Trotskyist USSR

*sighs*

No, not really.

See, the thing about that famous speech is--yeah, it criticized Stalin. It also criticized Trotsky. And pretty much every member of the Politboro whose name didn't start with 'L', end with 'N', and have three letters in between it. In fact, Stalin actually got off pretty lightly in it. So, no, reading it probably wouldn't have eradicated Stalin's heavily entrenched powerbase. That stated, yes, Stalin was challengable at this time. But it would take a united front from a group of people who spent a great deal of time IOTL demonstrating that they all hated each other.
Well, I used it in my TL anyway. So I guess Trotsky tweaks it quite a bit. :p
 
Trotsky had a chance, shortly before Lenin died, to read a speech by Lenin declaring Stalin as a traitor, this happening after Stalin's falling out with Lenin. However, Trotsky wussed out and read his own speech. We all know what happened after that.

Not exactly. The letter said Stalin was insufficiently cautious with tremendous power, and a later letter said Stalin was rude, the first letter said that all the other Bolsheviks were *unsuited to rule* but Stalin was only *rude.* Yes, they quashed that thing for a reason.
 
Maybe with another Leader of the USSR,OTL policies to inhibit Art&Legislation restricting sex education while pushing Puritan ideology can be avoided?A Leader less focused on a personality cult may be more pragmatic.Stalin purged military&scientific creative thinkers who were seen as threats or fell out of favour OTL,But an equally ruthless yet more pragmatic leader may declaw while exploiting utility.If going to work people to death you should at least make sure it happens within their skillsets.:eek:
 
This thread is suffering quite hard from the Great Man "theory" of history.

I strongly suggest Simon Pirani and Sheila Fitzpatrick for "from below" evidence about policy formation in Soviet history. Hell, if you're smart enough you can read this in the abominable scholarship of Archipelago.

yours,
Sam R.
 
This thread is suffering quite hard from the Great Man "theory" of history.

I strongly suggest Simon Pirani and Sheila Fitzpatrick for "from below" evidence about policy formation in Soviet history. Hell, if you're smart enough you can read this in the abominable scholarship of Archipelago.

yours,
Sam R.

Allow me to state that I have been trying to make it clear that the Soviets under Trotsky and the Soviets under Stalin are, in many ways, not going to be to tremendously different from each other. That stated, I also believe that denying the influence of a totalitarian dictator over the system he directs is not exactly a movement from folly to wisdom.
 
This thread is suffering quite hard from the Great Man "theory" of history.

I strongly suggest Simon Pirani and Sheila Fitzpatrick for "from below" evidence about policy formation in Soviet history. Hell, if you're smart enough you can read this in the abominable scholarship of Archipelago.

yours,
Sam R.

Given my argument is that Stalin's rise came from controlling an institution, not his charisma or personal qualities (if charisma were the way to power in the USSR, Trotsky would have been the shoe-in), I hardly see how this follows. Controlling the General-Secretary position as a springboard to power amongst a bunch of people attracted by glamour of power as opposed to the tedious reality of it is not exactly a "Great Man" theory so much as "Only Sane Man" theory.
 
Allow me to state that I have been trying to make it clear that the Soviets under Trotsky and the Soviets under Stalin are, in many ways, not going to be to tremendously different from each other.

I did note this with approval while reading.

That stated, I also believe that denying the influence of a totalitarian dictator over the system he directs is not exactly a movement from folly to wisdom.

While I concur with the historiographical principle, the limits are largely a matter of texture, and knocking off particular individuals in spectacular ways. There almost certainly was going to be an urban reprisal against the rural proletariat. There was going to be a massive enclosure. There will be a purge of the party, but will that purge be bloody? There will be a political prison system, but will that political prison system be the Mass GuLag or the selective GuLag for intellectuals. How does the prison labour system run—does it become an economic fiefdom.

Issues like the problem with productivity in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s depends on other factors than leadership, but, will see moderately different policy solutions depending on how hard the leadership is willing to attack the nomenklatura.

But, at another level, the different leaders matter about as much as the different adjectives in the Party and Government newspapers. The verbs and nouns stay the same.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Given my argument is that Stalin's rise came from controlling an institution, not his charisma or personal qualities (if charisma were the way to power in the USSR, Trotsky would have been the shoe-in), I hardly see how this follows. Controlling the General-Secretary position as a springboard to power amongst a bunch of people attracted by glamour of power as opposed to the tedious reality of it is not exactly a "Great Man" theory so much as "Only Sane Man" theory.

And, when it comes to forced extraction of grain in a famine, the General Secretary matters far less than the general want of bread in the scissors crises?

yours,
Sam R.
 
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