World War 2 if Trotsky was leader of the USSR?

Yeah, it's not a royal court. Trotsky had few friends and even fewer allies. If Lenin had literally written "Put Trotsky in charge" in his final letter then immediately after he had gone there would be speculation about what Lenin meant to put him in charge of, and in all likelihood the consensus would be that Lenin meant for him to be in charge of a tartan paint factory in Omsk.

The ironic thing is that after coming to power Stalin did implement quite a few things preached by Trotsky: fast "super-industrialization", destruction of an independent peasantry, creation of the "labor armies". Either the case of "the great minds think alike" :)evilupset:) or these actions had been more or less inevitable under the communist regime.
 
Why would it be absent? Soviet economic cooperation with the West started during Lenin's life time and Wiemar Republic was a valuable partner as a potential source of technological know how and equipment. As I understand, the initial premise was that Hitler would not cooperate with a Jew but this is hardly relevant at all until 1933. Actually, who was helping whom more is an open question "In the late 1920s, Germany helped Soviet industry begin to modernize, and to assist in the establishment of tank production facilities at the Leningrad Bolshevik Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Factory" and there was an intensive military collaboration which peaked in 1930 - 32.
The Germans worked with the Soviets immediatedly after WWI. It had nothing to do with Jews or the Revolution...etc. It was two exiled states working together. Am I mistaken in your question?

You realize the German state worked with the USSR because the West wouldn't?

The Nazis didn't occur until years later...
 
The Germans worked with the Soviets immediatedly after WWI. It had nothing to do with Jews or the Revolution...etc. It was two exiled states working together. Am I mistaken in your question?

Nope. You are confirming what I was saying.

You realize the German state worked with the USSR because the West wouldn't?

Actually, the West endded up working with the Soviets but this did not eliminate mutual Soviet-German interest for cooperation.
 
Zinoviev and Kamenev are the most likely to succeed Lenin with no Stalin.

Either that, or collective leadership would remain the organizing principal.

Trotsky had close to zero chance of becoming leader and even if he did, he would not be a more violent version of Stalin.

fasquardon
Like, I agree that the Deustcher/Carr school of Trotsky being the only alternative to Stalin is false but equally I feel that you've swung back the other way in saying it's next to impossible. Stalin occupied a centrally important administrative role that helped him accrue personal power but other people in that role could have changed the direction of the party and secured Trotsky's possibility as leader. Also Zinoviev and others were willing to work with Trotsky, just not when he seemed a shoe-in for leader and they had their own ambitions.
 
Like, I agree that the Deustcher/Carr school of Trotsky being the only alternative to Stalin is false but equally I feel that you've swung back the other way in saying it's next to impossible. Stalin occupied a centrally important administrative role that helped him accrue personal power but other people in that role could have changed the direction of the party and secured Trotsky's possibility as leader. Also Zinoviev and others were willing to work with Trotsky, just not when he seemed a shoe-in for leader and they had their own ambitions.

Stalin had more than a key administrative role (one that basically gave him most of the power in the country since April 1922), he was also generally liked and admired by a fair chunk of his peers and his theoretical work (very important in the Bolshevik party) was well respected. And perhaps most critical of all, while other Politburo members were sorta interested in limiting Stalin's power, they were also keen to keep him in his job. When Stalin attempted to resign (no less than three times between 1925 and 1927) his resignation was refused by the rest of the Politburo.

Compare that with the vigorous efforts to keep Trotsky from becoming too powerful and Trotsky's much weaker position in the Party.

So if Stalin is removed, the pygmies are left to fight amongst themselves, but while they might willingly work with Trotsky to limit each-other's power, I don't see anyone letting Trotsky have the top seat.

And if he did get the top seat, I don't imagine anyone letting him have much power (though the same really goes for any possible successor to Lenin - the Bolsheviks were very committed to collective leadership and Stalin only ended up with so much power because of a very unique set of strengths and character traits).

fasquardon
 
Stalin had more than a key administrative role (one that basically gave him most of the power in the country since April 1922), he was also generally liked and admired by a fair chunk of his peers and his theoretical work (very important in the Bolshevik party) was well respected.
Stalin was a middling theoretician at best. His only work of note was on the National Question and he basically wrote that with Bukharin's help with the general details already laid out by Lenin - in fact, a lot of his theoretical contributions were co-written with Bukharin.

Stalin gained an administrative position of power earlier than 1922, he became head of the Uchraspred, the Account and Assignment Section, in 1920. According to Merle Fainsod, the Uchraspred "concentrated first on filling party posts. Appointments to the highest party positions came under the jurisdiction of the Orgbureau.... The Uchraspred rapidly extended its control down through the guberniya or provincial level. By the beginning of 1923 its controls reached the uezd, or county level. The report of the Uchraspred to the Twelfth Party Congress in April 1923 indicated that more than ten thousand assignments had been made in the preceding year. Stalin, in his organizational report to the congress, made no effort to conceal the range of Uchraspred's activities; indeed, he revealed that it was expanding its jurisdiction into the state apparatus." This coupled with becoming General Secretary in 1922 and his ally Kaganovich becoming head of the Orgbureau basically meant that all throughout the early 1920's Stalin had control over delegates to party congresses, appointments to positions of power, and he could transfer his political enemies to distant posts away from the centres of authority. Sverdlov surviving the flu, Krestinsky keeping his General Secretary role, or just some other individual with a few more scruples getting such an important role could have changed the party political make-up immensely.

And perhaps most critical of all, while other Politburo members were sorta interested in limiting Stalin's power, they were also keen to keep him in his job. When Stalin attempted to resign (no less than three times between 1925 and 1927) his resignation was refused by the rest of the Politburo.
I'm also not entirely convinced that this shows that Stalin is in any way particularly different from other members of the Politburo. Lenin threatened to resign multiple times and was often refused. Trotsky offered to resign over Brest-Litovsk if it would have made the negotiations go better and Lenin refused him. Zinoviev and Kamenev both resigned and soon assumed their positions again. Other Bolshevik leaders threatened to resign or did resign over one political situation or another and were consequently re-elected back into their roles. I don't think it marks Stalin as unique, is what I'm trying to say. It was a political move to try and emphasise a position. One interesting point is that the Left-SRs, when in government with the Bolsheviks, used the threat of resignation to get the Bolsheviks to moderate their positions.
 

Deleted member 14881

Quick question, could a Trotskyist that is not Trotsky have a shot at the brass ring?
 
I'm also not entirely convinced that this shows that Stalin is in any way particularly different from other members of the Politburo. Lenin threatened to resign multiple times and was often refused. Trotsky offered to resign over Brest-Litovsk if it would have made the negotiations go better and Lenin refused him. Zinoviev and Kamenev both resigned and soon assumed their positions again. Other Bolshevik leaders threatened to resign or did resign over one political situation or another and were consequently re-elected back into their roles. I don't think it marks Stalin as unique, is what I'm trying to say. It was a political move to try and emphasise a position. One interesting point is that the Left-SRs, when in government with the Bolsheviks, used the threat of resignation to get the Bolsheviks to moderate their positions.

I did not know that.

Was anyone's resignation accepted during these games of chicken?

Stalin was a middling theoretician at best. His only work of note was on the National Question and he basically wrote that with Bukharin's help with the general details already laid out by Lenin - in fact, a lot of his theoretical contributions were co-written with Bukharin.

Hm, I am going from what Kotkin said about Stalin. What is your source for that?

I should probably read some of Stalin's work at some point, but I am sooo not looking forward to it...

fasquardon
 

longsword14

Banned
I should probably read some of Stalin's work at some point, but I am sooo not looking forward to it...
The problem with Soviet gobbledegook is that it all looks the same incomprehensible mass to me, so I cannot distinguish what is good and what is bad, since all of it looks rubbish.:winkytongue:
 
The problem with Soviet gobbledegook is that it all looks the same incomprehensible mass to me, so I cannot distinguish what is good and what is bad, since all of it looks rubbish.:winkytongue:

Which it is most probably is. And while Lenin was sometimes entertaining (let's say, he was not a literary genius and his lapses in Russian were sometimes funny) Stalin (thank <whoever> I was not forced to read his gibberish so my knowledge in sketchy) was plain boring. But, to their defense, Marx was not better (probably worse: a pompous German with an over-inflated ego and nothing to do ....). Only Engels was entertaining in his military writings due to a very high concentration of stupidities per page. ;)
 
I did not know that.

Was anyone's resignation accepted during these games of chicken?
Not really, it was generally a political move. I'm trying to remember, will check when I get back home, but I'm pretty sure a couple of the left communists resigned over Brest-Litovsk and never really recovered their positions of power again. I'll compile some of the examples if I have time later on.

Hm, I am going from what Kotkin said about Stalin. What is your source for that?

I should probably read some of Stalin's work at some point, but I am sooo not looking forward to it...

fasquardon
That Bukharin assisted Stalin in his writing about the National Question is mentioned in Cohen's biography of Bukharin. Apparently, Stalin didn't know any language other than Russian and Georgian so needed Bukharin to help since he spoke and read multiple European languages.

If anyone could be considered a key figure in developing theory in the Bolshevik party it would be Bukharin, honestly. He directly influenced Lenin's two famous works; Imperialism and State and Revolution. Preobrazhensky also was a key theoretical figure although he tarnished himself by association with Trotsky. I've only looked at a few of Stalin's stuff, his work on Leninism and Trotskyism is particularly trash but that's just me. Nothing I've read has suggested that Stalin was a particularly impressive theorist.
 
I've only looked at a few of Stalin's stuff, his work on Leninism and Trotskyism is particularly trash but that's just me. Nothing I've read has suggested that Stalin was a particularly impressive theorist.

Heh. You and I may have different standards than Party members reading his work in the 20s and 30s did.

I'll look up this biography of Bukharin. It sounds interesting.

fasquardon
 
Heh. You and I may have different standards than Party members reading his work in the 20s and 30s did.

I'll look up this biography of Bukharin. It sounds interesting.

fasquardon
Cohen's book is definitely a worthwhile read. Pretty sure some Kaiserriech Dev read it and that's why Bukharin is important in that mod. Another interesting work, if you want to know about the early left wing of the Bolshevik party of which Bukharin played an important role, is Ronald Kowalski's http://libcom.org/history/bolshevik-party-conflict-left-communist-opposition-1918-ronald-i-kowalski
 
You realize the German state worked with the USSR because the West wouldn't?

Henry Ford noted that in 1927, Most Russian Cars, Trucks and Tractors were either Fords, or build in factories he helped them setup.

A lot of US industrialists worked with(and were well paid) the USSR in the '20s
 
Zinoevev is the most paternalistic benign despot.

Why do you say that?

What do you think Zinoviev would have been like as leader?

(I guess this is derailing the thread some, but how Zinoviev or Kamenev would have been as leaders is something I am curious about.)

fasquardon
 
He truly seemed interested in making the ideals of communism real.
We must hold ourselves to better standards he told Lenin.
He advocated Yugoslavian style worker councils to incentivise progress.
 
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