What if Trotsky Came To Power Instead Of Stalin? (Ft: Cypher the Cynical Historian)
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Its often wondered what the Soviet Union could have become if just one man had taken over, instead of Stalin. A surprisingly long-lasting mythos of Trotsky. So what would actually had happened if he had taken over after Lenin? Here is one scenario.
Check Out Cyphers Myths of the USSR: • 10 Soviet History Myth...
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Special thanks to Cypher the Cynical Historian for helping out with this video. Check out his Soviet Myth video here: th-cam.com/video/97qO3g5MGmc/w-d-xo.html
Dear AlternateHistoryHub,
Do you ever look at history and how it turned out, and figure that there really is a God?
I have a question: What if the Second Balkan War never happened because, I don't know, Bulgaria takes a few parts of Macedonia? I feel that that might make WW1 end differently because Bulgaria would probably join the Entente at some point during the war. Would this change the outcome of WW1? Would it be similar to what would happen if Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1912?
What if South Africa kept its nuclear weapons program?
Hello Cody, I sincerely enjoy watching your videos and content and was wondering if you could perhaps dedicate a video towards the question of "What if Britain and the United States accepted Himmler's peace negotiations to help the Germans fight the Soviets?". I know Hitler and some of his still faithful supporters weren't aware and I think it would be interesting to see how the whole situation would turn out. I hope the question doesn't come off as idiotic as I did not do too much research into the peace talks, but I think it would still be interesting nonetheless. Thank you and keep making awesome content for everyone to enjoy!
Honestly I don’t like the last part. Until 1933 Germany didn’t have the N. in control. They would remain a democracy. Then if Trotsky helped the communists in Germany either they would take over and become an ally, or trigger a civil war. Then the western powers would likely work together against him like you said. Then there is the fact of the Great Depression, and that could spur communism in the west. Lastly, France had many socialist supporters, and Trotsky also could’ve demanded they trigger a civil war. This is very great tho, 10/10
“Long time fans might be thinking, didn’t he do a video about this already?” Dude, I still remember the old alternatehistorypt-style videos you used to make
i rembered that
I remember when the What if l Persia defeated Greece video came out
Zoomer Imperator that was 2017. I’m talking about the 2013 era.
Same
@Zoomer Imperator I'm pretty sure he still does it. The timing is just erratic.
Trotsky was opposed to Lenin's change and move to the NEP. Stalin used this to isolate Trotsky. Trotsky also overestimated his popularity and underestimated Stalin's intelligence.
He also under-estimated the spinelessness and bravery of potential allies in the party.
He was also an inconsistent and undecided leftist who had bad strategies and couldn’t make up his mind. Lenin called him a political slut in the newspapers, to make sure that he wouldn’t replace him.
@@thomasprat7760 Whom are u referrıng to?
@@JakobMoscow Trotsky. He played a crucial role in the October revolution and in the civil war, but then his ideas were constantly changing and he wasn’t consistent. Then he fled in 1928-29 and started advocating for a US military coup in the SU.
@@thomasprat7760 Stalins were also changing throughout the years. Stalin was the ultimate opportunist. It was charecteristic of State Socialism for the 'party line' to change. These people were forging absolutely new paths. Their ideas changed as the conditions changed, and their prospects of being in or out of power also changed
**points** Hey, I've seen this one a few years ago.
“This is a classic!”
New fans: What do you mean you've seen this? It's brand new,
Communism spreads beyond Russia, as well as becoming the aggresser in what would become WW2. And so after the Soviets are defeated, the Nazis and America enter into a Cold War. Which would ALSO mean, that instead of "The Nazis Were Right!" and "Neo Nazis" being in America, there would be far left "The Soviets Were Right!" and "Neo Soviets" would be in America.
Hunter V and instead the left jeers and points at everything remotely right wing and calls it Nazi propaganda
@@hunterv9983 nah, even If the Nazis won (which No, but let's ignore that), they would still lose
Another scenario that could be interesting: what if Lenin was in better health and remained alive and in power a few years (or decades) longer?
Then, since Lenin wiuld be in, Stalin would be out, so he would become Stalout and maybe be related to Stallone.
@Jonathan Williams Search up Lenin's : Peaceful Coexistence
It would have been the opposite
Churchill wrote that 'Russia's greatest misfortune was Lenin's birth. It's second greatest misfortune was his untimely death'
Even an arch imperialist and capitalist like Churchill could see that the Soviet Union was ultimately a humanist ideology. He found it easy to be an ally of the Soviet Union because he argued 'Whilst Nazism can only get worse, Bolshevism can only get better'
When your ideological opponents respect and agree with you, you know you are doing something right.
@@PORRRIDGE_GUN man fuck I wish Lenin didn't die
Lenin would’ve accidentally been killed and Trotsky would’ve disappeared. Stalin would then reluctantly take power and eat all the grain.
Personally, I'm particularly interested in Cypher's alternate history Animal Farm, which is his universe was written by Orson Welles rather than George Orwell... :D
I'm still not sure if it was a joke, or an oversight on Cypher's part. Either way, Citizen Kane but it's Animal Farm. Talk about a confusing crossover.
"But *Orson Welles* had to stick his pen in it..."
This is truly an alternate timeline.
probs because welles is similar to orwell
Replace one ruthless dictator with another ruthless dictator that was supposed to be the original ruthless dictator that got replaced by the ruthless dictator
"I understood that reference"
Communism in a nutshell
Having done Russian history from 1800 through the Napoleonic era up until the end of the Soviet Union, I found myself thinking about this same question and often found myself bemoaning the failure of Trotsky to take over from Lenin.
Then we'd bemoan the failure of Stalin to take over
I rmember reading one of trotsky's books once and he started it with going off about how the west are technically wrong with the months they use for the 1917 revolutions. The original umm acktually
What a stupidly pointless and irrelevant detail, definitely Trotsky
It's not so much that the western dates are wrong, but that Russia used a different calendar.
For example, in the old Russian calendar, the taking of the Winter Palace was in October 1917, but by the western calendar it was already November.
LOTS of quotes give the dates in the original Russian calendar.
@@fanaticaltechpriest1002 Very relevant given that the topic was Russia's relationship with modernity. Moron.
It's because Russia still used the Julian calendar and it's date differs by a week or so.
@@thaneofwhiterun3562 - By some 13 days.
Stalin's greatest atrocity? Allowing Ayn Rand to learn to read and write.
In a nutshell.
Stalin: Entrench against capitalism.
Trotsky: Crusade against capitalism, *MARX VULT*
Bukharin: Defeat capitalism on their own game. In order to defeat the enemy, we must become the enemy. *Deng Xiaoping takes notes
Nice one mate
Xiaoping wasn't a socialist
Deng was probably a communist in the 20s through 40s, but by the time of Mao's death he was arguably one of the most right-leaning leaders in China. Most of Deng's supporters today fits pretty well into the stereotypical US Republican voter image, although more socially conservative (you hear me right) and favor slightly more government intervention.
@@lukexu6400 So a stereotypical US Democrat. I see.
@@orrorsaness5942 weak
Remember, there was also Imperial Japan and a Soviet Russia that was VERY concerned about the security of their Siberian hinterland. It is possible that Trotsky would have gotten the USSR so deeply invested in supporting the Maoists in Asia that he might have just dug in and gone on the defensive in Europe. Admittedly, that is a huge "if" since he had little restraint. I also suspect that when the Reich invaded Yugoslavia, Trotsky would have decided that there was no choice but to intervene on behalf of their "ally" (the paternalistic Russian view of Balkan Slavs as their protectorate).
I don't believe Trotsky had a paternalistic Russian view as others did. His view of other peoples was very much ideologically based and sought a global rather than a regional framework.
@@Zorro9129 A good point to bear in mind.
The Reich wouldn't need to invade yugoslavia if they aren't at war with the Allies, which if Trotsky is in power, the allies will probably be on the side of the Nazis.
At that point, we might have seen the US supplying arms and fuel to Japan in a war against the Soviets in exchange for Japan curbing its ambitions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. The US was very isolationist in the 1930s, but an expansionist Soviet Union might have been a bridge too far.
@@bluemarlin8138 That's just wild lmao
Pedantic point - Trotsky was only very briefly a Menshevik, he quit the Mensheviks to become an "interdistricter" an independent Marxist hoping to bring the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks back together again. (although he remained friends with Julius Martov, the Menshevik leader)
Trotsky was very bad at political scheming and building a power base, so I think if Lenin had denounced Stalin more vocally the anti-Trotsky troika would have been Zinoviev, Kamanev and Bukahrin rather than Zinoviev, Kamanev and Stalin. Zinoviev was probably the second best political schemer after Stalin, so he would ultimately have taken over, Trotsky would have found himself kicked upstairs, perhaps serving as president. (Basically a non-job in the Soviet Union, the real president in our timeline - Kalinin - was so insignficant Stalin didn't even bother having him killed.)
If Trotsky had somehow got into power, he might have been better than Stalin, but still not great. His criticisms of Stalin read a lot like Khruschev's - ironic since modern Trotskyists consider the post-Stalinist Soviet Union to be a "deformed worker-state" or even "state capitalist". Trotsky was also an advocate of pursuing revolution in western colonies and semi-colonial areas, especially India and China. We would likely see massive Soviet aid to the Chinise Communists and to the Congress Party in India; Britain could have faced a major uprising in India while Mao (or one of his rivals) could have come to power in the 1930's.
As for Germany, Trotsky would probably have avoided Stalin's truly stupid "third period" doctrine which saw the Communists ordered to spend all their time attacking the Social Democrats and ignoring Hitler. While an alliance of Communists and Social Democrats might have simply prompted Hindenburg to appoint Hitler Chancellor a year or two earlier than in our timeline, it is possible that this could instead have forstalled the rise of Hitler - perhaps by radical Social Democrat - backed by the Communists - taking the German presidency. However, there would have been fierce resistance from German conservatives and the military to this, so it is possible that Germany could have slid into civil war, and perhaps ended up devided.
With Germany split and the USSR waging proxy wars against the west in the developing world, this alternate 1930's looks a lot like the Cold War, maybe that was the one inevitablity of the 20th century!
Trotsky's only chance was to have switched sides in the Kronstadt Rebellion and go back to his (very ferocious) anti-Lenin gimmicks of his earlier years. He was definitely not smart enough and was swallowed by the BP Neo-Platonic nonsense.
best take in the comments section, seriously there's an entire collection of shit trotsky wrote AT THE TIME about what the USSR should have been doing about fascism and I don't recall "idk headfirst invasion of germany" being in there, and yeah the third period then popular front strategy was awful and trotsky specifically wrote against it
@Awawawa CM True, but my point is, modern Trotskyists don't like Khrushchev, and didn't when he was in power. The feeling was mutual, Khrushchev gave Ramon Mercader - Trotsky's assassin - the Order of Lenin and the Soviet Union continued to view Trotsky as a traitor, even though the "Stalinism-lite" policies of this era weren't that different from Trotsky's position.
Amusing to hear Trotskyist use the term "State Capitalist (correctly too as it happens) In their criticisms of the Soviet Union, when Trotsky andvhis cronies themselves were the arch advocates of State Capitalism when in government. Talk about stealing others' terminology.
TL;DR: We would be asking "what if Stalin came to power"
What do you call a communist sniper?
A Marx man
this pun makes you deserve 10 million years in G.U.L.A.G.
It's not original, I saw it in another video
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
@@omar_xxnader9246 cuz its *OUR* comment
The Red Death
Lenin never appointed Stalin as his successor.
In fact Lenin on his death bed warned about the dangers of Stalin ascending to power. From memory Lenin wrote a letter that hinted at the removal of Stalin from the Politburo and his support for Trotsky. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
Of course the letter never made it to Politburo eyes,
and Stalin positioned himself as Lenin's successor at his funeral (Trotsky btw was given the wrong date for the funeral).
Lenin's Last Will warns against both Trotsky and Stalin. That's why they both voted to suppress it.
Lenin's Testament, the last version of which called for Stalin's removal from the leadership, did make it the Politburo. At the Central Committee meeting on the eve of the Twelfth Congress of the Party, the first following Lenin's death. Stalin's supporters on the CC argued for the Testament not to be circulated to the Congress delegates. Trotsky's supporters initially argued for its circulation as of course did Lenin's widow, Krupskaya. The CC agreed to a recess during which Stalin was said to have sat on a step outside with his head in his hands muttering "it is all over". However, when the Central Committee resumed Trotsky surprised everyone by accepting suppression of Lenin's Testament on the grounds of maintaining Party unity. Krupskaya felt betrayed that her husband's wishes were not just being ignored but being kept secret from the Party activists.
Trotsky even publicly denied the existence of the document when it was published in America in 1925 by one of his disciples. However, once the break with Stalin intensified he admitted its existence.
All this shows Trotsky's naivety in internal party battles.
@@patbyrneme007 Trotsky's wasn't naive. He was power hungry. He agreed to suppress Lenin's Last Will, because he would have been just as suppressed as Stalin.
Stalin also tried resigning but the communist party VETOed it. This was immediately after his succession.
Lenin Criticized the entire politburo in his will, that is why the entire politburo suppressed it. This includes Trotsky.
1:27 Damn. Young Stalin was kind of a chad
He got a 13 year old pregnant at 27
@@parthrajput2330what da heeell oh my god no wayayayay
"Britain, France and Germany team up to oppose the Soviet Union" *Hell March Intensifies*
War Thunder matchmaking
And America watches, while eating popcorn
@@TheSkyGuy77 Nah we'd probably still join in, we hating communism too
Emphasis on the Hell part. God only knows what the Soviet Union on the losing side of a total war would look like, but it's easy to imagine even the total inhumanity of the real WWII would blanch in comparison.
I think Trotsky would have ushered in a new Golden Age of Islam, but that's just me
Imagine if today people will be punish not for holocaust denial, but for insulting to Hitler's memory.
You should totally do a what if Beria took over after Stalin video
"He was extremely opiniated even by leftist standards"
So basically any discussion of left ideologies when the tankies and anarchists crash the party.
There is nothing we leftists hate more than other leftists.
The irony is Trotsky was as much of a tankie as Stalin. There wasn't a big disagreement on fundamental ideology, Trotsky's issues with Stalin had more to do with Stalin's incompetency at governance and ham handed brutality. Trotsky was just as brutal, but thought he had more competent ideas on how to run things.
Tolstoy was an anarchist, and Trotsky's army brutally crushed anarchists in the Ukraine.
@@robertjarman3703 I find it telling when I see anarchists defend the Soviets out a misguided belief that they would have gone ancom if they succeed.
The destruction of the anarchists in Ukraine shows otherwise.
@@Xo-3130 Not like said anarchists in Spain didn't learn that lesson. They didn't trust the Republicans who quickly became coopted by Stalin.
I just want to mention that all of this hinges on the idea that Trotsky manages to hold on to power alone, but a major theme in Trotsky's presence in the party is the coalitions he built with other members of it. Left Opposition wasn't just Trotsky's yes-men, they were syndicalists, marxist feminists, former mensheviks and more. A Soviet Union ruled by Trotsky may and would have committed same attrocities as Stalin's Soviet Union, but in no way is it a Union determined by the personality of one man.
Trotsky also wasn't as bad of a military commander as you are making him out to be, the failed invasion of Poland happened that way because of insubordination in the military hierarchy rather than bad planning. If I recall correctly, troops under Stalin's command deviated from the orders they were given for the explicit purpose of gaining more capital in the party. Combine that with successful radio jamming by the Polish radists and good planning on Marshal Pilsudzki's part, it led to what we now call "Miracle at Vistula".
Trotsky fostered a lot of myths around himself, because he wanted to be the face of what Soviet Union could've been, but would he actually take charge of the country, he couldn't play the part of an absolute ruler. In your effort to dispell the myth, you completely overlooked efforts of all the other people who stood by his side and could make his bid a successful one.
Lenin to Stalin in His Death Bed:
,,People won't follow you"
Stalin: ,,Then they will follow YOU..."
Lenin and the people where supportive to stalin
It has a double meaning, right?
Door closes...
Gun shot...
@@LuisAldamiz No, just the truth. even to this day. just google: "was stalin popular with the people" and you find some western articles trying to get there head around the fact that most russians want socialism back and also a high number want someone like stalin back
@@gerddergaertner5071 - Hmm, the RCP may be the second largest party but it's still unable to win elections. Also there has been a breakaway faction trying to update socialism, as the RCP effectively became the last ditch of the Nomenklatura, a gerontocratic esclerotic nonsense unable to arise hopes.
But of course why would people prefer Capitalism to Socialism unless they are brainwashed by religion or total psychopaths? The logical thing is to strongly prefer Socialism: in Russia or anywhere on Earth. The problem is that, sadly, not enough people realize that (in Russia neither).
We would have no Posadism
Instantly worst timeline, 0/10 - IGN
this is very true. Aliens come to save the international proletariat!
Trotsky: writes a ton.
Hamilton fans: why do you write like you're running out of time?
He did run out of time. :(
@@ghostontheohio so did Hamilton.
‘Cause I’m not going to throw away my shot!
Me: no...No...NO NO NO NO NO
My brain: WhY dO yOu WrItE lIkE yOuR rUnNiNg oUt oF tImE
A Hamilton style musical but it’s about Trotsky is actually a really funny idea
Then we would not be able to gaze upon Stain’s glorious mustache as a true sight to behold
The Quote from animal farm is “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
literally the US founding fathers
19:04 George Orwell's "Citizen Kane"
A lot of people forget that before fascism was a huge fad before the Italians attacked ethiopia, to the point a lot people people were thinking churchill would become a fascist and become the leader of the movement in the UK. Along with the fact that the Nazis were seen as fairly moderate till after they annexed Czechoslovakia.
WW2 may have turned out different
Reading a lot of ww2 books of late, a few lines in one say Germany invaded Russia two weeks before Russia planned to invade Europe and that Russia was in attack mode, not defence mode so got pushed back until it got defenses built.
If true, this would explain the lack of large border fortifications, blown bridges and why it had so many tanks later, tanks taking years to get from the drawing board to action.
I've never thought that the invasion may have been preemptive, and not Hitler going nuts.
That book was returned as it was very pro SS even after the war.
Also Russia took years to push them back so it may have been planning to invade Germany, but not as soon as Hitler claimed and not before 1942-1943.
I don't agree with the books lines, but it just shows how the German soldiers thought because of propaganda, also the author was a gong hunter.
Aaand thats a lot of bs. USSR was nether any shape or form to invade 1941 anything beyond small border conflicet. To fight in central Europe they would needed another 2 years to complete rearmament, modernization and replace officers with new one and test them on army maneuvers and training
Why so many tanks? Soviets already cooking something before, especially looking at germans and WW2 kicks production hard with reporpusing factories all other USSR while evacuating a lot of them from Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR
And also SS... yeah, Nazies propaganda was a strong thing (especially if you connect jews to it and communist upraising in Germany)
Soviets were cooking offence, but for spring 1942, not for 1941.
Nazis germany : we had a violent takeover and became evil.
USSR has entered the chat.
Germany had a democratic takeover and became good.
@@jamesbhollingsworth5452 wtf, explain
Trotsky called upon supporting the working classes of each nation to over throw their respective ruling classes. This was his strategy and was the opposite of Stalin because it encouraged independent revolution. Trotsky saw that if international revolution failed the workers state USSR would not prosper for the workers. He was not an adventurer trying to impose revolution.
>
The international revolution DID fail.
Orthodox Marxism argued just as you do that "socialism in one country" especially a country as backward as the USSR, would inevitably fail. And under Trotsky, it very likely WOULD have failed.
However, Stalin used incredible brutality and power to force industrialization upon the Soviet Union despite those formidable odds. If you wanted the USSR to have the means to defend itself against a hostile Germany and West, that was essential. And Stalin did it, at a staggering cost.
That is what Stalin did, and what Trotsky could never have done. It is Stalin's excuse for his behavior, however brutal.
can't wait to see the tankies denying/downplaying the Holodomor
It seems that the authors of this script invented a version of Trotsky that, in many of their characterisations, never existed.
13:44 lol great detail that the swastika on hitler is replaced by the youtube play butoon XD
It’s worth noting that Orwell himself said Snowball would have been slightly less terrible than Napoleon, at best.
Alternate history where people think the nazis wouldn't have done bad
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH"
Reminds me of the previous "what if Trotsky took over" comment sections.
I feel like Trotsky coming to power would lead to a situation like what happened in Red Alert, though with no time travel fuckery. Soviets vs Allies
Except the Allies would have Fascists and Nazis in them, which... would be rather bad, as the Western democracies wouldn't turn against them nearly as fast as they did against the USSR post-WWII.
Can u imagine all those college professors with Stalin mustaches instead of Trotsky gotees? 🤣
So Trotsky is kinda like Rommel? Both not terribly nice, but fawned over today by "history buffs"?
Rommel was terrible. His history was romanticised post-war.
Rommel is fawned over because the Allies considered him a decent guy. We don't have any evidence to tie him to any war crime or crimes committed by nazis. He fought fair and only wrote war memoirs about what he saw. He was so clean he could have been placed president of a post-war Germany, had the nazis not ordered his suicide.
Trotsky was a cunt who ordered innocent civilians to be murdered en masse and fantasized about starving the people until mothers ate their children.
The two are incomparable.
@@kavky Feel free to have a read:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rommel_myth
@@Dsonsee You feel free to have a read, and note it does not contradict what I wrote.
@@Dsonsee Since we're on youtube look up Military History Visualised. He did an excelent analysis on Rommel.
George Orwell even said that Snowball (Trotsky's pig equivalent) would have ruined everything with his fanaticism. He was not pro-Trotsky so much as he was anti-Stalin.
This is part of why I encourage people to read "Animal Farm" purely as a story and THEN read into the parallels. I first heard it as a book on tape as a kid (teacher parents are weird) and what stood out to me was how the pigs had become just like the humans they rebelled against. It was about how power corrupts, and that made sense on its own.
Love that "OOPS!" ripped from Egoraptor. Just watched that again the other day, actually
How did I only now discover this channel?
Cody: "Lenin, is dead"
Comments: "Um, actually..."
I think, maybe its an implied point there at the end (whenever you mention the martyrdom of Fascism) but the idea that the Allies would side with the Nazis against the Communists in a WW2 scenario might bring about similar cultural ideal that we see in Academia. Where a lot of professors and students are Communists (often of the Trotskyite fashion) and then you can even apply it to the cultural movements like Antifa, which in my opinion is a growth out of that Academic longing for Communism. The effects on the US might be that the way that we see Communism in our timeline might change and be the way we see Nazism in that timeline. Therefore, we would have Academic and Political Elites and Ideological Movements more to the tune of Fascism than Communism, because of the sort of culture built up around how we view our World War 2 Enemies. (Of course that assumes we would have partaken in that war, but nonetheless, its an interesting thing to consider).
That's what I was thinking. After all, both movements have some of the same intellectual heritage, and Prussianism was so very popular. What I wonder is why so many academics are drawn towards totalitarianism.
Can you do a "What if Nikolai Bukharin
Came To Power Instead Of Stalin"?
I actually think that would be a lot more interesting. He was seen as almost the prodigal son of Communism. I'd be really curious on your take about that.
Lenin's testament: DO NOT MAKE STALIN THE LEADER, AT ANY COST
Stalin: hmm, lenin must didn't knew this would put me in bad lights, let's rewrite it, to a better version
The new Lenin's testament: Stalin is a honest good guy, you can trust him, make him the leader
Ya pretty much
I still feel that Trotsky would have been better for the USSR in the long run, even though he wasn’t that great. At least from my understanding of Permanent Revolution, it was meant to be a more democratic persuasion to creat a global socialist group, without the “socialism in one state” that Stalin believed in. It’s sad though that socialism and communism have a bad name because of Stalin, Mao and Pot.
Finally something else both Tankies and Fashies can agree on.
Nazbol Gang
nazbol moment
So basically, if Trotsky was leader, the world would've ended
Cool but I would be more interested in what if Sergei Kirov took over the mantle at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party, of course Stalin would have been summarily executed the same day. But that is beside the point. Now Kirov is in power, how would things progress?
What if iSorrowproductions came to power instead of Stalin?
*_THE REVOLUTION AGAINST TH-cam'S MONETIZATION SYSTEM NEVER ENDS_*
What if ISP came to power instead of iSorrowproductions?
Mitsvan Mitsvanio makes England into a gulag
The best part of this video is everytime he mentions Trotsky, the animation of him raging at his typewriter just makes me LOL
I greatly commend your videos, Cody, Well done! I am actually a Muslim myself, and I've watched many of your videos concerning Arabs and Muslims alike. I believe that you cover these historical timelines/alternate-historical timelines very well without much bias and offensive depiction. I'd like to bring your interest into another Alternate-History Timeline in the Islamic World: What if Shia-Islam did not exist? What if Muslims were all under one banner?
This would require a lot of research to be done, as different Muslim groups have their own beliefs on the origins of Shia-Islam, but I feel that you would make a great video on this topic.
Once again, kudos to you for your videos and how in-depth they are!
19:02
He said Orson Welles when he meant George Orwell.
"But that's not real communism"
-Both Trotsky and Stalin, at the same time
The answer you're coming to is often said a different way in leftist circles:
"Neoliberals, when given the choice between siding with fascism or leftism, will always choose fascism"
The thing is, in this alternate timeline we’d be thinking, “man this trotsky guy stinks, if Stalin came to power everything would be better”
I doubt that, Trotsky was a military leader and history has a tendency to fetishize military leaders. Stalin being a complete bungler, really hurts him in history.
@@Edax_Royeaux That's true, but you could also make the case that Hitler was a military leader, and I don't see many people fetishizing him.
@@Edax_Royeaux Funnily enough, Nazi Germany's military was so effective directly *because* Hitler didn’t touch it. Most of the officers of WW1 weren’t purged, with promotions and medals still being based on competence.
The problem was that having all political power consolidated into one man is a double-edged sword. While Hitler could promote skilled leaders at a record pace and make risky moves, it also meant that commanders would over-promise and grovel to Hitler for resources. Not to mention the fact that because France fell so quickly (a war that Hitler himself thought would cost over a million German lives), it made Hitler feel invincible and caused him to overextend his military until it broke.
@@morningwoody4514 Hitler was Supreme Commander of the German Army. During the Battle of Stalingrad (before the encirclement), he sacked General Halder and Field Marshal List and took direct command of Army Group A in the Caucasus. And at least according to TIK, he wasn't terrible as Commander of Army Group A, because he was capable of thinking on a grand strategic level while his generals had tunnel vision. Even though Hitler could see the impending disaster at Stalingrad coming, there wasn't many forces left he could put in it's way to try and stop it. Also Hitler being Supreme Commander of the German Army and Commander of Army Group A created a weird chain of command structure loop
@@Edax_Royeaux It shows that the German military was most effective when he provided a general overview and allowed the military to do its thing, but once he because overly involved in military matters things got worse. But Germany was bound to loose, and there was nothing Hitler could do about that.
Lenin: “I want Trotsky to be in charge”
Trotsky: “Nice pick”
Stalin: “Ice pick”
So dumb...
I LOVE IT!
"The world may never know if Stalin's paranoia was targeting the right people, or whether he made more enemies trying to exterminate every Trotsykist in the Party. What is known is that what he feared eventually came to pass. Today, Leon Trotsky reemerged as having returned from his exile, and with the support of several influential party members and NKVD officers, launched a coup overthrowing Stalin's rule.
The former General Secretary was attacked in his home with an ice axe, and was swiftly executed along with several of his supporters. Tearing down the cult of personality he built up will take time, but the people know now at least that he was not immortal." - HOI4
😂
lol
That’s gold 😂
I'm reminded of an old joke. A Soviet artist is told to design a poster for the film, "Lenin in Poland." He returns with a picture of a man and woman engaging in barely-acceptable-to-print behavior. The maker of the film is furious.
"Who is this shameless man here?"
"That is Trotsky."
"And who is this loose woman beside him?"
"That is Lenin's wife."
"And where," cries the filmmaker, "is Lenin?!"
The artist gives a conspiratorial smile. "Lenin's in Poland."
For some reason I read this in the voice of Slavoj Zizek
@@HiromiyamotoDesuDesu *nose touching intensifies*
@@HiromiyamotoDesuDesu PAH-URE IDEOLOGY
@@oracle8192 *sniff*
That was not about Trotsky, that was about Dzierżynski.
I always assumed Trotsky rising to power would have resulted in a much more severe Cold War, because Trotsky really was committed to spreading communism ideologically, while Stalin only sought that as a means of promoting Soviet interests.
My guess is that had Trotsky wound up at the top of the heap instead of Stalin, it would have resulted in the failure of Communism any number of times. Trotsky simply lacked the political skills and iron determination to drive the Communist agenda with the talent and energy Stalin brought to it.
Just as a possible scenario---
Trotsky was HOT to collectivize the land ---to take it away from the control of the peasantry who had grabbed it during THEIR revolution.
Lenin took a shot at doing that. He failed and adopted the NEP. I can see Trotsky doing what Lenin did, and driving the USSR and Communism over the cliff when the peasantry revolted effectively.
Trotsky was always hot to collectivize the land, while Stalin patiently accumulated the power to WAGE WAR effectively on the peasantry when the time came. So again I would expect Trotsky to have gone off prematurely, causing a rebellion he couldn't contain.
Stalin DID begin his campaign to collectivize the land, right after getting rid of Trotsky! At that time he has the political means to wage WAR effectively against the peasants who constituted most of the population of Russia. He killed off MILLIONS in getting what he wanted.
Trotsky was as brutal as Lenin or Stalin, but I don't think he would have had the political talent to carry that off.
Just my guess and bias, of course. But while Stalin was successfully waging war on the peasantry, stealing their assets and collectivizing the land, Trotsky was first kicked out of the Communist Party, then forced into internal exile, then kicked out of the Soviet Union altogether. That's the measure of the difference between Stalin and Trotsky, in my opinion.
being devoted to spreading communism as opposed to just advancing soviet interests is a good thing though. Stalin was such a controversial figure the USSR underwent an entire period of de-Stalinisation after he died. He was then replaced by increasingly liberal leaders who culminated in Gorbachyov & the destruction of the soviet union from the inside-out. I think it would have played out a lot differently if Trotsky did a good job of promoting communism, something that Stalin failed at.
@@SeattlePioneeractually, by that logic, Trotsky would probably end the Bolshevik rule, prematurely freeing Russia
Interesting speculation.
I would suppose that Trotski would have failed to be willing to kill millions of Russians and Ukraineans in order to steal grain produced by peasants to selll on the world market to finance USSR's industrialization.
That would have meant that USSR would only had a part of the industrialization needed to arms millions of Red Army soldiers with T34 tanks and aircraft to defeat Hitler. And he would not have flogged and terrorized a winning effort out of Red army commanders and soldiers, and thus the USSR would have been defeated by Germany.
So PERHAPS the people of the USSR would not have been as enslaved by Stalin, and instead would have been enslaved when USSR was defeated by Germany in WWII.
Stalin's main way of justifying all his murder and terror was the defeat of Germany. That really only happened BECAUSE of Stalin's murder and terror. So your suggestion that Trotsky would not have been as murderous as Stalin also suggests that USSR% would not have had the margin of power needed to defeat Hitler ---and even at that it was a very near thing early in Germany's invasion.
I would be suprised if the soviet union still exists in the 50s, at least in Europe
RIP this comments section. May the tankie/red-baiter feud commence!
May the comments be stained red with blood and communism.
Maybe they'll cancel each other out.
Adelante, Compañeros!
*munches popcorn in anarchist*
What if the Second Great Depression actually happens?
You’re telling me Trotsky was so leftist he actually annoyed other leftists?
As a leftist, trust me when I say that all leftists annoy other leftists
Maria G as another Leftist, the anarchist kind, I can confirm
@@Maria29G No wonder Franco won the Spanish Civil War.
To be fair, all leftists are annoying to all other leftists. Have you ever met a leftist?
And the leftists are so obnoxious that they tried to each other alive.
I don't understand why the post-Lenin period is always framed as a Stalin vs. Trotsky rivalry. It was so much more complicated than that, for example Nikolai Bukharin was very influential as well, surely more than Trotsky, but he is rarely even mentioned when this period is discussed.
Speaking of Bukharin, another aspect I'm curious about is to what degree the Old Bolshiveks would have had Stalin not kill them off. I feel Trotsky would've kept them around to support his legitimacy, and in doing so, might have kept enough "carefully curated opposition" to help keep memory of the revolution alive... whereas Stalin basically killed everyone off who wasn't constantly loyal to him personally and therefore upon Stalin's death the USSR was basically drifting with a system that doesn't develop a system of leadership willing to take chances. Would the USSR still be around today had the Old Bolshiveks been left around to in turn keep that revolutionary zeal alive?
Remilia elected as Chairwoman of the State Soviet
Strange as it might sound, as far as the West is concerned at least, I think the reason might be George Orwell. For a long time, Orwell has been capitalism’s favorite anti-communist shill, and his perceptions of Soviet politics have become the *only* perceptions of Soviet politics for a lot of westerners who don’t study the subject with any interest. But while he might have been an irritating reactionary gnat, Orwell was a strange sort of Trotsky proponent. You see it over and over again, in his two most subsidized works especially. Snowball and Goldstein. Apart from Trotsky’s own writings, the idea that Trotsky was just a few years away from achieving “real socialism” really starts in most people when they read Animal Farm. None of it is true, of course. Trotsky was a political fool whose ideology was riddled with petty bourgeois revision. But the idea has gotten there none the less.
@@seronymusWho was Remilia?
@@Robert_Douglass Remilia is character in the avatar of OP but I thought you were making a joke about the theme song of Flandre Scarlet look it up, whom is the sister of Remilia
The true heir should not have been Stalin or Trotsky. The true heir was Tim Curry all along
spaaAAACE
REEEEE
Red Alert ?
@@pitipuziko3555 realistically no as anime would be near unrecognisable or never exist.
Wrong the people elected Stalin , Lenin didnt chose heirs in USSR people elected their leaders.
A Soviet Joke: A man in the USSR is sentenced to ten years in the gulag. Upon his arrival, he is asked by another prisoner, “How did you get ten years?”
He responds, “I did nothing!”
The prisoner says to him, “Don’t lie to me now! Everyone knows that nothing gets you five years!”
I don’t get it
@@Cadu_Ferreira The joke is that people that did nothing get 5 years in the gulag, the man got 10, meaning he did something
Wow you are a comedy genius
@@mycrobyte6063 I think he gets the joke but is adding his own humorous layer. As perhaps are you.
It's funny because it's true!
I think you're missing some nuances from Germany. The Russian Communists (including Lenin) never thought any revolution would work without at least one fully capitalist country having their own socialist revolution (the Bolsheviks are kind of like the dog that caught the car, in this way). Germany ends up with two competing groups of socialists: the Democratic Socialists and the German Communists (one wants to elect socialism into power, the other wants to revolt). Fascism gets going while these two (bigger) groups fight each other. When Hitlers says that in the early days, if his enemies had united fascism would've been crushed, this is what he's referring to. So the real historical question is: If it was Trotsky, instead of Stalin, would a more aggressive Communist Russia, create conditions in Germany where a socialist government (through either elections or revolution) would have come to power. This would have extinguished fascism in Germany before it began.
Who knows.
Additionally, Trotsky was Jewish and Russia post-revolution still had a lot of Anti-Semitic sentiment (even if it was illegal). He declined the offer to become Prime Minister after the coup, for this reason. He didn't think the country would follow him. Lenin would have had to over come Russian prejudice to get Trotsky in.
U kidding right!!!!! Uker famine holocaust in 30s was caused by zion komissars...lenin jew, marx jew, trotski jew...kommies were jews
Hey, do you happen to have a source on the Trotsky turning down that position thing? Not doubting you but I'm doing a pet-project related to Soviet History and I wanted to know where you heard that he declined the position. Thanks!
@@quack6292 Sorry for the late reply: Revolutions Podcast by Mike Duncan. He's a journalist, not a prof, but he does do a HUGE amount of research and keeps a relatively neutral position as he goes through Russian History, Marxism, etc.
He's also a good source for French, Haitian, American, and Mexican revolutions and the English Civil Wars.
@@BlueRockBill Sorry for my late reply lol, Thank you very much! This should be very helpful to me
National socialism and fascism are not the same.
If Snowball kicked Napoleon out from the Animal Farm and stayed in power, then he could've saved the windmills.
Everything Snowball wanted to do Napoleon did so the results would've stayed the same.
@@mysteryjunkie9808 umm, no.
@@mysteryjunkie9808 No, not really lol
snowball was a fucking revisionist and you know it
@@darjeelingoffthegourd not as bad as Napoleon, he was just a pig...
Sorry
"He was extremely opinionated"
Okay
"even by leftist revolutionary standards"
oh no
Sounds like he'd be right at home on twitter... Just saying.
So, like AOC?
@@lewisvargrson Look no more than 18:27 😂
Oh no indeed
@@willblack7353 aoc bad bottom text
"Tell the guy in charge of giving people jobs not to let that jerk Stalin take over. BTW, who's the guy in charge of giving people jobs again?"
"That would be Stalin, sir"
I see you're a man of culture
Thats too simplified
@@riccards You could even say it's Oversimplified
@@oswald7597 Roll the credits
nice oversimplified reference
so trotsky was the first guy to say "But thats not real communism"
Lol
Nailed it.
That’s kinda true tho, Britain was supposed to become communist, not a pre industrial nation with less resources like Russia. And the soviets weren’t really following the whole Marxist theory because they really couldn’t.
You could say it’s like in capitalism you have rotten countries like the Latin America and US and more balanced and fair countries like the nordics, Europe, etc. If the whole world was like Germany or Norway I don’t think many people would oppose capitalism so much, the same way, if Britain had developed communism in the vein of Marxist theory I don’t think it would have been as bad as it was
@@MacetazzOpina You aren‘t levying the criticism Trotsky did
@@n.m.8802 well we have a political party that flip flopped between centrism and socialism so it's not that strange.
It took me until now that you replaced the swastica with the TH-cam logo, and I have never been happier with a substitute symbol..
Scrolled all the way down here to see a comment appreciating it as much as I did 😄
Swastica ? You confused hold east asian symbols with hammers and sickles.
Aren't those the same thing?
@@johnathangaminj8200 The difference is one of them has incorporated females into their regime, and the other one never had the chance
@@johnathangaminj8200 Yes, you’re right, my apologies
Ah, yes. The famous writer behind Animal Farm: Orson Welles.
I was thinking maybe it was some sort of "fool-the-algorithm" thing, a bit like the TH-cam Party replacing the Nazis in all these videos...
My family still thinks Orson Welles is the English socialist and George Orwell did the broadcast about aliens.
@@Doctor_Robert nope, just a slip of the tongue that neither Cody or I caught, LOL
@@CynicalHistorian lol, awesome. (Could've entirely fooled me)
In an alternative timeline where citizen Kane ran an animal farm in 1984 called Insoc
19:07 did cypher really call George Orwell Orson Welles?
Yes, he did.
Orson Welles wrote Animal Farm in the timeline where Trotsky got to power
I was so confused....
At least it wasn't me having a brain fart. I'm getting old and thought I was having a senior moment, or maybe there was a glitch in the matrix.
Cypher, to me, can be a bit of a know-it-all pompous twat, so I find this especially funny.
So basically people romantacized Trotszky because he wrote fanfiction of himself all the time
Considering the alternatives: *Romanticizing Stalin*
Yeah I can understand the blind hope.
Useless fact Stalin very rarely took a bath of course everyone was too scared to say something
@Spartan 506 and the fact he killed 20milion people
@Spartan 506 ? Stalin was estimated to have killed 20 million
@Spartan 506 tankie detected
"The Soviets might not just stop at Germany"
"Hmm sounds familiar..."
*Looks at China*
Japan already had China and most of Asia pretty well flatten by then (2nd Sino war).
Excuse his lack of knowledge in sure he thinks Japan was an allied 😁😁
@@mommat794 a perfect vehicle to export the revolution across
@@maxwellli7057 look up William Blum on the internet archive.
Uh.... the CCP was waging its revolution since the mid 1920s
Trotsky: propose Stalin to the general secretary post
Stalin: exile Trotsky
Trotsky: suprised pikachu face
*Trotsky:* "This Empire is in...unacceptable...CONDITIOOOOOOOOOOONS! UNACCEPTABLE! One million years work camp!"
Huh, you are here too
Is it wrong that I read that in lemongrabs voice?
Joshua Saffy saaame lol
You here too????? We’re are you coming from?
Joshua Saffy no
Alternate History: What if George Orwell was a radio host and Orson Wells was a writer.
"Snowball... That's right. Snowball Frozen Peas. Full of country goodness and green peaness."
I heard that and thought did I hear that right? Maybe that’s the same world where the president was Ronald Reagan, the First Lady was Jane wyman, and the Vice President was Jerry Lewis
Orwell WAS a radio host. For the BBC. He did anti communist propaganda. Look it up. His work as a broadcaster for the BBC is what gave him the details for the offices and rooms in the Ministry of Truth.
Citizen Smith (that's probably only going to work for UK readers).
@@NoahBodze and Wells was a writer. He co-wrote Citizen Kane.
On Hitler's armband, he replaced the swastica with the youtube Icon, subtle, lol.
(Not making fun of you) It's been like that for a while, specifically since TH-cam's been flagging and censoring WWII videos.
Remember the the left for their sins and vote come Nov
Königstiger what?
I don't think Qannon is healthy for you. Don't listen
Yeah I do remember that now, he made a whole video. I feel like an idiot.
“He was extremely opinionated, even by leftist revolutionary standards.”
“Blow up the moon to empower black minorities”
Yeah we leftists don't like trots
@@comissar8953 I can't think of a strain that LIKES trots. from anarchist, to Marxist-Leninist from Council comminists and syndicalists to Third world Maoists and Bordgists. Is there any actual kind of leftist that likes Trots?
@@bouddicathesleepinglioness3148 maybe leftcoms but idk , he has Trotskyists
@@bouddicathesleepinglioness3148 there is a kind of meme Trotskyism , posadism believes in permanent Revolution and nuclear war and aliens lol
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I recall, Orwell's portrail of Snowball/Trotsky wasn't all unicorns and rainbows. He was in favour of pigs getting special treatment just as much as Napoleon.
This comment must be quite nonsensical to people who haven't heard of animal farm
15:02
"Far less restraint than Stalin" is one of, if not the most terrifying phrases I think I've ever heard.
Well sh
So Stalin was tame in comparison???
@@laurocoman As terrifying as it sounds I guess so
The same goes for Lenin himself. Simon Sebag Montefiore describes a scene in his biography of the young Stalin (until 1917, that is - he wrote about Stalin's later life and rule extensively earlier), in which Lenin, in an argument during a pre-revolution communist congress, began to call for the immediate exectuion of everyone who didn't agree with him. It was Stalin who told Lenin to calm the hell down and stop being so ridiculous.
@@Depipro is there any communist who wasn't bat-shit insane?
I love how he replaced the swastika with the TH-cam logo 😂
Where
@@antilinkpartyleader3239 The fact that you didn't notice makes it even funnier
@@CassDaMan1138 I was at 4 minutes while reading comments and I noticed it
always has been
@@antilinkpartyleader3239 14:12
George Orwell: "...who the bloody hell is Orson Welles?"
You’ve never seen The Magnificent Burmese Ambersons?
He was best known for the (largely fictional) panic aroused by his (actual) broadcast of a radio play based on War of the Worlds in 1938. But apparently this guy just had a brain fart when he said Orson Welles instead of George Orwell.
@@bradfordhatch5085 To be honest their names are quite similar.
@@JonatasAdoM Oh, I know that; that's probably how the brain fart (or Freudian slip if you prefer the actual technical name) came about in the first place. I wasn't *dissing* the man, if that's what you thought. We *all* make such slips; God knows I've made my share. That doesn't mean the guy was dumb or anything. If anything the smarter and more educated you are the more likely you are to make such slips! Hence the common trope of the absent-minded professor. :-)
@@bradfordhatch5085 If I had a nickel for the times I've messed up Will Farrell and Pharell Williams...
Stalin: We must prepare, for a great threat shall soon come.
Trotsky: *WE ARE THE DANGER*
*holy crap he's wearing a budenovka, my life is complete.*
Russian civil war uniform goes brrrrrrrrr
he just needs some telogreika and then our lives would be complete
@@awkwardbound569 And Sapogi. Don't forget the Sapogi
@@historyarmyproductions Also the gimnasterka
Alternate History Cypher: Woodrow Wilson is to blame for the rise of Trotsky
Why
@@europadefender simplified, Woodrow Wilson kept the US neutral, which lead to WWI lasting longer, and the Germans sending Lenin back to Russia, who later lead a revolution against the Russian Republic, which lead the Soviet Union.
Also he created Wilsonism, which basically means that America should intervene in other countries to make it safe for democracy
@@gamebawesome Wilsonianism is just a fancy way of saying imperialism with democracy sprinkled in. At least Teddy was honest about it
@@samuelwithers2221 aT lEaSt
@@NathanDudani Relax, not defending Teddy, but he didn't even beat the bush about it
I mentally jumbled Trotsky with Tchaikovsky when reading the title, and that sounds like a interesting scenario.
USSR anthem: 1922 overture
"So basically centrist"
Jreg wants to know your location
For a handshake?
Targi Svear
Centracide
@@randomuser5443 I mean, Cody was criticising people who would take fascists side just because communist attack them by calling them "basically centrist" so Cody isn't being nice to them, unless Jreg would centracide at the mention of them at all... would he?
@@Targisvear I think we both know the answer
@@JohnSmith-gz4fs So like "Meet the Parents" it is: "You said centrism on an airplane" "I said I didn't like centrism" "You said centrism on an airplane".
A yes, Leon "I'm gonna start a revolution in every country that hosts me in my exile" Trotsky
Based
Fuck he really did not think that one through
@@ItsButterBean1020 Mexican Ice Picks! Come get your Mexican Ice Picks!
Trotsky's willingness to use people from the old regime to train people in the USSR is kinda similar to what Mao ended up doing later
Yeah but Mao ended up doing Lysenkoism which was done by Stalin's apprentice tho.
Not only Trotsky but Lenin too.
So, Trotsky would be my average Soviet run of Hearts of Iron
I tried being a nice Stalin and not purge anyone in one of my Russia runs, but then Trotsky attacked.
@@sevret313 Everything changed when...
Never mind
I always do a Trotsky run, I like the stage a coup buffs
I feel that Trotsky was the closest to fully embrace Marx's ideals. Lenin was ruthless, but he did think communism would help everybody, Stalin was just an asshole
what westen historians dont get right is that the "lenin letter" was refered to the general assembly of the Soviet Comunist party and metioned many personalitys of the politic buro with critism on their positive and negatives. Not only stalin but also Trosky buharin and otheirs.
The worst adjective Lenin stated on the big three:
Stalin - Authoritarian
Trotsky - Political Slut
Bukharin - Young and unprepared
So it was Lenin's essentially roasting the Bolsheviks from his deathbed...
Yes but he later sent a second letter calling for the removal of Stalin.
Although the letter did come from Lenin's wife who was an active party member and was vocally against Stalin so who knows the authenticity.
19:04 Calls George Orwell "Orson Welles".
K
He didn't even direct the film. It was John Stephenson, 14 years after Welles died...
@@fikanera838 I think the bigger issue is that Orson Welles had nothing to do with it.
In his defense, I know many people who get then confused (myself included, I also throw in H. G. Wells because reasons).
He did that to avoid demonetization.
@@JohnSmith-wx9wj ...how does that work exactly?
"And they have aged terribly."
*"OOOOPS."*
RIP Sequelitis
I wish I understood, alas I know nothing of history and only watch these because me likey the voice
@@creshiell The picture was used on an old video of his on Trotsky, but it's not Trotsky there. I forgot what the guy's name was.
@@dakkarnemo1094 that's amazing LMFAO thank you
@@dakkarnemo1094 Yeah, IIRC, it was Mikhail Kalinin
Gotta remember that Fascism was adopted by the Eastern European nations BECAUSE it was seen as fervently anti-communist. It’s entirely possible that Britain and France could have seen large and even prominent fascist parties as communism is seen as more of a threat than fascism
Fascism is not a threat to the bourgeoisie; on the contrary, it is salvation. Fascism was formed as a reaction to communist sentiments in the country, as a terrorist agony in an attempt to preserve the bourgeois system.
That's part of how the US's current fascist party came into power
@@ratelarmonter4736 Communism is not seen as a threat to the bourgeoisie either. Those are the ones funding it. Communism is a threat to the middle and working class. To those with enough money to be hated, but not enough to be safe and to those who have no means of resisting tyranny.
@@therainbowconnection6813 lol. Tell me you're joking, because if you are then that's a good one.
@@ДартКсенос Explain.