Trotsky Ascendent?

[Minchandre]

I was really surprised not to see a thread on this already, but what if Trotsky had succeeded Lenin, as Lenin had intended? (Instead of Stalin, who succeeded IOTL)

Trotsky was one of the architects of the USSR. He was Lenin's right hand, he was the father of the Red Army, he was the guy who decided to say "People's Commissar" instead of "Minister". In 1921, though, a fellow named Stalin assembled a coalition to prevent Trotsky's succession of Lenin. Even still, though, it seems like a lot of the Party was pretty ambivalent about troika after Lenin's death, and if Trotsky had just read aloud Lenin's letter recommending him as heir, or campaigned a little harder for dominance, he might have been able to take power. As far as I can tell, Trotsky refused to be appointed Lenin's official heir because he thought that appointing heirs was too bourgeois. It's also possible for Trotsky to seize power in the early years of the troika, when they were categorically screwing everything up and had not yet ruthlessly stamped out all opposition.

So what does a Trotskyist USSR look like? The only two things that immediately come to mind to me is that there's not going to be a Great Purge (which was historically done almost exclusively to purge the officer corps of people with residual loyalty to Trotsky), and we'll probably be a little more liberal in general, because Trotsky wasn't as crazy paranoid as Stalin.

 

[Kome]

I was really surprised not to see a thread on this already, but what if Trotsky had succeeded Lenin instead of Stalin, as Lenin had intended?

Really? I always thought that Lenin ether said to keep Stalin out and didnt actually recommend someone.

Anyways, considering Trotsky really liked the idea of world wide revolution, um earlier ww2?

 

[Minchandre]

Really? I always thought that Lenin ether said to keep Stalin out and didnt actually recommend someone.

Anyways, considering Trotsky really liked the idea of world wide revolution, um earlier ww2?

Edit for clarity, I meant that Lenin wanted Trotsky, and Stalin ended up getting it.

 

[ColeMercury]

Given that Trotsky was pro-satellite-states and anti-annexation, it's entirely possible the Baltic states wouldn't have been annexed for a start.

 

[Spitfiremk1]

I see a more interventionist USSR under Trotsky. If some sort of revolution/rebellion occurs somewhere in the world, expect a brigade of Russian Soldiers their to assist in spreading the revolution.

Internally, don't expect a Trotskyist USSR to be the Stalinist hellhole of was IOTL, but don't expect it to be a lovey dovey Socialist utopia either as some would believe. Remember, Trotsky wasn't exactly an angel either.

 

[Wolfpaw]

The problem with Trotsky was that while he was a skilled military leader, a gifted orator, a stunning theoretician, and an all around brilliant individual, he had almost 0 political finesse. He was arrogant, condescending, and liked to remind everybody how smart he was, none of which gained him a whole lot of friends or allies; Lenin was one of the very few people who actually liked him.

Even if Stalin is cast out, Trostky may not have a hard time getting to the top, but he is going to have a lot of trouble controlling things and asserting his authority. There will be way more factionalism within the Party than there was when Stalin took/began to take power.

I think that if Trotsky does get to the top, the collective leadership that perished under Stalin will probably stick around; Trotsky won't have much of a choice since he'll basically have to form coalitions of Party groups to get things done, a system that a guy like Trotsky probably won't do so great in.

Trotsky will also do his best to check the growth and power of the bureaucracy, so we could see a lot more decentralization within the USSR, which could mean that the USSR remains authoritarian rather than totalitarian.

Economically, things are going to be really funky. If Trotsky's clique is in charge, they'll take steps towards collectivization. If Bukharin or Rykov or whoever's clique is in charge, they probably won't undo collectivization policies, but they'll push for more market-friendly ones. Autarky will most likely not arise, since most major factions are going to want greater integration/involvement into the world economy, unlike Stalin.

Foreign policy...well, if Trotsky stays within the halls of power, you can count on a more aggressive foreign policy with regards to preaching World Revolution and arming militant groups, not to mention supporting wars of national liberation as much as they can, all of which will most likely piss off quite a few major powers. China's going to be interesting if we see more unhesitating Soviet support for the Communists.

The Purges as we know them will not happen. There may be periodic purges of the army and the Party, but they'll most likely be minor and instead of people chanting "Blood for the Blood God!" it'll be more along the lines of internal exile, like, "You're being reassigned to monitor aquaculture possibilities in the Urals."

One of the most significant things is that the army may very well stay more independent ITTL than in OTL, especially if Tukhachevsky's still in charge. This will have mixed consequences and actually, IMO, increase the possibilities of a military coup, especially in times of trouble.

The secret police will also evolve differently since shady folks like Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria will certainly not be in charge of it, and like other things will probably be less centralized.

That's all I've got for now.

 

[Waldo]

Trotsky ending up in charge is difficult. The succession struggle wasn't really Trotsky vs. Stalin, it was more like Trotsky vs. everyone. The other big figures all saw Trotsky as the biggest threat to themselves so even if Stalin isn't dominant you'd still see Trotsky's rivals forming alliances against him.

Stalin rose up because he was super pragmatic, and repeatedly changed his position when it suited him. I.E he was at first opposed to Trotsky's economic ideas and agreed with Bukharin, and then once he didn't need Bukharin anymore he flipped and started disagreeing with him. In addition to that Stalin used the position of General Secretary to make sure his supporters were the ones who rose up in the party bureaucracy. Trotsky on the other hand is a lot less likely to engage in the tactical flip-flopping as Stalin and wasn't big on the bureaucratic side of things like Stalin was either.

If somehow Trotsky came to power there'd be some similarities and some differences between Trotsky's USSR and the OTL one:

-you'd still have collectivization and industrialization as under Stalin, maybe even an earlier move to such things than in OTL.
-still lots of forced labour, maybe a lot more. Trotsky was big on "labour armies." Stalin sent people to the GULAG as a punishment but for Trotsky massive mandatory labour would just be normal practice, not just punishment for some wrongdoing.
-Trotsky wasn't as paranoid as Stalin, so not so much mass purging.
-Trotsky favored more economic dealings with capitalist countries, less Autarky then under Stalin
-Stalin encouraged Chinese Communists to work together with the GMD against the Japanese, Trotsky opposed this and favored more support for the communists and encouraging them to fight against the nationalists.
-Stalin encouraged the other communist parties to fight against the social-democratic parties in Europe until Hitler came to power when he then changed his mind and told communists to work with other leftists and form United Fronts. Trotsky would've supported United Fronts from the start. So leftists might do better in European elections, or they might appear to be an even greater threat and cause more support for Fascists.
-I think Stalin and Trotsky had some different ideas about the state organization of the USSR and nationalities issues but I'm not sure exactly how things would look under Trostky in this regard.

 

[The Red]

Trotsky was probably just as bloodthirsty as Stalin, there are stories of him impaling deserters during the civil war. Also his call for international revolution might screw up the Soviet Union even further, it would certainly give Hitler a stronger case and maybe an alliance with the west.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Wolfpaw gives a very sound analysis here. To add my tupence: "world revolution" means a bolder, more interventionist and ideological policy than Stalin's; but given how cautious and pragmatic Stalin was, that's more along the lines of "more actively cultivating and backing foreign communists such as the Chinese" and "not actually sealing the USSR off from outside influence" than "formenting world fire". After all, Lenin believed in world revolution, too. Everyone who actually takes the helm of a great power has to reconcile ideology with conventional diplomacy. Even Hitler kept it up for a while.

 

[ColeMercury]

Wolfpaw gives a very sound analysis here. To add my tupence: "world revolution" means a bolder, more interventionist and ideological policy than Stalin's; but given how cautious and pragmatic Stalin was, that's more along the lines of "more actively cultivating and backing foreign communists such as the Chinese" and "not actually sealing the USSR off from outside influence" than "formenting world fire". After all, Lenin believed in world revolution, too. Everyone who actually takes the helm of a great power has to reconcile ideology with conventional diplomacy. Even Hitler kept it up for a while.

You mean Trotsky.

 

[Father Sergey Ryzhkov]

If Trotsky is patient enough (which I doubt), then he is going to start WWII in 1929-1930, taking the Great Depression for the agony of capitalism. Here he does have a chance to succeed, conquering Europe and eventually heating up the revolutionary situation in the US. That is, again, only if Trotsky has enough patience to wait for as long as 5 years.

"The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre long: the face of a man of about fifty-five, with a great oreol of hair and a wise expression on his spectacled face. Winston made for the stairs.
<...>
Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Steele without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a broad eastern face, with a great salt-and-pepper moustache and a clean-shaven chin -- a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the wide mouth, from which a pipe was protruding. It resembled the face of a dog, and the voice, too, had a dog quality."

 

[mailinutile2]

I am afraid that Trotsky got an halo of "sanctity" by being a "loser" in the fight for egemony in CCCP.
But if you read his works you will find that he was a lot worse than the poor Stalin.
His ideas on bending the truth to the service of the party were frightingly orwellian: not even stalin (who in practice used them several times) had dared to officially adopt them as a manifesto.
Also he has fame of a skilled military organizator, but in his works, he explicitly describe his idea of a new army as a large-scale guerrilla force, which is clearly a nonsense.
Even his "bright" idea of abolishing officer ranks (which could have some sense in a small guerrilla force), is crap in a large national army: Stalin re-introduction of them was just common sense (obviously T from his Mexico mansion cryed "Counter-revolution is happening!").
Regarding Lenin so-called testament, it is true that there were some crytics toward stalin, but there were a lot toward Trotzki, too.
The sad truth is that for the 5-years-plan transformation a huge and oppressive bureaucracy was essential: the only way to avoid it would be to introduce some popular NEP-like reforms
My view that a trotskian CCCP would be something like OTL '1919 "red terror" and "war communism" (aka: looting) and would collapse in less than 5 years, since T would never adopt a NEP-like policy and would not be able to organize the bureaucracy needed for a 5-years-plan

 

[I Blame Communism]

Trotsky may have abolished officer ranks symbolically, but by 1919 it amounted to nothing in practice. It was Trotsky who sanctioned the large-scale use of ex-Tsarist officers. As Wolfpaw says, Trotsky's Red Army will probably be more independent, organised, and political.

You mean Trotsky.

I mean Stalin, I'm afraid. To clarify: "As Stalin was himself very cautious and pragmatic, to be more bold and ideological than Stalin doesn't make you the boldest, most ideological knife in the drawer."

 

[Cash]

To carry some of the thoughts here to the next step, if it really was Trotsky against everyone else and he managed to gain power anyway, could the internal divisions have led to the creation of a two-party or multi-party political system in which everyone pays homage to Marx/Lenin and communism but has different philosophies on how to implement and manage it?

Or, considering Trotsky's tolerance of Czarist-era military officers, it might be an open question of how long he would last before an economic/foreign policy crisis persuaded the generals to remove him -- in particular if his rabid support for foreign socialist groups led any of the other major powers of Europe to move against him and the CCCP.

 

[mailinutile2]

Trotsky's Red Army will probably be more independent, organised, and political.

I see a great contradiction between being more independent (= more power to the "technical" officiers) and being more political (=more power to the political commissaries).
the twin chain of power (technical and political) was enough of a burden in OTL red army, whch become effective mainly when the "technical" branch (Zukhov & co) emerged the dominant one (as you could expect, since political commissaries had hardly a proper militar competence).
I do not want to think what a mud swamp would have been with a stronger "political" control

 

[Father Sergey Ryzhkov]

I do not want to think what a mud swamp would have been with a stronger "political" control

Think of Tukhachevsky's army and your get the idea. A doctrine based on sparking up a proletarian revolution by attacking a capitalist country is pretty awesome... Except that it never worked.

 

[mailinutile2]

Think of Tukhachevsky's army and your get the idea. A doctrine based on sparking up a proletarian revolution by attacking a capitalist country is pretty awesome... Except that it never worked.

Agree.
What is good for a guerrilla force is not good for a large national army

 

[Wolfpaw]

I see a great contradiction between being more independent (= more power to the "technical" officiers) and being more political (=more power to the political commissaries).

There really isn't a contradiction; I think you're misunderstanding what IBC meant by "political."

If I'm correct, by "political," IBC means "more involved in politics," not "run by political commissars." This would mean a Red Army that would have more say in Soviet internal policies and even leadership arrangements, something that Zhukov tried to establish and was quickly retired for. So basically, the Red Army in a Trotskyist USSR would be more comparable (in many ways) to the German Wehrmacht.

 

[I Blame Communism]

There really isn't a contradiction; I think you're misunderstanding what IBC meant by "political."

If I'm correct, by "political," IBC means "more involved in politics," not "run by political commissars." This would mean a Red Army that would have more say in Soviet internal policies and even leadership arrangements, something that Zhukov tried to establish and was quickly retired for. So basically, the Red Army in a Trotskyist USSR would be more comparable (in many ways) to the German Wehrmacht.

That's it precisely.

 

[mailinutile2]

ok, now I've understood.
so you think of the army being a political power alternative to the Party?