
Do we have any Trotskyites on the board who would care to explain their position?
I've always been meaning to read more Trotsky. His theories, as much as I've been introduced to them, are interesting. (disclaimer: I am not a communist, I just find it fascinating).
This post is going entirely from memory so I'm sure there's a few mistakes.
Now, Lenin's main role in 1917 was, as far as I know, that of an organizer and propagandist. This was at the time of the two governments; the Parliament, headed by Kerensky, I believe, and the Soviet, which was run as a labor union, by councils of workers. Now, the Soviet was dominated by the Communist Party, whose leading council was made up of the familiar faces of Lenin, Trotsky, and our other friends (even Stalin, though no one really cared about him until later).
Trotsky, on the other hand, was one of the main generals in the Red Army -- besides which, he had some very interesting political ideas. Constant Revolution and all that. It's possible that without Lenin the Soviet would still be able to keep its momentum up, capture Petrograd and dissolve the Parliament. Then, the Civil War would probably start under similar circumstances.
However, at the end, there's no Lenin, so I think the Soviet Union will probably be smaller and/or less unified. Less stable in general. I also think that Lenin had a better understanding of economics than most other Russian communists at the time, which is why he championed the NEP, which will not exist at all in this TL. IOTL the only reason it came about at all was because Lenin had so much influence; without him, Trotsky and Stalin would never even consider the idea. Of course, the NEP was shut down before it really had a chance to start working, anyway...
I wish I did know more about Trotsky, now! This could actually make a very interesting TL.