How different would the USSR have been had Trotsky came into power instead of Stalin?

It would have ceased to exist within six months.

How different would the USSR have been if Zinoviev came to power instead of Stalin, Trotsky, or Bukharin.

>not understanding there needs to be a fine line between the weak and strong where ends up being equalized
Nah, the weak bourgeoisie ought to be annihilated by the infinite strength of the proletariat.

Trotsky would have had to have used the Red Army in a coup d'etat, executing the old Bolsheviks and suffering a third revolution when his agricultural policies failed.

Well, the urban workers would have started the third revolution over the scissors crisis. Next?

Same deal as Bukharin, but less economically optimal. Next?

Probably would sue for peace with Germany and rule out a rump Soviet state, then get deposed by the party for incompetence.

if the proletariat is so strong how come they haven't overthrown the status quo

checkmate nerds

Trotsky was very keen on expansion via arms of communism.

So he probably would have gotten USSR fucked by Germany before they were ready.

Worse.

Many Westerners have this distorted view of Trotsky, they see him as a representative of humane communism that was defeated by Stalin for not being ruthless enough. That's bullshit. Trotsky was the first to propose the policies that Stalin would later become infamous for, such as forced collectivization of the agriculture, and he actually wanted to go further, militarizing the labour force itself.

Now that's a good question.

Stalin at first flirted with Bukharin ideas, that was when he purged Trotsky for being too radical, but later he realized that if he let peasants have any freedom for private trade, they would never be brought under the political control of the Communist Party. Now, of course, there is objectively nothing wrong with that, but Stalin had other priorities so he went on with forced collectivization without caring about the results.

Had Bukharin been in charge, communism in Russia wouldn't last much, at least not like communism, it could have become "Communist with Russian Characteristics", like China nowadays, much earlier, and Russia as a country would be much better for it.

Counterfactuals for a situation like this are anyone's guess.

Trotsky was a powerful intellectual, a magnificent organizer and a beloved figure.

Stalin relied on toadies and suck ups to maintain his power base.

Trotsky would have pushed revolution worldwide, potentially changing history into a very different direction.

Trotsky couldn't build organisational relationships for shit.

His personal microparty not fuzing with the bolsheviks until (IIRC) around February didn't help.

That everyone was aware of the threat of Bonapartism didn't help.

That Trotsky attempted to fight democratically, after groups like the Left Opposition and Workers Opposition had been crushed, let alone Kronstadt and Makhnovishchina…well, "fucktarded" comes to mind.

The counterfactual is impossible due to Trotsky and the party.

true. trotsky was a dumb slav that ended up getting pk'd in mexico by some random operative.

he also wanted meme communism everywhere / a global revolution.dude had his head in the clouds and zero realpolitik, hence why he ended up getting cucked and anal raped

It would have collapsed within 10 years.

>dumb slav

He was a kike, not a slav.

What if Lenin never died? What if he were immortal, just like the Will of the People?

explain pic plox

>Not wanting based Lev Kamenev.

It would probably have less starvation and mass death that was seen under Stalin.

but it's hard to see the USSR being any sort of match against Nazi Germany without Stalin's brutal 5 year plans and rapid industrialization to give the country the industrial base needed to produce tanks and weapons to fight off the Germans.

A lot of people admit that Stalin was one of the "necessary evils" in the world, brutal in his rule, but if the Soviets didn't do something to radically improve their industrial capabilities, they would have been steamrolled by the Nazis if Trotsky was in power.

What if Nazi Germany never went to war with the USSR since Stalin wasn't in charge. If Trotskey was in charge then Hitler wouldn't had invaded the Soviet Union with the guise that it was a expansionist state that was a threat to everyone.

Hitler invaded for strategic resources. Trotsky's "international communism" was going to be seen as more expansionist too.

It means that everyone would have been fucking their wives.

It's Shia LeBeouf

trotsky was a social liberal antitradition. marriage and family would be obsolete.
stalin was a conservative traditionalist.

>Hitler wouldn't had invaded the Soviet Union with the guise that it was a expansionist state that was a threat to everyone.

war happens because might is right, not because of some philosophical reason

>Kamenev
>Zinoviev
>Trotsky

Fuck no. Jews are the most incompetent rulers of all people.

"Stalin ruined everything" is a meme. Stalin built the economy more than anyone else could. He of course at the same time ruined the party, and the political system, but is questionable whether it would've been possible to do one without the other.

"World revolution" is also a meme. You can't just clap your hands and say "world revolution", and then it magically happens. Also, Stalin wasn't against world revolution, he was just prudent. If the USSR went out and supported every communist uprising everywhere, they would expend all their resources, the revolutions would fail, and they would get crushed at home.

Stalin believed that planned economy was more efficient than capitalism (which it is, in theory), and that they would outperform capitalism in time, making a direct war unnecessary and winning without risk. He didn't foresee that the system of political persecution he installed would ultimately lead to corruption and ruin every advantage planned economy had in theory.

Just like how Aryans are the master race but those pesky inferior Jews manage to control everything.

> How different would the USSR have been had Trotsky came into power instead of Stalin?
Something like a Third Reich. WWII would've probably begun some time around 1932.

> a total clusterfuck
Also this.

> Bukharin
Meh. Some time around 1930 USSR would've fallen apart.

Party would've attempted to execute industrialization, but without cooperation from the farming sector that was impossible. Stalin's collectivisation created some basis (framework) the government could rely on. Without it, government would've been forced to negotiate with kulaks.

However, USSR was an agrarian state at the time. Banana (well, wheat) republic through and through. Kulaks would've had an upper hand in any negotiation: they could survive without city, but cities would starve without villages.

I.e. Party would've been forced to either wage another Civil War or accept defeat and abandon industrialization (and Communism). The latter was unlikely. Hence, new Civil War.

Thank you for this informative post

>which it is, in theory
not even in theory, user

In theory, planned economy was much more efficient with resources as waste is avoided by shifting resources around. For a newly industrialized country or one seeking industrialization, planned economy is much more efficient in theory.

>Jews
>Not the master race

Well memed my friend

A lot of tankies and pro-Stalin people like to paint forced collectivization as inevitable.

If it was inevitable why was the Lenin-Bukharin New Economic Policy so successful in bringing funds and resources to the state?

Contrary to Stalins brutishness, Lenin actually understood socialism , and that industrialization had to happen not by amassing serfs and making them workers, but by creating specialized workers that worked for private incentive. The kulaks in the long run were not that important, the whole de-kulakization intensified under Stalin because he needed more workers, hence the famines, but under Lenin de-kulakization aimed at emancipating the serfs.

Trotsky is a meme. He had no real influence on anthing in mid twenties. He was isolated as fuck, no allies no nuffin. When he was banished he started to create all this fairytales how lenin designated him for a new leader etc. In fact lenin despised him.

>For a newly industrialized country or one seeking industrialization, planned economy is much more efficient in theory.
In practice, too. Countries with planned economies industrialized a lot faster than those with liberal economies.

Getting assblasted about the truth?

One of the reasons Trotsky lost out is he was the front runner to be Lenin's from the get go. It's why Zinoviev and Kamenev sided with Stalin, whom they assumed was a grey organizer with no real chance of taking power. They were wrong and were badly meme'd in the great terror.

Ended war "communism," and the civil war ended. See "scissors crisis", it wasn't successful at balancing the urban and rural economies.