What if Trotsky Came To Power Instead Of Stalin? (Ft: Cypher the Cynical Historian)

[Music] lennon is dead his death is mourned across the newly formed ussr but it isn't unexpected lenin for the past couple years had suffered through a series of strokes he knew his time was coming to an end as did many others it had been clear that soon somebody was going to take his place we all know who won and because we know the type of atrocities that occurred under stalin it's been wondered over the past few decades what would have happened had trotsky taken power instead so long time fans might be thinking didn't he do a video about this already and yeah i did but i have a stance on a lot of older videos they have aged terribly oops but now i'm a slightly wiser cody i have help from cypher the cynical historian who's done some work on soviet history himself so before going into such a scenario we can't simply begin this deviation in some alternate 1924 where after lenin dies trotsky just takes over instead of stalin some things beforehand need to change old mustache boys simply didn't just take over out of nowhere and steal what was supposedly rightfully trotsky's stalin was a bolshevik from the very beginning he rose up the ranks from the street to being personally appointed by lenin into the general secretary position trotsky was a menshevik until 1917 when he realized they weren't going to win out so one major change needs to occur for trotsky to even come close to taking control instead of stalin lenin himself needs to vocally support trotsky consistently and often which you know and that's quite the thing to imagine trotsky was just one of a couple who were in a position to take over once lenin kicked the bucket and out of them stalin was the only one with real political power while trotsky went off to write or do some on the ground activity while trotsky was successful as a military leader in intellectual during the revolution that didn't translate into automatic political success in the head soviet and to be blunt he wasn't really well liked he was extremely opinionated even by leftist revolutionary standards and his general ideology didn't mesh well with the politics that were forming in moscow and that's the main change that happens in this alternate timeline somehow stalin just doesn't play his cards right and lenin is much more vocal that stalin should not be in charge the only evidence we do have of a massive split between lenin and stalin was the letter called lenin's testament which called on stalin to be removed from power the authenticity of this letter is disputed but even if it was faked this piece of paper with lennon's name on it held so much political influence it was still a threat to stalin's position so if somehow lenin without a doubt before his stroke ruined stalin that would have led to new candidates being available to take his place even with that unlikely scenario occurring trotsky needs to gain enough allies with the central soviet to be even considered to lead the party which during 1922 and 24 trotsky was certainly beaten back during sessions of the soviet congress by the majority how effective this alternate lenin approval of trotsky would be i don't know i will be honest this is flimsy but it's the best chance trotsky would have trotsky actually had a lot of power for a while but specifically in the military he was the leader of the red army and navy until 1925. so he was in charge of fighting the russian civil war and interventionist forces which included the united states and britain putting down several uprisings such as kronstadt and all the various invasions of the time which were ukraine kazakhstan the baltic states georgia azerbaijan armenia poland and finland he was a pretty busy guy but still found time to write profusely including trying to justify the red terror which was when the bolshevik secret police called the cheka suppressed dissent through state terrorism and mass executions including sending people to work camps though they weren't called gulags yet no wonder why he wasn't well liked even by the party establishment hence when he formed his own faction called the left opposition in 1923 he further alienated himself until finally being voted out of the central committee in 1927 and expelled from the soviet union a year later when you're considered too radical by bolsheviks you know it'd be difficult for trotsky to take power if by some miracle trotsky becomes the successor to lenin his first years in office would be shaky politically like i said stalin was always a bolshevik and knew how to gain allies trotsky wouldn't be as successful on this front now he could probably have survived this he was not one to shy away from using secret police and violence to sway opposition just like stalin did and he would most likely use such methods to slowly rework the system from the inside which would translate into transforming what the party could become from his exile trotsky's main criticism of stalin's government was its brutish egotism party officials making decisions on matters they really had no experience in a system that would define the culture of the ussr even after stalin's death trotsky was a strange contradiction of ideological fanaticism but also pragmatism believing the communist party shouldn't need to have an opinion on every matter for the nation to be a socialist state it could in some areas delegate matters to experts he did this during the civil war bringing in old zara's officers to train red army regiments the old guard in his mind had some use and its knowledge especially when it came to economics within the soviet union he felt like those with more experience in those fields would be useful instead of party officials so this alternate soviet union would ironically hire bourgeoisie experts to figure out how to balance the budget trade and most importantly agriculture trotsky would aim for a party separated from economic affairs and much like lenin would allow some forms of private industry in local areas to help facilitate economic growth on the small scale while this does seem weirdly contradictory for a more ideological state to trotsky the party still would hold the final decision in such areas as long as the worker class and unions remain fully in charge the soviet union trotsky would maintain itself as a socialist state so if the state doesn't fully include itself in economic matters then what does it focus its attention on trotsky believed that a constant renewal of revolutionary fervor was good and this was what he saw as the main responsibility of the party the party would be the ideological generator for the nation so to get this out of the way the gulag system still exists as political prisoners are put into camps but this wasn't really anything new or unique the russian empire had been deporting and sending political enemies into siberia for years and it's likely even had the white army won the civil war the gulag still would be used trotsky was an ideological purist even constantly shifting his own purity over the years and i could imagine him arresting and deporting many more people for being enemies of the revolution than stalin did this alternate trotskyist ussr is an ideologically fanatical state just like the man himself so i feel this needed to be focused on at some point but one of the holdemore the holladamor for context was the mass starvation that took place in ukraine between 1932 and 1933 and one of the main questions when imagining stalin never coming to power is would this still happen yes just not as extreme within the peasants there was an upper class of land owners that hired labor to work their land known as kulaks as the kulaks were certainly not happy about the whole collectivizing thing this discontent led to the soviets labeling them as enemies of the revolution and encouraging the lower class of peasants to rise up against them the soviets would have cracked down on the kulaks no matter what trotsky was actually a main proponent in punishing the kulaks and from his exile was shocked that stalin went through with the plan though he disagreed on the methods which is really a common theme with trotsky the intentions are good but i never would have done it that way so this alternate ussr still sees the culox punished what really caused the holdamore wasn't simply these factors it was stalin's export of ukrainian grain to other parts of europe and his crackdown to make sure no news of the famine came out i don't imagine trotsky would do the same approach he was against any trade with capitalist nations so he wouldn't need to sell off any grain the main change is that there are resources and food that could be shared and under trotsky they would remain within ukraine [Music] this video was sponsored by audible you know what it is i know what it is and that's because it's the best place to get audiobooks the one i listened to that especially helped with this research was trotsky downfall of a revolutionary by bertrand m patternod there have been many dissections and discussions on trotsky's life and legacy and this is just one that i felt was a good introduction in exploring the man more if you want to check it out click on the link in the description www.audible.com alt history or text history to 500 500. each month audible members will now receive one free audiobook and access to a monthly selection of audible originals so if you're interested in learning up more on soviet history or just listening to audiobooks and any other topic use the link in the description to get started alright back to the video the greatest difference between trotsky and stalin was their international policy stalin wanted socialism in one state believing the only way to protect the party was to secure its authority at home trotsky believed the only way to protect the party was to expand a socialist country alone even a state as big as the ussr would always remain isolated and without many trading opportunities and so it had to expand its ideological influence now i say that with about 50 asterisks stalin focused more on securing socialism in the ussr but it wasn't like he just ignored other communist movements around the world he expanded soviet influence outward especially after world war ii so how would trotsky be different trotsky for being the intellect that he was didn't make the smartest decisions when it came to military campaigns outside of the ussr such as a failed invasion of poland during the civil war trotsky's foreign policy is simply less restrained and more aggressive to the outside world even to the ussr's own detriment i don't expect a trotsky with the entire power of the ussr at his disposal to have any less restraint unlike stalin who anticipated something was coming and built up the military for such a threat trotsky would build up the military and immediately attempt to go on the warpath throughout the 1920s large amounts of soviet equipment and funds would be funneled into neighboring states first poland then finland you get the idea if any of these revolutions failed then the next stage would occur military incursion i don't know when these types of actions would begin most likely just as soon as trotsky took charge now keep in mind in 1920s to 30s europe revolutions did occur but they always failed because the common civilian either didn't want to take up arms for the revolution or was openly against it so in all likelihood soviet encouraged revolution would not be successful it would come by foreign military force now how the scenario plays out entirely depends on how the west reacts to this would they simply attempt to avoid war like with nazi germany or instead would they immediately react and build a coalition to beat back the soviets i actually think that it would be the second option appeasement of hitler was not just because the allied powers didn't want to get into another war but it was also because there was some faint illusion that hitler might just stop at the german lands a trotsky invasion of poland however would terrify the rest of europe already in the midst of anti-communist fears well oh no we have to rally everyone together in 1930s europe yeah britain france and now germany could band together to stop the soviets world war ii for as influential its effect on the world was and as large as it was was pretty simple ideologically wise the nazis were so terrible they united the communists in western powers against a common enemy but most of all it played out the inevitable end of nazism showed that in many ways it was self-defeating an inferno that rages for a brief moment but consumes its own fuel so this is kind of a disturbing premise to think about what if during the rise of fascism the axis didn't actually attack the allies first say trotsky showed far less restraint than stalin and preemptively invaded nazi germany before hitler was able to realize barbarossa or even invade poland where the already existing anti-communist sentiment is emboldened as the trotskyist ussr repeatedly makes ideological calls to attack other nations so to the liberal democracies of britain and france all they would see is the soviets going on the offensive before germany does and fearing that the soviet military might not just stop at germany instead of the common cause being against fascism it instead would be against the soviets the trivialities of their local politics at least to a 1930s europe wouldn't be much of a concern to the allies the nazis above all else would be anti-communist but trotsky was the type who would preemptively invade good idea or not to take down hitler before germany ever reveals to the world the true horrors that it would unleash the outcome nature and time scale of such a conflict i'm not going to go into much detail on perhaps it does end with the nazis being overthrown britain and france being forced to retreat half of europe becoming quite similar to what it was after world war ii or maybe the war is far longer and dragged out allied forces being able to beat back the soviets out of germany after years of fighting but never able to move into mainland russia but even with all their combined power i still believe it'd be a drawn out back and forth war in the center of europe going on until finally the atomic bomb is developed say the bomb is invented and the soviets are beaten back after moscow and leningrad face atomic blasts or maybe far more cities by the time the war is done but really it's up in the air how much a complex turbulent alternate war may go a preemptive soviet invasion of nazi germany may end the reign of hitler immediately but it will do one more thing it will cause fascism to be martyred by the red scare the soviets demonized for launching such a war by even the liberal democracies of the west forever it will be debated whether hitler would have actually invaded another nation or to what extent the nazis would have done in our timeline after failing to unite against stalin trotsky and his supporters were banned from the party and sent into exile he would bounce around various countries for a few years before finally settling in mexico it was here where he would write criticisms of stalin's regime from a ranch thousands of miles away forever talking about how he would have done things differently however to be honest he at one point was always on board with the same ideas that people demonized stalin for today in fact many of trotsky's criticisms of stalin was just that he was implementing the policies in the incorrect fashion and his very specific way of implementing such a plan would have been so much better in short he was disliked by his party for a reason and frankly was a contrarian trotsky was stalin without the political patience but with 10 times more zealotry the type of zealotry that is detrimental and irrational so why does this scenario come up so often in alternate history this guy has such a myth surrounding him he fostered it himself before discovering what an ice pick felt like but a parody account to the soviet system really drove home this idea that trotsky could have saved 20th century communism as we've seen he was just as prone to inhumanity as stalin if not more so but orson welles just had to stick his pen in it he wrote animal farm during world war ii and literally two days after the war ended and the ussr no longer an ally he released it the book depicts the soviet ruling class through an allegory of animals on a farm overthrowing their farmer and the subsequent power struggle to decide how equality is sorted out eventually the pigs come to rule stating that everyone is equal but some are more equal there was a glimmer of hope for everyone to actually see a good form of socialism in the trotsky-like character who eventually gets run off this is where the myth comes from trotsky formed the fourth international after his exile and it lives on as the standard bearer for what vanguard communism could have been they're still active and under the guise of trotsky's supposed promise often working closely with what came to be known as the new left they're so influential that members who oppose the counterculture of the 1960s began their own form of conservatism now called neocons so literally both sides of current american politics were heavily influenced by this myth trotsky could sit on the sidelines complaining about stalin but when push comes to shove he was no better by the way if you want to hear some more about soviet history myths come check out my video on the subject coming out today too had trotsky actually been in power he would have been remembered just as poorly as stalin was but he'd be less successful not only dooming the ussr but accidentally making fascism martyred within the west but this is simply one alternate scenario what do you think would have happened this is cody of alternate history hub [Music]

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 998,582

Keywords: AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, soviet union, soviet alternate history, trotsky, what if trotsky had taken power, what if trotsky had taken power instead of stalin?, trotsky alternatehistoryhub, what if stalin never came to power?, russian history, animal farm, animal farm meaning, animal farm allegory, trotskyism, stalin alternate history, stalin history, lenin history, soviet revolution, russian revolution

Id: o6T7tzrriUk

Length: 21min 15sec (1275 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/snake-of-liberty]

In this timeline, the western powers and nazi germany ally to take down the Soviets.

Huh.

[u/insertusernameher]

Leon Trotsky - Soviet Union equivalent of TNOMod's Goering

change my mind.