Huh? I wrote that lack of sufficient industrialization would mean that the Soviets wouldn't have the strength to stand up to the Nazi armies and the U.S. would thus have to use nuclear weapons--lots of them--to defeat Hitler. How is this being "pantingly eager" to see Hitler win?
I'm just sick and tired of the way if any post-WWI POD is proposed, someone jumps in with "hey, that means Hitler does better."
As to a Czarist or conservative military regime being able to build up the country in time for WW II (a 20-year window), please tell me how they would do this if they were hit by the Great Depression (which would have been the case under any government except one insulated from world markets and outside investment).
That assumes beforehand we get the WWII we had OTL, which is quite unlikely.
Re the depression, Japan managed quite considerable growth during the 30s, as did Fascit Italy: being backwards has its advantages. Also, why should they be hit any harder than Germany (OTL one of the worst hit European countries).
As to Trotsky, while Stalin was building a patronage machine in the 1920s and extending his leverage over the government and party, Trotsky was writing books on literary criticism and the need to speed up the world revolution. He was utterly clueless.
Re gaining control of the government, perhaps so: I said myself he was unlikely to come to power.
Yes, Stalin was a monstrous Ivan the Terrible type, but he did give that speech in the early 1930s to the effect that either we become an industrial power in ten years or they'll crush us. And he got the industrialization done.
In an incredibly wasteful, self-destructive manner. As I said before, why are you assuming that a White or left-democratic Russia would be -less- effective at industrialization than the one run by the inbred Romanovs, which was industrializing at a good clip before 1914?
Trotsky did not have this sense of urgency--he thought the workers of other countries were on the verge of rising up and all the communists had to do was to be bold and they'd win in Germany, Spain, China, and beyond those ridges new peaks will rise, etc.
He also was in favor of forced-draft industrialization, just as Stalin was: while positioning himself to destroy Trotsky, Stalin accused Trotsky of being too "radical." And Stalin also thought Germany was on the verge of going Red: he ordered the Communists in Germany to not cooperate with the Socialists because he thought that the Nazi regime would destroy itself and be replaced by a Communist regime.
Hitler probably would have come to power even without the Bolshevik threat. There still would have been the Versailles Treaty, the stab in the back myth, hatred of Jews, the Great Depression, leftwing protests, angry military vets, the volkish movement, etc. to propel him forward.
Oh, I'd agree there's definitely a chance. I am in fact a bit annoyed with the right-wing types who blame all the ills of the 20th century on 1917 and claim that it was a necesary condition for his rise to power.
And once in power, he would have aimed at lebensraum and racial purification in Russia and the Ukraine even without a Bolshevik regime there.
Well, yes. But what he wants to do is not what is going to happen.
Look at how he treated the Poles even though Poland was under a conservative quasi-authoritarian government in the years leading up to the blitzkrieg invasion..
Oh, I see: I wasn't clear enough. When I suggested a Russian-German right-wing alliance, I meant a Germany led by someone
other than Hitler
(Snip stuff discussed by others)
So assuming that the non-Bolsheviks got lucky and were able to assassinate Lenin and Trotsky, how would they over the next decade magically transform themselves into leaders who could recognize the threat from Germany and understand that they had to speed up industrialization artificially, not just let it occur naturally, and had to be ready to churn out the weapons. They wouldn't.
No, they could rearm as the British and French did, with French aid and investment, [1] and crush Hitler as part of a broader alliance before he got as strong as he was in 1941. You seem unfamiliar with the butterfly effect: look into it a bit more.
There are scenarios in which Hitler might do better than OTL (the Hitler temporarily allies with White Russia and then turns on them, for instance). But I think they are outnumbered by the ones in which he either fails to come to power or does worse.
Bruce
[1] Stalin wasn't magically perceptive: he was just paranoid. He would have started militarizing in the early 30s if Germany elected St. Francis of Assisi in Hitler's place: he just accelerated this when Hitler started building up his forces.