"Stalin was a pragmatist and non interventionist member of the Communist party. If he hadn't been arrested by Trotsky then he would have had a moderating influence on the Soviet Union especially seeing as he a Georgian originally hailing from a poor peasant family. Whilst no saint he seemed to care about the plight of the workers and it is inconceivable to see how he would have pushed through the massive social changes that Trotsky did that lead to millions of deaths. This is because Trotsky, like Lenin before him, was driven by ideology whereas Stalin was primarily an enforcer of Lenin's laws. Without Lenin at the helm Stalin as the pragmatic man he was would probably have seen the need for the large scale changes that Trotsky unleashed. Nor would Stalin have started a World War that led to a conflict with what would have been short term fascist governments that would have fallen due to their lack of proper economic planning."
That's stupid, because you're just talking about history and not encouraging others to become neo nazis. I guess RU-vid wants to erase the evil parts of history, which in part is totalitarian and evil in of itself, therefore, RU-vid should ban itself.
That's the plausible scenario. Hitler did not really consolidate his own power until mid-1934, and the Night of the Long Knives, and the military rebuild was not demonstrably complete enough, yet. Many parallels between Trotsky and Rohm, the biggest being their ideology of ongoing revolution. A Soviet invasion before Rohm is dispatched means a likely Soviet victory, provided that Trotsky has not made the same mistake that Stalin made by purging his officer corps.
Not necessarily. the 2nd Reich collapsed due to communist revolts and strikes. On the real timeline Germany was VERY politicised and polarized. With Trockij in power revolts would have happened again, with the difference of being the Communists and not the Nazis the victorious ones. Trockij would only invade if asked by the Germans. WHy invade if the work is being done already?
Not likely, if you look at the USSR they had huge military failures and lost land to the Poles who were just fresh from getting independence, if anything the USSR would be weaker and hatred towards communism would be even higher. Not to mention Stalin is the reason why the USSR was strong and industrialized.
Eldernesh Have you even watched the video? Those failures against Poland, Finland and Japan were BEFORE the Red Army was modernized. And after watching you should know that even without Stalin the USSR would have become strong and industrialized. If you don't believe that, at least give some evidence for your opinion, otherwise you are only making excuses for stalinism while rejecting the facts we did just learn.
Not to defend Stalin, but Cody's engaging in some hindsight anachronism here. Stalin knew he'd get attacked by Hitler eventually, but he thought there's no way Hitler would risk a two front war, because that'd be suicidal. Turns out Stalin was wrong, and right.
I feel like he thought he was outsmarting Hitler somehow, and honestly he may have bought himself a little time and technology, just nowhere near as much time as he thought. (He probably figured he'd have till after Hitler either made peace with, invaded, or was defeated by the UK.)
@@DIEGhostfish Well not exactly. You gotta understand that the USSR was recovering from an economic turmoil because they were far behind the rest of the world powers, three different revolutions within the span of a decade, a civil war with foreign interference to destroy communism and not to mention, the entire world hating you and not willing to cooperate with you such as sanctioning you. People tend to ignore the fact that even though the secretary general was the most powerful governing post of the USSR, it was just one branch of the nations government. So no it wasn't because Stalin was an idiot that the Soviets didn't attack the Nazis, it was because the governing body as a whole was trying to buy as much time as possible to prepare for a conflict.
I think it would have been even more different than our timeline and the Trotsky timeline. Perhaps we would all be socialist/communist? or instead Russia would be our (the US) Bro's a lot sooner.
ironically stalin had ~ 100,000 priests executed because the ussr was supposed to become a secularized state which was a euphemism for the state becoming the new god/religion.
I think the funniest part of this video was describing the “Council of Soviets.” Being someone who knows Russian, the word “Soviet” actually means “Council,” thus it is the Union Council of all of the Councils. And the Soviet Union is actually the “Council Union.” However, I suppose the west didn’t think that “Council” was scary enough, and thus used the foreign word “Soviet” to make a name that put fear and discontent into the hearts of its citizens.
I think the fear and discontent was probably associated more with communism racking up a murder toll of over 100 million people than with the use of "soviet" rather than "council".
@@SoloTravelerOffTheBeatenPath Okay i'll simplify it just for you. The whole video's point is replacing one "commie" with another, and you care enough to watch it (and even comment it).
Swithun I disagree completely. The U.K. had such a motive to enter the Great War and stop German expansion they would have entered eventually, though the dilemma of public opinion may have been an obstacle. The U.K. also had a treaty with France to protect their northern coast so that the French could move their navy to the Mediterranean, and it would have helped a potential challenger to Germany to enter the war. The enemy of the enemy is my friend... The Germans had outmatched the British in every single manner except colonialism and naval power, and in navy both were nearly equal (though the U.K. had a stronger one), and should the Germans beat the Russians and French without British help, no one could stop German domination of the rest of Europe. Most likely, diplomatically, the Germans could offer an alliance to the British in exchange for colonies and economic strength. However, whomever can protect the British can also defeat them. So yeah... I disagree. :P
Before the war, Britain originally wanted to be allies with Germany (mostly because of the Royal family), and until they realize that Germany will go to war no matter what they do, Britain wants to beat them as soon as possible with their small but effect army and massive navy before Germany arms up as they had a good industry, hence the declaration of war, building of battleships and propaganda to demonize the Germans and to inspire patriotism.
There's some minor mistakes in this video in relation to Stalin. Stalin didn't think Hitler was an ally, he knew that war was going to build eventually, but he believed he could shore up his industry first and that Germany wouldn't want to engage in a two front war. He also was still an absolute fanatic of communism and did believe in the workers' global revolution as we find in his private writings but was also extremely paranoid and steadily going more insane and paranoid as time went on to where his disappearances became almost random. The main reason he didn't immediately engage in global revolution is not because he didn't believe in it, but rather he was more practical and politically maneuverable than, say, Trotsky, and that's saying something about Trotsky.
He did believe in the global revolution, all communist believe in it. You can’t cal yourself a communist if you think otherwise because that’s the whole premise of it. He wasn’t paranoid, the people that were purged were always against Lenin and constantly accused of conspiring again him and Lenin with Trotsky. If he was a true paranoid maniac, why didn’t he purge the people who were with him his whole career? He was a paranoid maniac right?
Stalin was basically in favour of maintaining the USSR first, with the spread of communism second. In his mind they weren’t ready to fund communist uprisings in the west, they had to get their own house in order first.
@@intergalactic92 Yep, which is much more practical and politically sound, as much as communism can be sound. Trotsky would have likely seen Russia be the target of WWII instead and Germany the sort of Cold War opponent. Much like in the video.
Emma R. in philosophy, there's a theory that everything exists, but every alternate universe and stuff, so in theory, that could be true, but I'm happy here, I love Stalin bc I'm a psychopath, so I'm glad I live in this world
That's one of the points I disagree with Cody on. Stalin did not actually trust Hitler; rather, he just refused to believe that Hitler was going to invade Russia anytime soon- quite likely, he suspected that Hitler WOULD, but was in denial since he knew that Russia at the time was ill-equipped to repel such an invasion, and thus told everyone who said otherwise to shove it (or else). Stalins POV was 1) Hitler is offering me an alliance- I'll take it 2) Hitler says we should split Eastern Europe between us and carve Poland in two- sounds like a plan 3) Hitler is at war with France and Britain- that will keep him occupied for a while and give me time to consolidate my gains. Everything is proceeding according to my Master Plan! Just as long as Hitler doesn't curb-stomp France or something, lol 4) Oh, shit Hitler just curb stomped France! And most of Europe is either surrendering to him, allied with him, or staying neutral- will he invade us next? He's still fighting Britain, at least. 5) It's 1941- if Hitler will invade, he'll need to invade in the Spring or risk the Russian winter; we aren't ready now. 6) My spies are telling me that Hitler will invade in the summer of 1941- that would be stupid of him because of the winter, though we still aren't ready (note to self- purging all your best officers has it's downside; who knew?) to repel that kind of invasion, and I don't want to put troops along the border since that might provoke him, and if he invades everyone will blame me (and maybe they'll kill me?) so just need to be optimistic- ignore the warnings, lock up the traitors who keep trying to provoke us to fight Hitler, put fingers in ears etc. 7) F*ck, he invaded. 8) Quietly have nervous breakdown, go into your room and sulk, and wait to see if your people turn on you and have you shot for this giant cock-up (hey, you'd do it) 9) Your people show up and...they say that only you can lead them? Whoo- bullet dodged! Okay, war time- alright, let's show Hitler what Stalins' Russia is made of! (also, shoot anyone who looks at you funny). 10) It's 1945- Hitler is dead, I own half of Europe...just as planned (smoke). Now, back to purging!
Exactly. It was pretty clear (and even well-known at the time) that Hitler and Stalin both planned to backstab each other. They only worked together before that because they had to - nobody else would supply Germany with resources or the Soviets with technology. The Soviets were indeed surprised by Operation Barbarossa - but only because they hoped to strike first, and deployed in an offensive position (for example, many airfields were only miles from the front, which caused them to lose a significant part of their air force while it was still on the ground).
Autolykos LOL. The stupid idea that USSR wanted to attack first (for what reason?) was voiced by Hitler to justify his war in the eyes of united Nazi Europe. Even when they advanced deeply in USSR's territory, Nazi propaganda told people that it was USSR who attacked first. Shame that Goebel's propaganda tales were not criticaly adopted by Americans during Cold war and still those barbaric theories are reproducting in the minds of kids in the 21st century.
I have this interesting sentence from a book, from some english author. As it said: The russian forces were in complete suprise in their undefendable positions on the border. Now, if you have like 3 million men on the border, who are NOT preparing for defence, what could it mean? Well, the only other tactic is attack, so it's not hard to figure out. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted to invade each other, Hitler just did it faster.
+Xenonfasthall he defiantly wasn't. Read 18th meeting of communist party text (1939) where Stalin clearly accuses western countries (especially Britain) of making aggressor stronger and stronger by feeding him all that he demands.
Smutnovsor no at the time, he was surprise they would attack before england surrendered. And well everyone knew but they didnt want to get accused for treason
Careful they just set up a USA embassy in space and the CIA is training those aliens from Mars Attacks to overthrow you / make you go back to work at Panera.
Robert Burdett i am just a elected official that wanted to resign 4 times but i’m a dictator right guys. I definitely didn’t fix the famine by stopping landlords from taking to much grain for themselves.
I think you should have gone further in your alternate timeline. For instance, in Germany, there was a socialist revolutionary party that was fighting against the fascists. Perhaps we could have imagined that with Troskyist support, maybe Hitler doesn't happen. Same with Spain: so instead of having a singular USSR that fights everyone, perhaps other countries attain revolutions, and are natural allies to the USSR in that timeline.
@CanBiteIt CanLikeIt Why? Its pretty reasonable to assume that the communists would have won in Spain if they had real support from the Soviets. And with Trotsky funding Thälmann a civil war in Germany doesn't sound unrealistic either.
problem was, communism was not very popular in Europe. Communist groups in Germany actually drove a lot of people to the Nazis because of their attacks on non-communist. Unless the alternet timeline causes the german communist groups to turn the violence down a notch I don't see how the Nazis could have been stopped.
@@plazmatic954 No, Germany was quite weak in the beginning of the war. A pre-emptive invasion of Germany in the mid-1930s by the Soviet Union would almost definitely lead to a communist victory.
Cuba wouldn't be a communist wasteland. The Philippines wouldn't be a land torn by organized crime and deep seeded corruption. Spain would have been able to continue to bounce back from a time of decline instead of being stamped down for good. Puerto Rico(the lucky one of the three islands) granted may not be as nice as it is now unless if Spain after bouncing back, came back relatively strong. (Certainly possible) Either way Cuba and the Philippines would be far more developed and stable than in this timeline. Spain wouldn't have fell to liberals after the huge decline that followed the war. The Second Spanish Republic wouldn't have formed from this. The Spanish Civil War wouldn't have happened. The communist radicals that were in charge of that republic wouldn't have massacred priests, destroyed churches, and killed altar boys/girls or desecrated the bodies of buried nuns. Though with a Spain given time to bounce back and without a Civil War may join in on WWI. (Though they would have no real reason to enter the war.)
One assumption that every "what if" scenario about Trotsky seems to make is that he would have been able to hold power indefinitely. None seem to consider the much more likely possibility that he would have been either been ousted, sidelined, or completely shifted his stance when faced with the realities of leadership within 2-5 years.
This video was supposed by out at 3 but my computer was wonky. Oh well! If you want to stay updated, or maybe even chat, follow me on my Twitter. twitter.com/AltHistoryHub
i know im two years late but id like to point out that the reason nukes were invented was because of wwii and imperial japan's seemingly unstoppable navy. if we presuppose that the trotskyist ussr would have funded communist/socialist revolutions during the great depression, and the third reich or the imperialist japan died in infancy due to those revolutions, then it's safe to say that nukes would probably not be invented as soon as we had them. war, not necessity, is the mother of invention.
@@averydotavi Fission was discovered in 1938 not intending to create a bomb. It's possible that in the 1950s-60s either the soviets or US end up building nukes anyway
They have the same hair, glasses, and facial hair, but their faces look completely different. Kalinin's face is much broader more, square, and his eyes much less round. It's really annoying because I think I've seen a RU-vidr ue a picture of him for Trotsky before. I don't know how you make this mistake unless you're going through the histories of old Bolsheviks and see his picture without reading the caption or something. Either way it really makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.
Marxism: Everyone is equal Stalinism: Everyone except the state is equal Maoism: Everyone except the head of state is equal Tsipraism: Everyone is equally poor
1) Trotsky was a materialist, not an idealist 2) The picture of Stalin, Lenin and "Trotsky" is wrongly described as the Bolshevik on the right is Mikhail Kalinin
@Kobagrad No, it is not. Marxism is a psuedo-social science . Social science itself which also includes is economics are one of the weakest branches of sciences . Materialism is not science it's belief or a rationalization not a observation . For example lets take anger(a emotion) what materialism does is rationalize that into thinking it's merely matter movement in your brain .
Cisco Blue And abolished slavery and called for white settlers, natives, and free Africans to integrate completely together? How would all of that change America's history? The United States Of The American Democratic Kingdom. (USADK). They would be pretty cool actually.
We would have dictators instead of presidents. Our country would also probably be even more militaristic and we could've possibly became an empire. That's my opinion.
About Hitler. You forget communists and socialists were toe to toe with Nazis is Germany. With Trotsky exporting money and arms to Europe's commies, it may have meant all the difference in Germany, where communists were numerous.
Don't forget that the Nazis were supported by the big industrialists and other capitalists. They would lose everything if the communists would be in power and would match any support the communists received. I doubt that Trotsky's support would've made a big difference in Germany.
Doubt that, who would want to go back to the post-war november revolution? Besides, when the communists an social democrats were outlawed in 1933 they had 14.32% and 21.58% of the votes respectively. They were pretty big, but there was no uprising.
Now imagine with Trotsky funding they'd engage in same scare tactics Nazis used. Youth brigades, armed worker strikes. Nazis were in direct opposition to soviets becasue they fought for the same down to earth miserable poor workers, but nazis acted on their premises with pogroms and pushed all blame on minorities, imagine commies do the same but push the blame on capitalists and give arms to poor workers. There would be open brawls and shootouts on streets.
that's pretty much what happened during the november revolution. I see no reason how the outcome would be different. Armed revolt; proclamation of socialist/spartacist republics; countered by armed forces, SA and other reactionaries; lot of dead and arrested communists.
Stalin was the best leader of Russian history, the reason people in Russia got school and being smart and became global superpower under 50 years is because of him.
Hey guys! The bearded man with glasses in 4:18 is actually not Leon Trotsky, but Mikhail Kalinin (after whom Kaliningrad, former german Königsberg is named), who was the Head of State of the USSR until he died in 1946 of cancer. Commonly mistaken as Trotsky, he fails to be as recognized as other big members of the original Central Comitee. He always backed Stalin.
If Staling never existed/never came to power: 1) Zinoviev would have taken power. A bureaucratic caste was developing in Soviet Russia, a caste that would never have wanted a pro-working class guy like Trotsky. Zinoviev would be the most likely candidate to take the power. Stalin did not come into power solely of his own skills, but also because he was the most suitable candidate for the bureaucracy at the time. Zinoviev would have ruled like the USSR was ruled after Stalin: brutal when surprising uprisings, but no 'excessive' killings like Stalin had done. 2) With Trotsky in power: Hitler would have a more difficult time of coming into power. KPD would have attempted the 1923 revolution instead of preparing and propagating it and than bailing out at the very last moment. In 1932-1933, the KPD would make the NSDAP its primary enemy, not the SPD like Stalin did. 3) Some revolutions are far more likely to have succeeded or some great strike movements would have been far more likely: 1926 UK, 1925-1927 China, 1936 France-Belgium, Spain 1936-1939. Trotsky was a master at leading revolutions (he did in 1905 and in 1917), while Stalin was not and often tried to derail revolution, fearing a western communist revolution would lead to the bureaucracy in the USSR being challenged by the Soviet working class. 4) Trotsky would have industrialized differently. More focus on quality, less focus on quantity and rapid expansion. More focus on consumer goods, less focus on military. Trotsky saw the economic, productivity and efficiency headstart of the Western countries as the biggest threat. He feared a 1989-1991-like scenario while Stalin didn't. If the Western countries didn't execute a trade boycot with the Soviets and if Hitler would have been more friendly to the Soviet conquered populace, giving them entry to the German capitalist market, Trotsky's fear could have born out right there and than. This is not to say Trotsky wasn't aware of the military threat, he just saw the economic threat as the bigger threat. 5) Trotsky's army would likely be more efficient. He would not have executed the majority of his commanders in 1938 and the Soviet's military doctrine would have been kept intact. 6) You are correct that Trotsky would never have made a pact with Hitler. This would have made things a lot more difficult for Hitler, since he had to keep his eastern border fully undefended to invade France. The Soviets could have walked into Berlin without much resistance during the French campaign, an opportunity Trotsky would not fail to take. Possibly Hitler would not have dared to invade Poland, posing a big problem since Hitler was massively deficit-spending and would have gone bankrupt in a few years if he couldn't plunder other economies by conquest. 7) Trotsky was less likely to invade military. He believed a revolution had to come from the people themselves, and wouldn't work if simply conquered. No Finnish winter war. However, Trotsky would have opted for military assistance and conquest in support of an ongoing revolution. Just as you indicated, it would also have been possible that he would invade nazi Germany, since this regime posed a huge threat to communism and to the world wide working class in general.
I think your assessment is more accurate (which is my way of saying it agrees with mine lol). Trotsky was brutal but not nearly brutal as Stalin, there would have been less purges especially of military officers because Trotsky knew how vital experienced professional military officers are to an armed forces. While I don't think the USSR would have had the industrial capacity it had under Stalin by the end of WW2, the USSR could have made up for that by fewer people being killed, particularly experienced officers. Also Trotsky was born into a land-owning family that was also farming, he probably would have handled Soviet agricultural production differently and more effectively than Stalin did, and probably wouldn't have been dead set to eliminate the Kulaks as a class.
I don’t know if you play HOI4 but this could be a great mod for the game. Basically a nazi Germany that doesn’t invade Poland or France and a less militaristic (also less purged) Soviet Union. Countries fighting soviet backed rebels not a global war. I would love to see is the allies would work with hitler to stop the soviets as troskie was not a fan of imperialism.
The idea that Stalin did not recognize Nazi Germany as a threat is a canard born of the Khrushchev era, the fact is that he expected war with Germany but thought Hitler would learn from Napoleon and not engage in a war of two fronts. It was only after the invasion that the Soviets started considering talks with the British, before that, they expected a cease-fire between Germany and Britain before any German invasion.
On paper Napoleon actually had a better chance as the Russian army was not much larger than the French army. In sharp contrast the Soviet red army was more than 3 times the size of the German army. Stalin believed Hitler would not attack an army head on 3 times the size of his own.
The Red Army was smaller than the Wehrmacht, even withouth all the other Axis powers that attacked along with them. Plus 1 million Red Army troops were stationed on the Manchurian border. The Red Army was outnumbered by the Axis armies until late 1942. But the Soviets had a huge manpool of reservists to quickly conscript.
Those other nations only sent very small armies. They had very little interest in fighting in Russia and only sent what they felt like they needed to to keep Germany happy. The Soviets did not keep so many troops on the Manchurian border as Stalin knew Japan was not really that much of a threat. While it had indeed attacked them the attack was deflected rather easily and Japan didn't have a very large army being primairily a naval power. There was a large army but of around 60.000. However Stalin was having a huge army stationed against Germany. He thought of it as showboating which was common to force your opponent into a negotiating position.
marinus18 Bullshit, 700.000 men were sent by the German allies (excluding Finland) in 1942, 1 million Red Army troops were stationed in the Far East District against Japan, and those were never moved west, in fact the number of troops in the Far East increased through the war, and the Red Army was outnumbered for basically the first year on the Eastern Front by a significant number.
Why should Stalin think Nazis were a threat? Both Socialists in a time when that was RARE. And both ideologies spring up from the same branch politically. The Nazi's were he closest thing in the world to the Soviets that had power invested within a national government AND both sides hated the same Slavic minorities of Eastern Europe. They were NATURAL ALLIES at the time. Sure each side hated each other too, Fascist and Nazis couldn't exist inside the same border because both sides do not tolerate opposition. But they had so much other hatred in common and so many similar ideas in how to run a nation (murder, mass arrest, subjugation). So... following something mentioned about Stalin in the video... Stalin was thinking more about protectionism to maintain Russia/himself... not expanding through Wars of Conquest. And Germany was clearly amping up for War.. why not strike a treaty with the other EVIL power of the continent in hopes that they fight the Bourgeois and massively weaken each other. Plus it should give the Soviets more time to build their own military.
2:46 those are not the only names you really need to remember. Nikolai Bukharin, Geogiry Plekhanov, Grigory Zinoviev, Yakov Sverdlov, Sergei Kirov, Mikhail Frunze are actually important in that story.
A handful of people would've known him as a very peaceful and normal human being because he wouldn't have been attributed words like "dictator" along with all the dramas resulted from logical decisions of a comitee but even more grey shaded. Meanwhile, nazis took over the world.
I imagine an alternate world in which the Vikings had been successful and had settled in the northeastern US, this would have the chance to pre-Columbian peoples expose themselves gradually to the rest of the world. Imagine if the Aztecs learned to sail with the Vikings and reached Europe, exposing themselves to all the changes of the world and learning from them, instead of being caught completely off guard? The isolation made them fragile.
Imagine a world where the murderer of Wiston churchill would not rise to power.... people talk about hitler and stalin but never about the warmonger of churchill or roosevelt
I don't think the Aztecs would be going anywhere as they'd have been virtually wiped out just like in our timeline due to the many diseases Europeans carry.
They would have been exposed to a smaller group of Europeans carrying them to the same diseases the Spanish did, but the difference would be that now they would have time to recover. In our timeline they did not had centuries to recover and adapt. If the contact had happened in the 10th or 11th century, they would have died by the hundred of thousands, but them the Vikings would not be able to bring a large group of Europeans and Africans to replace them, so there would be time for them to recover and be ready when the Spain arrives. Or they could have travel to the old world with the Vikings. Like the Vikings, the Aztecs had a pretty ruthless culture. Who knows? Maybe they would go the Viking way and end up being Christians the same way.In all cases, a gradual exposition to Europe could have been far more health to them.
The thing is, in the 20's and 30's a lot of the world's people were very amenable to revolutionary ideas. It's quite possible that by the 40's much of Europe would already BE socialist even without a Soviet invasion. Germany came very close but the fascists won out. That changes the "alternate WW2" scenario a great deal.
Agreed. With Trotsky in power, i think it would be safe to assume the communists in Germany gain control. What i would love to see is how that timeline turns out.
There are a few additional factors in German politics of the time that relates to the outside powers. For one, Stalin declared Social Democracy a twin-cousin of fascism. This led to a staunch boycott of the SPD by the stalinist communists (who together far exceeded in popular support compared with the nazis in the elections), and probably it was returned since social democrats in the elections marketed themselves as against the respective percieved front figures of the monarchy, the nazis and the communists ("Gegen (=Against): Papen, Hitler, Thälmann", from an election poster) - all of which prevented a united front against fascism between the communists and the social democrats who were both getting flak from the fascists, regularly. Compounding this was the SPD leaders response to fascist attacks on social democratic gatherings and meetings was to disarm (yes they were armed, strike guards and the like) and "put faith in the law" and let the police handle them. That leap of faith didn't work. Not to say that Trotsky would have necessarily been better at this (because of tendencies of factionalism, perceived or true, which was one of the motivations listed for his booting) but he would not cement the divide by equating them with fascists. Of course, anything resembling a united front of socialists would have been met with increased foreign funding of the nazis - but they would probably lose the election at least.
I feel an April 1 story could be made from this. "What if Lenin never died." Make it sound at first like he's just going to survive longer, but then slowly start talking about the scientists researching his longevity, a cultish following growing due to his vigor at the age of 90, then growing concern in the late 70s as it becomes clear he was an undead the whole time, a US assassination plot involving salt, silver, holy water and crucifixes, his negotiations with Regan, and finally his fight with Twitter over his account being suspended due to a "humans only" policy.
@6:35 When he said: "A cult of personality no different than Mussolini or", I can't be the only one who's brain mentally heard the music playing, and thought: "Kennedyyyyyyyyyyyyy..."?
Also without a German - Soviet pact being signed, Russia would remain a threat to Japan in the pacific, which in our timeline was signed causing Japan (a German ally) to not be threatened by Russia and which lead to Japan not fighting the Russians after Germany broke the pact, which would've caused without question a Japanese invasion into eastern Russia even if the allies never fought Russia in this alternate timeline. This also means Japan would be unable to focus and capitalize on an attack at pearl harbor and the pacific, meaning Japan and the U.S would not be going to war, especially after seeing the U.S military production go into full gear. Events after this alternative and much shorter world war two are up in the air though.
The German Banana My theory- as Germany is beginning their expansion with Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would already be advancing their own borders. Retaking Bessarabia, possibly the winter war with Finland, and perhaps even invading Iraq/Iran for access to their oil and a port in the Indian Ocean. This would pull more and more focus away from the actions of Germany, and draw the limelight to the Soviet Union- and they may have been the first to declare war and invade Poland. I could actually see the Poles allying with Germany and fighting together against the Soviet Union with material aid and volunteers from the Allies. At any rate, things would have been MUCH different.
Sinanal Fascismo yes but you have to think that if Stalin didn't come to power Trotsky wouldn't kill his top commanders and generals and his soldiers, so the red army would way more effective.
There's also china to consider, if Trotsky is more aggressive in support of communist movements outside the USSR, odds are the Chinese communists are going to be getting some extra help, possibly setting up a people's republic during the warlords era. On top of that if Japan still wants the resources of China to find its industry you might see a three way war for control of China involving the Kuomintang/Nationalists, Communists and Imperial Japan/Manchuria and other Chinese puppet governments alongside the land war with the Soviet Union
AbsolKing That means one (bourgeoise) death is a tragedy, million (proletarian deaths) are a statistic. Everytime a rich person dies, everybody knows it (Rockefeller for example). When thousands of workers die, no one cares, sadly
That's not his quote, it's frequently misattributed to him. If it were, it would be quite ironic, since it would be coming from the man who killed millions and millions of "bourgeoise", aka anyone who disagreed with him.
What Stalin really said is (on ordering the execution of an officer) was "This one death may be a tragedy. But are the million deaths ( supposedly because the order was disobeyed) just a statistic ". Bit i of a difference there!
Stalin never actually trusted the Germans, he just miscalculated. He was expecting the Germans were too busy fighting the western powers and that he still had time to attack first. One of the reasons the Germans had such an easy time pushing through Russia at the war's initial phase was that the USSR's preparations were geared towards an offensive war. Declassified documents coupled with statements from the Internationale reveal that Stalin did, in fact, plan on attacking Germany. It just happened that the Germans attacked first. Stalin was no idiot. Paranoid? Yeah. An idiot? Obviously not. This man was by all criteria an exceptional genius, regardless of your moral judgements of him.
Well actually the army was more a bluff. Stalin didn't want to invade anything the only reason he took Poland was because the Germans insisted on it and he wanted a treaty with them. The army prepared to invade Germany was more as a threat to made sure the Germans would never dare strike. The main reason the Germans pushed through it so easily was not it's position but it's organisation. While it was huge many units were over- or underequipped or had the wrong supplies. There was almost no spare parts for machines and many vehicles had insufficient fuel supplies. Not only that but a lot of units were under strength and severely undertrained and a lot of the officers were politically appointed rather than promoted based on merit. Part of the reason for that was because it was as a bluff. They didn't want to spend the money needed to set up a supply system since it was for showboating. It was only meant to look impressive, not actually fight well.
Well for one Austria-Hungary wouldn't break apart, Serbia probably would also still exist, the Ottoman empire would still exist for a bit longer, and Switzerland would probably be bored out of its mind.
if WW1 never happened, taking all the facts about the start of the war like the assassination of archduke ferdinand, severe distrust amongst the european nations, in an alternate timeline, i would molest a platypus, and infect it with HIV.
ivan55599 I'm sure WW1 is totally unavoidable. The European powers would have gone to war over something else if it wasn't Austria declaring war on Serbia
How was capitalism implemented? Oh yea, through brutal genocides, colonial thievery, unprecedented exploitation, and slavery.... IF you are a liberal or a supporter of capitalism, you defend this legacy, since without it, the liberal capitalist west wouldnt exist.
@@platypipope328 But if major European powers weren't Capitalist then we would never really see imperialism take form in the way it for the scramble for Africa. Extreme Capitalism doesn't work and extreme socialism doesn't work. You need a healthy balance of both.
PVEntertainment since the Monroe doctrine wouldn't be so heavily reinforced, and we're assuming ww2 ended similarly, South America would potentially be very communist, since the US would be less likely to get involved
+Todd The Skeleton, Meme Historian That's very doubtful. The capitalists, even before WWII, had a history of intervening to stop the spread of Communism. I very much doubt the rich would just leave their massive resources and militaries idle, as the socialists overthrew the world governments and corporations.
4:18 CORR That's not Trotsky on the picture but Mikhail Kalinin, Chairman of the Russian Congress of Soviets and later Soviet Supreme. The city of Kaliningrad (ex-Königsberg) is still named after him... If you were wondering
I doubt it would have made much difference in the greater scope of world war 2 as a whole. Spain was generally seen by all powers as a clusterfuck of conflicting macho politics, a slum, and a moneypit for weapons used to fight in endless skirmishes. Both Fascists and Communists had puppet armies in Spain, and in all the broken confusion, most peasants easily shifted personal alliegance to "whatever side seems to be winning this week."
i have a few suggestions for future episodes 1 what if the arab conquest failed 2 what if charlemagne's sons never divided his empire 3 what if the french won the seven years war 4 what if america/canada won the war of 1812 5 what if the mongols won the battle of Ain jalut 6 what if the ottoman empire never fell 7 what if germany won the first world war
lechevalier6661 well, nobody won the war of 1812, you guys burned it down AFTER Canada made a truce, it just took a while for the message to get out, no one won the war, it was a draw
lechevalier6661 You Cannucks were stuck in Canda fighting our JV team. our Varsity team was with Jackson destroying the Indians that the Brits paid to attack us and destroying the British army that destroyed Napoleon. By the way our ships were actually better than the Brits since our use of multiple woods in construction allowed our ships like the USS Constitution to fight on equal footing the British ships of the line.
I disagree. Stalin was anybody but idiot. He tried to organize alliance against Hitler, and yes he read "Mein Kampf",and knew of what is coming. So, when he was refused with alliance (Stalin didn't trust to the West for a reason after all), he turned all the way around and played "nice" with a natural enemy of communism - fashism: 1) In a worst case - to delay a war with Germany. 2) In a best case - to allied with Germany against Britain and France.
An idiot would not come to power like that, Stalin wasn't simply granted these rights. Tho that doesn't mean that he wasn't all other stuff that was mentioned in the video ^^
It is also worth mentioning that the red army was in very poor shape from the 1930s to 40s. In the Spanish civil war the USSR had their first taste of combat, albeit small scale,, with Nazi Germany, and both sides found their newest war machines lacking in some aspect. Soon afterwards Stalin committed his great purge of the red army, killing off almost all experienced staff and replacing them with yes men who had never fought in their lives. These shortcomings were at the forefront of Stalins mind with the Molotov Ribbentrop pact and he was using the treaty to establish border states (baltics, Poland, and Finland) during the winter war it was revealed just how much the purges impacted the red army and Stalin began attempts to undo the damage by promoting competant juniors and removing his yes men, but it wasn't until much Russian territory was underGerman occupation that these reforms were completed. Stalins attempts to assure everyone the treaty would hold out was a vain attempt to buy more time, and I would argue that Barbarossa happened as a prime window to quick victory was just starting to close.
Agree mostly with what you said...butttt I wouldn't say Fascism is the natural enemy of communism. Fascism[or at least italian/axis/german fascism] is somewhat like what Neo-Liberalism is to Capitalism. It's pretty much the same system, but with a few changes. Communism's big enemy is Capitalism. Not Really sure what Fascism's enemy is though.
Joe Olson my point is that communists are ultra-left and fascist are ultra-right political movements, while com. tried to create super country for everybody, fas. tried to do the same for a single nation.
I'm sorry but there is a whole bunch of stuff in this theory that are just flat out wrong. First off Trotsky wasn't actually a realistic successor to Lenin because the Russian people pretty much as a whole would have rejected him. Even though Trotsky didn't see himself as a Jew to the rest of the Russia he still was and they would have never accepted him as a leader. This is something Trotsky himself knew which is why he didn't fight to be leader. Secondly, when Lenin wrote that Stalin was not to be his successor he also wrote that he wanted there to be more of a council of sorts to replace him and that there shouldn't 1 person to replace him. Lenin thought quite highly of himself and didn't think 1 person could do his job. Thirdly, Although Stalin wasn't nearly as charismatic as other members of his party, he still was liked within his party. He had the nickname the "Jolly Georgian" because he was always inviting people over for dinner and like to celebrate. The party wasn't totally against him like the video made it seem. Fourthly, Trotsky was so deluded that the global proletarian revolution was going to happen that he tried to stall peace with the Germans for so long that he pissed them off to the point where they demanded a better peace deal giving Germany more land. Trotsky was obsessed with this idea beyond any normal sane human. Lastly, Russians didn't just follow Stalin because they were afraid of him, they also followed him because he portrayed himself as making the same sacrifices as the average person. In the middle of WW2 Stalin's son was captured by the Nazis and they contacted Stalin to do a prisoner exchange. Stalin out right denied the exchange and doomed his son to death because he said that since he wouldn't do this trade for anyone else's son, he wouldn't do it for his own son either. This is something that the Russian people love about Stalin even to this day. I know your point was that Stalin was bad but this is some very important information that you left out of the video. Stalin was a brutal dictator, but he wasn't as simple as this video makes him out to be.
Good points over all, but we do have to realize that he had to generalize a lot to make these video in the first place, I wouldn't be too bothered by this but I can see why you typed this
I also find it very unrealistic to imagine that Trotsky would actually live up to that Soviet democracy ideal. Revolutionaries make dictatorships. It's what they do. Instead of Stalinists butchering Trotskyists, it would be Trotsykyists butchering Stalinists.
The picture they keep showing is of Kalinin, not Trotsky... The one with a young Stalin on the left, then Lenin, then Mikhail Kalinin. Trotsky wasn’t in that picture.
What's an even more terrifying thought is that if trotsky got his hands on nuclear weapons in this alternate timeline, he most likely wouldn't think twice about using them
Andrey Kravchenko They would have about as much luck invading Switzerland there's no Blitzkrieging your way into Czechoslovakia across the Sudetenland.
4:18 FFS, that's not a picture of Lenin and Trotsky, that's Lenin and Kalinin, another bolshevik revolutionary. Why does everyone keep making that mistake. Stop using that photo for christ's sake.
DarkVeghetta Please, we've already got the devil's advocates that haven't researched all the history, upsides, downsides and ideological standpoints of each representative (so pretty much uninformed idiots, and considering how I sort of play devil's advocate because I kind of feel like most people seem to be on the other side of the extreme where they consider communists as dirty as the Nazi regime without even asking or delving into why the ideology sprouted in the first place, I at least come from a more logical standpoint when I say I play devil's advocate), when they try and defend communism, we don't need the Tumblr fodder wanting in on this too! XC
We don't have to guess what Trotsky would do, we can see what he did, and he brutally suppressed Kronstadt, he brutally suppressed democracy by force of arms... Soviet Union would still be a brutal dictatorship.
