Trotskyist USSR

What would happen if Leon Trotsky was the Premiere of the Soviet Union? How would he react to the Nazi expansion? Could it affect the Second World War positively or negatively? What of relations to the West?

Please, discuss in a civilized manner below.
 
Not sure that it makes a ton of difference. People often like to point out that Lenin wanted Trotsky as his successor and that if Stalin hadn't taken over, things would've been better, but Stalin was able to take over for a reason, and that's because he had way more allies in the Party than Trotsky did, because he was seen as a better leader. If Trotsky had been made premier, he probably would've had way more issues with internal party discipline than Stalin did. This means that he would have to enact even more purges to secure his own power before he even started to think about foreign policy. And speaking of foreign policy, he probably would have made just as much common cause with the Nazis as Stalin did because the Polish hated him (just google Polish propaganda against Trotsky and you'll see what I mean). The interwar years would probably see Trotsky devoting even more resources to undermining Poland's efforts to stay independent, which would mean an easier Nazi takeover, and eventually, a less encumbered Barbarossa. The aforementioned purges (which would likely be more extensive than Stalin's purges), means that the Red Army's leadership would be even more sycophantic and their counter-offensives against the Wehrmacht would take even longer to gain momentum on the Eastern front. In conclusion, Trotsky's rule would lead to a less industrialized Soviet Union, an increased effort to undermine Poland, a more depleted Red Army, and a longer and bloodier war on the Eastern front. Probably no state-sponsored genocide/famine in Ukraine though maybe?
 
I’m not an expert on the early days of the USSR so forgive me, but asn’t Trotsky big on violently spreading Revolution, and was one of the main leaders of the attempted conquest of Poland?

I think that Trotsky might be even worse than Stalin - not just for the reasons listed by the poster above me, but also because I think he might try another invasion of Europe to spread communism
 
Trotsky actually vehemently opposed the invasion of Poland, correctly gauging there was very little domestic support for such a move. There seem to be two stereotypes with Trotsky, either he was a crazy adventurer who was cheated, or he was an incompetent fool who no one liked. Both are wrong
 
paging @fasquardon, they need your expertise.

1) Trotsky running the show wasn't on the cards. It is very nearly ASB to talk about him running the USSR. The most likely alternative to Stalin was not Trotsky, it was Zinoviev and Kamenev.

2) If Trotsky did get the top job, odds are he would be a weak leader compared to Stalin, he just doesn't have the right combination of skills and traits to become a dictator like Stalin. So odds are, other Politburo members would have significant power in a Trotsky led USSR. Including possibly Stalin himself.

3) I think Stalin not being in charge really does make a tonne of difference. While Lenin set the foundations of the Bolshevik regime, Stalin built so much of the structure on top of the foundations that without him... The USSR could end up quite radically different. Still the ugly dictatorship that Lenin molded it into, but without a successor as zealous as Stalin, the odds are that the bolsheviks learn to compromise with reality earlier.

It's hard to say how relations with the Nazis evolve and how WW2 goes without developing a more detailed scenario though. However. Trotsky advocated much more open policies than Stalin did, so the USSR might end up being a more active participant in European diplomacy right from the first olive branch the British offered in 1922. Soviet science is likely to do much, much better without Stalin's polices. The USSR would be more open to trade. But the USSR is still the fragile cradle of the revolution and even though Trotsky had different ideas about how the world revolution would develop than Stalin, he and the other Politburo members would still prioritize preserving the revolution in the USSR to any foreign adventures and they would be extremely nervous about any sign that the Capitalist world was about to unite against them. As such, Trotsky being an influential politburo member could result in the USSR being part of the effort to build a new normal during the 1920s. But it could also still end up feeling backed in a corner where the only option was to deal with Germany, even when under a clearly dangerous regime like the Nazis were.

fasquardon
 

Ian_W

Banned
Thinking out loud here, how does a Trotsky-led Politburo, or a Zinioev/Kamenev/Trotsky troika, affect Soviet support for things like communist trade unions in the West and the Spanish Civil War ?

Specifically, how does it affect things in Germany in the early 1930s ?
 
One can envisage a Trotsky-led USSR, though I don't think it's even the most likely alternative to Stalin. But the problem with talking about a Trotksyist USSR is that it is very doubtful that any such thing as Trotskyism existed until it was invented by the Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev leadership as a weapon against Trotsky's The Lessons of October...
 

Three questions: 1) if you had the choose one leader from the old guard to have the best result for the union and the world (in that order) who’d you pick? Sverdlov?

2) And if you had choose one that actually had a chance?

3) if I want to know more but I’m stuck with English Dutch and German, do you have any tips for reading up on it?

Much appreciated!
 
Three questions: 1) if you had the choose one leader from the old guard to have the best result for the union and the world (in that order) who’d you pick? Sverdlov?

Mikoyan. His survival abilities and his eager support for working class revolutionary reformism in 1956.

yours,
Sam R.
 
I often think that people exaggerate Trotsky's unlikelihood of becoming leader of the Soviet Union, he was certainly thought of as second only to Lenin for much of the early years of the revolution, but he certainly made political enemies as often as he made allies so he didn't do himself any favours. The path to power in the Soviet Union was in the orgburo and in the General Secretariat although many of the political leaders, Trotsky himself and Zinoviev etc, considered the role as little more than an administrative position. However, as it turns out, administrative roles with which you can promote or demote party members and state officials and can assign delegates to congresses generally means that you can flood the decision making process with your allies and remove your enemies, as Stalin did. Conceivably a different person in such a role, Krestinsky or Sverdlov for example, would have led to an entirely different party political makeup and culture and made a Trotsky leadership entirely possible.

Edit:
3) if I want to know more but I’m stuck with English Dutch and German, do you have any tips for reading up on it?
Perhaps the most comprehensive and up to date look at the Russian Revolution and the Civil War that followed is Orlando Figes' 'A People's Tragedy'. I have my biases and I really think that Figes, like a lot of other commentators on the events, fails to really understand the Marxist perspective of the Bolsheviks but due to its level of detail I think it's worth a read. Trotsky himself obviously wrote two famous looks at the era in 'The History of the Russian Revolution' and 'My Life' which is available for free but he's obviously writing somewhat with an agenda considering they were written after he had been expelled from the party by Stalin's machinations. One look into the means of Stalin coming to power is Boris Souvarine's 'Stalin: How and Why' which is also available for free - I think it's interesting because it looks at the actual mechanisms of Stalin's rise to power as opposed to assuming that the Bolsheviks were evil and Stalin was the culmination of that evil or something trite like that.
 
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Mikoyan. His survival abilities and his eager support for working class revolutionary reformism in 1956.

yours,
Sam R.

Interesting character, though he seems to hide a lot behind stronger characters. Someone who can make charismatic leaders look good. Not so much someone who can inspire a country. But that’s just from some googling, so please correct me if I’m wrong.
 
Three questions: 1) if you had the choose one leader from the old guard to have the best result for the union and the world (in that order) who’d you pick? Sverdlov?

Hmmm. Best result for the union and the world... I'm not sure who the best heir to Lenin would be. Unfortunately, after Lenin, the party is Leninist so it's all about who the lesser evil is.

Now, Stalin as leader of a Socialist Russia where Lenin doesn't get back in time to break up the Bolshevik-Menshevik-SR cooperation and launch the October Revolution gets really interesting. Before Lenin convinced him that the Bolsheviks should seek sole power, Stalin was one of the champions of a socialist/leftist coalition. And since many of the big problems that twisted Stalinism as it grew in OTL had to do with the weaknesses that the Bolshevik monopoly of power brought...

fasquardon
 
Hmmm. Best result for the union and the world... I'm not sure who the best heir to Lenin would be. Unfortunately, after Lenin, the party is Leninist so it's all about who the lesser evil is.

Now, Stalin as leader of a Socialist Russia where Lenin doesn't get back in time to break up the Bolshevik-Menshevik-SR cooperation and launch the October Revolution
gets really interesting. Before Lenin convinced him that the Bolsheviks should seek sole power, Stalin was one of the champions of a socialist/leftist coalition. And since many of the big problems that twisted Stalinism as it grew in OTL had to do with the weaknesses that the Bolshevik monopoly of power brought...

fasquardon
not even going to add anything to it.
 
Jumping into the thread, because I think this is a fun topic.

Trotsky had a chance, but was too obvious a choice - I talked of this at length in other threads, but essentially he was too much of an obvious heir to Lenin and that made the Old Bolsheviks nervous. Add to it, his personality - he knew just how brilliant he was and had a healthy ego - and his military accomplishments and there was a "Stop Trotsky" bandwagon.

Three questions: 1) if you had the choose one leader from the old guard to have the best result for the union and the world (in that order) who’d you pick? Sverdlov?
Bukharin. It could be wishful thinking and projection on the parts of Soviet intellectuals, but for many Bukharin was that mythical what-if, a decent seeming sort who was kind to folks, gave a shit about agrarian reform that went beyond "collectivize everything!" and nobody had anything bad to say about him until Stalin targeted him for destruction. Bukharin's Leninist dictatorship would not have been as bloody, in my view. People sometimes say how Bukharin's Soviet Union would not have stood a chance against Nazis, but that's pre-supposing Bukharin's Soviet Union would have still caused the Nazis as much as Stalin's did.

Part of the Nazi rise to power was due to the German Commies fighting Socialists with more energy that the right wing, due to the orders from Moscow. Would Bukharin have made the same mistake? Maybe. But it's a what-if.

2) And if you had choose one that actually had a chance?
To succeed in a snakepit of delusional monsters who were hell-bent on creating a better world of tomorrow on the bones of the old and worshiping at the altar of Robespierre and Saint-Just, you'd need a shit-heel such as Stalin, or someone with momentum and credibility. People say Zinoviev, but, erm, how do I say this politely, pigs will fly before Russia has an out and out Jew in charge of it. We're talking about a nation that invented the word "pogrom," just to clarify things.

3) if I want to know more but I’m stuck with English Dutch and German, do you have any tips for reading up on it?
Volkogonov's "Stalin" is denser than a frozen Snickers bar, but is very good. And it is in English.
 
To quote an old post of mine:

***

I don't think a Trotsky-ruled USSR is very likely at any time after Stalin was named as General Secretary (Zinoviev-Kamenev prevailing over Stalin in 1923 or Bukharin prevailing in 1928 are actually more plausible alternatives to Stalin IMO) but if somehow it happens, here is an interesting possibility: the USSR takes the lead in nuclear physics and develops the first a-bomb? Consider what Trotsky said in 1926:

"The phenomena of radio-activity are leading us to the problem of releasing intra-atomic energy. The atom contains within itself a mighty hidden energy, and the greatest task of physics consists in pumping out this energy, pulling out the cork so that this hidden energy may burst forth in a fountain. Then the possibility will be opened up of replacing coal and oil by atomic energy, which will also become the basic motive power. This is not at all a hopeless task. And what prospects it opens before us!" https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/03/science.htm
 

Bulldoggus

Banned
Sometimes, in this world, there is a fatal flaw preventing an otherwise talented figure from rising to their true potential. Some are too uncharismatic, some have problems with booze or drugs or women(/men), some just have feet of clay and bad luck. Trotsky's was very simple- he was an asshole. He was rigid, unpleasant, and alienated people who should have been his friends and allies at a prodigious rate. Nobody (in the top reaches of the Soviet Government, at least) ever liked Leon Trotsky, many respected him, but liked? No way. So Trotsky ruling over the USSR... well, firstly it wouldn't happen, secondly if it did happen it wouldn't last very long or be very successful.
 
Bukharin. It could be wishful thinking and projection on the parts of Soviet intellectuals, but for many Bukharin was that mythical what-if, a decent seeming sort who was kind to folks, gave a shit about agrarian reform that went beyond "collectivize everything!" and nobody had anything bad to say about him until Stalin targeted him for destruction. Bukharin's Leninist dictatorship would not have been as bloody, in my view. People sometimes say how Bukharin's Soviet Union would not have stood a chance against Nazis, but that's pre-supposing Bukharin's Soviet Union would have still caused the Nazis as much as Stalin's did.

It is wishful thinking, as terror was a key feature of Bolshevism and only the targets and current intensity of repression could be debated.

See "the Politics and Economics of the Transition Period" and the way Bukharin talks about "concentrated violence...against the nine parasitic strata" (continuing the Leninist tradition of dehumanizing their foes as lice and vermin).
 
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