I believe, and I think this is unfortunate but true, that it is a mistake to assume the OTL course of Stalinist top-down rule and fanatical and inefficient industrialization under a military central control model is the brainchild of either Trotsky or Stalin; it was the logical outcome of the mindset of all leading Bolsheviks. They believed themselves to inherit objective scientific truth in the matter of the destiny of humanity and this required ruthlessness in overcoming all obstacles--including what they regarded as the half-baked, improperly formed consciousness of the Soviet masses in general and even other Bolsheviks in particular.
If we play the game of "who thought of this mess?" regarding how it developed in the '30s, Trotsky probably deserves more credit and blame, but that's mainly because he was an incisive thinker, not because he had some agenda setting him apart from most Bolsheviks.
I've come believe a few things I once did not;
1) Marx was a very good economist, but a pretty poor politician. Marxist-Leninist parties never focus on ongoing participation in a capitalist society (though I would be pleased to learn more about any that do) so do not make much use of Marx's analysis of capitalist mechanisms, and have no theory worthy of the name of how to operate a post-capitalist society beyond sheer brute force of bureaucracy. And they inherit Marx's tin ear for pragmatic politics unfortunately. They can and do capture a segment of the population's devotion, but never democratic majorities--Salvador Allende in Chile or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua may have been exceptions, but they also weren't terribly Leninist either. I am prepared to acknowledge counterexamples but we all know discussion might get heated. Let no one be offended by my sweeping statements, I would be thrilled to learn of counterexamples, and take arguments about how good an analyst of capitalism Marx was and is elsewhere since they do not belong here--IMHO he is very good at that. And I suspect that nowadays some rightists are using elements of Marxist analysis in order to maximize profits and outmaneuver workers too.
2) The Bolsheviks, being convinced of their infallibility and being unwilling to police elements of obvious corruption of their "guardian" mission and maximize genuine worker control, were deeply committed by the nature of their movement to a tightly controlled economy and to a police state. Many people, myself included, tend to read Trotsky as "Notsky"as The Red put it just above, who would have avoided every brutal excess--in fact Stalin ripped off Trotsky's plan as soon as NEP had redeveloped Russian industry to the point it was worth expropriating again, and it was with the relief and approval of most Bolsheviks he switched over to a more coercive and centralized model of control that was consciously and openly, with the broad consensus of Bolshevik leaders, meant to tax and minimally reward both rural peasants and industrial workers--I do believe the majority of Bolsheviks were sincere in believing this would be necessary for future prosperity and that many workers sacrificing today would live to reap major benefits of the force investment of their labor in a collective socialist future, and that the sooner true communism came the better for everyone. That said, they were not leery of enjoying privilege, the first fruits of the socialist harvest, nor enjoying first and last word of how to direct both the economy and society at large. Those of us who understand there were and are reasons for democratic majorities of working people to rationally look very askance at the priorities of the better-off minority and that their sacred cows should not be protected from at least dispassionate discussion of goring should also acknowledge that it has not been historically simple to get a truly democratic revolution of any kind into power or staying there, and that the likely historic outcome is always going to be "some sumbitch or other" getting statues made for them. Trotsky, Stalin, any other name you pick out of the hat of renowned followers of Lenin, none of them were likely to lead the working class gently by the hand to a paradise of genuine freedom and superior bounty.
As an admirer of Marx and the European-Enlightenment culture left wing tradition generally, I still hope to find some formula for this to happen, and remain confident capitalist society can be surpassed with something superior across the board, but doing so is not easy, obviously, and probably involves a tensely dialectical situation where a strong worker's movement cannot be crushed or broken but neither can dictate its will, and capitalists have very strong pressures both positive and negative imposed on them giving an evolution of a more cooperative relationship as the one way out. Neither party is
aiming for such a juncture and so it may be unlikely to happen; then again it might prove inevitable in the long run as the only possible way out for all sides.
A Trotsky leads USSR TL is difficult to do even for someone who knows their Bolshevik history well enough to realize that the saintly Notsky has no place in their narrative; the problem is the man had so many political liabilities against him. He rejected Lenin when the Russian Social Democrats split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions; his convert status in 1917 looked like rank opportunism to rank and file Bolsheviks and leaders alike; his intellectual gifts of analysis came across as know-it-all and insulting; it would hardly do to attack him simply for a Jewish background given the status of other Jews in Bolshevik ranks but once open season on him was declared, venting veiled anti-Semitism on him was something one could get away with and indeed Jewish Bolsheviks would need to distance themselves from him somehow. There was the matter of being a competent general popular with high Red Army officers and possibly troops too being more of a liability than asset to these Marxist keen students of the French Revolution of 1789 and after. And his plan for the industrial basis of Soviet socialism and steps toward Communism being based on ruthless liquidation of opponents and exploitation of the working class in their own name would not endear him to vast democratic masses even if they could get past the permissible anti-Semitism either.
It might be fun to contemplate what Lenin and he might have done if they were stuck with only limited influence on the course of Soviet society, having to share power with the SR with the mass peasant party being on a much firmer and broad basis than OTL, if all they could do was mobilize those who followed them voluntarily into seeking ways and means to expand industrial power on a consensual basis, being deprived of the power of coercion. But gaming out a Russian situation where no one has the power of arbitrary coercion is hard enough without making sure the Bolsheviks are in on the tangle of power involved!
So--in this TL, we have a ruling clique in Moscow essentially identical to OTL and I don't see it going on a radically different course just because Germany does. Jockeying Trotsky into supremacy is probably not your (
@The Red)'s plan and would be a tricky and largely irrelevant tour de force anyway.
I would like to see other TLs where he remains in play; Jello Biafra did this to an extent in Reds!. Especially TLs where the outcome differs from OTL a lot in Russia-but we all understand, this will never be just because Trotsky
wills it so.
