Trotskyist USSR versus Trotskyist USSR

What would be the differences between a Trotskyist USSR caused by the following two PoDs?

1) Lenin dies in August 1918, after being shot by Fanya Kaplan.

2) Lenin's third stroke is delayed; he is alive to read his Testament aloud at the 12th Party Congress, but dies shortly thereafter.
 
The first one (considering it survives the Civil War which isnt a given) will be very weak after a prolonged civil war.

The second one will do better economically than OTL and will to some degree be ready for the German invasion ( if it ever happens as this could stop WW2)
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Also, if Trotsky succeeds Lenin via the testament route, you'll probably not see anything remotely resembling the Great Terror. There may very well be a Party purge of more Stalinistic elements (but lets face it; Stalin's clout will most likely evaporate if Lenin gets that testament out) but much more than that, highly doubtful.
 
You're assuming that a USSR that isn't dominated by Stalin is somehow "Trotskyist". Wouldn't work that way.
Trotsky was always heir apparent to Lenin though, wasn't he? I mean, he certainly wouldn't be God-King, and I suppose the Bukharin or someone else might succeed, but we're assuming that in these cases it's Trotsky who takes control. Or are you proposing that Trotsky didn't have the necessary traits for leadership?
 
You're assuming that a USSR that isn't dominated by Stalin is somehow "Trotskyist". Wouldn't work that way.

I think the point of Lenin's testament was that there should be no "successor". Lenin very vocally favored collective leadership because any one man in control of the party could very easily liquidate his former comrades.

Trotsky wasn't a political manipulator, whereas Stalin was, and that's why Stalin consistently outmanuevered him. Assuming there is a stalemate between competing egos, and collective leadership prevails (what a "Trotskyist" USSR inevitably would look like), then we must examine not just Soviet domestic policy, but also Soviet foreign policy via the Comintern.

Will the various European and American communist parties still go through the disastrous "Third Period", and all of the purges? Likely not, so we're likely to see more cooperation between moderate Socialist/Social Democratic parties and the Communist Left. There may even never be a Nazi Germany in this scenario, and a relatively peaceful democratic transition to socialism may occur in some Western European countries.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
If Lenin is shot in 1918, Sverdlov would be the next ruler.

Sverdlov? Now there's a nasty bugger. You probably wouldn't see a very different Soviet Union than in OTL, though it would probably have a more bloody beginning (i.e. more intense/longer Red Terror in the early years). He would most likely have allied with Stalin to get surefire control of the Party, been outmanouvered later, then either have been liquidated ASAP or saved for a show trial a la Kamenev and Zinoviev.
 
He would most likely have allied with Stalin to get surefire control of the Party, been outmanouvered later, then either have been liquidated ASAP or saved for a show trial a la Kamenev and Zinoviev.
From what I know, I wouldn't dare to bet on either side, guys are two sides of the same coin as far as power games are concerned. It is quite possible that Sverdlov would eat Joe for breakfast and wouldn't notice...
 
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