PC: No Hitler and Trotsky instead of Stalin leads to USSR starting WW2

kernals12

Banned
If Hitler didn't come to power and Trotsky instead of Stalin succeeded Lenin, how plausible is it that WW2 could be started by the Soviet Union? I think I've heard Trotsky believed in spreading the revolution all over the world by force perhaps.
 
We might see a fascist (or at least authoritarian right-wing) Europe, driven into a rightward swing in it's politics, face off against a Trotskyist USSR.
 
It's plausible. While Germany without HItler might veer into a right-wing authoritarian state, it would be unlikely to become outright fascist, or to be as recklessly adventurist as OTL.

Contrariwise, if the USSR does not fall under the control of Stalin, it will not have the same level of internal purges, and probably remain more interested and aggressive in "spreading revolution".

Under Stalin the USSR was cautious - not using force outside its borders until late 1939, after the HItler-Stalin Pact provided cover and Hitler's war with the democratic powers provided distraction.

Another question is relative armament. Absent Hitler, Germany would not rearm as heavily, nor would France and Britain feel as threatened and thus motivated to rearm themselves. OTOH, absent Stalin, the USSR might not build up heavy industry as fast, or produce as much arms. I have a respectable source which asserts that in 1940, the USSR had ~20,000 AFVs, which would have been more than the rest of the world combined. Of course most of those AFVs were junk, but so were lots of other countries' AFVs in 1940. If the Soviets had such an apparent advantage in military power, that might embolden its leaders to initiate open war.

(Probably not Trotsky; he wasn't an effective intriguer and had few genuine allies in the Politburo.)
 

kernals12

Banned
One thing that would be fascinating about a World War 2 with the USSR as the enemy would be Poland's borders shifting east instead of west.
 
OK, here's my try at a constructive answer:

Trotsky gets shot in the head during one of the late battles of the Russian civil war, making him a great hero of the revolution and a non-threatening brain-damaged idiot.

After Lenin dies, to avoid a struggle for power, the near-vegetable is made the figure head leader. Stalin, in this world, is still powerful but feels comfortable enough with the arrangement to follow a more collegial path.

In the late 30s, political instability in Germany leads to a military dictatorship with a rubber-stamp conservative dominated Reichstag. This militarist Germany goes about reclaiming the Rhineland, agitating for anschluss, trying to undermine France, Poland and the Soviet Union, and generally being an annoying revanchist power, but not to the point where Britain is repelled, leading to Germany and Britain working to roll back Versailles together. The British, of course, aren't actually friends of Germany, but to the Soviet Union, it looks like they are facing an Anglo-German capitalist alliance slowly building up to destroy them.

The politburo of the Soviet Union, except for the idiot figure head, is inspecting a new steel mill in 1939, when a freak industrial accident kills them all. The USSR is now in the hands of a brain dead moron, and proceeds to act like it, launching an invasion to destroy the German murderers of their beloved revolutionary leaders.

My less constructive answer:

Trotsky's ideology is heavily misunderstood. 1) Because maligning him was a hobby of the Stalinists, the Democratic Socialists and the anti-Socialists. 2) Because Trotsky himself started advocating very different policies when he was outsted from political power in the USSR.

His ideas on "continuous revolution" actually added up to being more in favour of greater openness to the West and greater trade with the West than Stalin's ideology. It was not an ideological position that committed Trotsky to suicidal wars.

Equally, Stalin's "socialism in one country" did not mean that Stalin was not absolutely committed to spreading the revolution. Rather, Stalin was saying "let's grow strong here so we can support the revolution elsewhere in the world when it does happen".

Furthermore: Trotsky has a snowball's chance in hell of becoming leader of the USSR. Yes, you can trace contorted paths where events all add up just right to putting Trotsky in charge. But honestly, Nick Clegg had as much chance of becoming Prime Minister of the UK. Also, in the incredibly unlikely event of Trotsky gaining power, 1) there's no way in hell Trotsky has as much power as Stalin, he simply does not have the talents required to be a powerful dictator, let alone talents that compare to Stalin's in this field, 2) Trotsky wasn't a suicidal idiot.

Also, don't make the mistake of thinking Hitler was the only potential leader of Germany that wanted to violently overthrow the order in Europe in service to their ideology. German militarism got an unjustified sanitization during the Cold War - if you actually look at the political aims of the militaristic right in interwar Germany, they had just as much potential to be mass-murderers as Hitler's lot. Just their mass-murdering would be more aimed at Poles and Russians, not Jews.

fasquardon
 
those various right-wing French parties.

As much as a Fascist France is a favoured trope of AH, the French far right has even less chance of getting control of France than Trotsky has of getting control of the USSR. The French political system was under enormous strain in the interwar period, but at no point was France in any remote danger of going to the far left or far right. The 3rd Republic had succeeded in deeply entrenching democratic and republican institutions into the fabric of French society.

fasquardon
 
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