'm seeing Trotsky as one of the obvious successors, his main opponent now would be Bukharin while he'd probably be sparring with his other allies over the NEP and its 'correct' institution.
It's borderline-ASB for Trotsky to take over after Lenin, at least for more than a short time. He was a brilliant, arrogant prick who loved talking about how right he was all the time. And almost everybody important hated him because sermonizing douchebags don't typically rub people the right way.

Bukharin is a clever dilettante who basically embodies the "salon Bolshevik" and possesses neither the desire nor will to rule.

Chances are that Rykov remains premier because he's a centrist and pretty agreeable to everyone. Molotov will probably lead the hardliners while Trotsky becomes the éminence rouge of the Party's Left-wing, but probably not it's primary leader.

Kirov could be a likely successor, though I don't know if he'd rise so high if he wasn't seen as a counterweight to Stalin.
Kirov would have gotten nowhere had it not been for Stalin. No Stalin means that Kirov will be lucky to have a street named after him in Baku.
 
The main supposition is that the Polish Cavalry didn't destroy the radio transmiter for the Northern wing of the Soviet advance which stopped the order for Soviet troops to go south. That is what turned the battle into a victory for Polish forces, codes or not they were in danger of being surrounded. Though for the codes I am going to explore that in the next post as i was simply concentrating on the Fall of warsaw in this one.

Also I'm not seeing Trotsky as the indefinate leader of the USSR, thus far he's most likely to be in power in the short term after Lenin's death as Lenin's Speech isn't going to be covered up by Stalin.

More comments are welcome please.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Also I'm not seeing Trotsky as the indefinate leader of the USSR, thus far he's most likely to be in power in the short term after Lenin's death as Lenin's Speech isn't going to be covered up by Stalin.
Lenin's Testament was never covered up. Every single regional delegation to the Congress knew its content. The fact is, they didn't care.
 
Lenin's Testament was never covered up. Every single regional delegation to the Congress knew its content. The fact is, they didn't care.

Hm then ive improperly researched this document. Mistake on my part for which i apologize. It doesn't change my plans in the long run however for this TL.
 
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