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Post by Max Sinister on Apr 8, 2023 14:18:00 GMT
@ stevep: Trotsky indeed, that'd be a possibility. However, given how badly the Japanese did at Khalkin Gol, I wouldn't advise them to do it. Might still happen, if the western powers block them in the South, but give them an OK to take Siberia.
I have heard different reports of how Khalkin Gol actually went although that could be because of bias from the sources involved. However a Trotsky USSR is likely to be more at Japanese type levels of technological development in terms of land combat.
Would it be? For which reasons? Did Trotsky not understand the importance of tanks? I seriously don't know. But it'd be a shame for the founder of the Red Army. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Apr 8, 2023 19:02:21 GMT
I have heard different reports of how Khalkin Gol actually went although that could be because of bias from the sources involved. However a Trotsky USSR is likely to be more at Japanese type levels of technological development in terms of land combat.
Would it be? For which reasons? Did Trotsky not understand the importance of tanks? I seriously don't know. But it'd be a shame for the founder of the Red Army.
Well i was thinking more that: a) Given his belief in world revolution he's more likely to start such a conflict earlier, say in the early or mid 30's possibly seeking to take advantage of the suffering and social turmoil caused by the Great Depression.
b) While he's still going to be a ruthless dictator he's probably not going to be organising the same sort of massive industrialization as Stalin did OTL. As such I think its unlikely that Trotsky's USSR, even if leaving it til ~1939/41 before going on an invasion romp, would have the same large heavy industrial base. Russia had a fairly substantial - if backward and subjected to corruption - base ~1914 but the civil war really trashed that by most accounts, both in terms of physical and human infrastructure.
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Post by Max Sinister on Apr 8, 2023 20:51:39 GMT
a): Agreed.
b): That's the question. Did anyone ever develop a scenario that looks at how Soviet economy might develop under Trotsky? I don't know from the top of my head what he thought about the NEP. If he kept it, and didn't kill millions in a Holodomor, who knows, maybe the SU will be better off?
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Apr 9, 2023 11:28:45 GMT
a): Agreed. b): That's the question. Did anyone ever develop a scenario that looks at how Soviet economy might develop under Trotsky? I don't know from the top of my head what he thought about the NEP. If he kept it, and didn't kill millions in a Holodomor, who knows, maybe the SU will be better off?
Too long since I read up much on the period but he seems to have been seen as the more radical option when it came to selecting a successor to Lenin. As such I doubt the NEP would survive long under his rule although he might not deliberately seek to do something like the Holodomor. If he gained power he would I fear be more ruthless in suppressing 'reactionary' opposition to the revolution but he probably wouldn't have the same cult of personality and possibly be a bit more approachable to other figures in the party than Stalin was.
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Post by halferking on Apr 10, 2023 10:09:53 GMT
Tsarist Russia’s economy was a predominantly agrarian society with 80% of the Empire’s rapidly growing population employed in the agricultural sector, 15% of Russians lived in cities and even less, just 10%, of Russians were employed in the industrial sector.
The 1800s saw attempts to modernise Russia and its economy, but the half-hearted efforts had mixed results. The Emancipation Act of 1861 ended serfdom, a system that was at the heart of the Russian economy for hundreds of years, but land was still controlled by the Communes who distributed plots in a haphazard manner based on the number of workers in a household and the people found it difficult to move out of the Commune to seek advantages in other sectors and the growing population meant the land allotted to the peasants was increasingly diminished. The agricultural sector also suffered from a lack of modernisation – farmers relied on manpower and outdated technology such as wooden ploughs.
World War I wrought devastation on the pre-industrialised Russian economy. It is difficult to quantify the loss to Russia in terms of men, but cautious estimate put that figure somewhere between 5.3 million and 5.5 million killed in action. As a proportion of population Russia suffered less casualties than Germany and France, however this reality does not include those men recorded as missing (estimated 500,000), prisoners of war (estimated 3 million), the disabled (estimated 1.1 million), refugees (estimated 6 million) and countless civilian victims. The impact of losing so many men, who would be out tiling the fields growing food, was incalculable emotionally speaking, but it also served to highlight the class divide. The army was reorganised to replace professional officers with educated peasants from the lower ranks, but the gulf between the troops and their high-ranking official was growing and gave rise to the 1917 mutiny. The size of the country also contributed to the hostile emotion toward the Tsar and Russia’s war effort the distances made effective communication difficult which often gave rise to ‘fake news’ which only served to add to the anger that was bubbling under the surface.
Stalin faced an uphill struggle to modernise the Soviet Union. He instituted a five-year plan to develop heavy industry and to collectivise the agricultural sector. The five-year plan was a success of sorts but came with a heavy human toll. Soviets had seized control in 1917 but had little idea about how to run an economy and the Great Purge, between 1937 and 1938, didn’t help the situation as a paranoid Stalin sought to eliminate any opposition to his authority.
The fledgling Soviet Union was like the Weimar Republic – its economy was ravaged by war, inflicted by massive social upheaval and plagued by political and fiscal instability. Stalin eyed up the riches of the West and Middle East with envy. What if… Stalin seeks to take advantage of the situation in Europe following the war. Can he make territorial gains in the Middle East. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to France and Great Britain taking large sections of the Near East and Middle East – if Stalin was capable could he take some of the land such as Iraq whilst trying to make the most of the resource rich Siberia. Would China pose a threat to the development and what about Japan. The Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany signed an Anti-Comintern Pact. If Stalin changes the course of events in the interim war period what affect with that have of Japan’s foreign relations with Soviet which were strained in OTL.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Apr 10, 2023 11:34:47 GMT
Tsarist Russia’s economy was a predominantly agrarian society with 80% of the Empire’s rapidly growing population employed in the agricultural sector, 15% of Russians lived in cities and even less, just 10%, of Russians were employed in the industrial sector. The 1800s saw attempts to modernise Russia and its economy, but the half-hearted efforts had mixed results. The Emancipation Act of 1861 ended serfdom, a system that was at the heart of the Russian economy for hundreds of years, but land was still controlled by the Communes who distributed plots in a haphazard manner based on the number of workers in a household and the people found it difficult to move out of the Commune to seek advantages in other sectors and the growing population meant the land allotted to the peasants was increasingly diminished. The agricultural sector also suffered from a lack of modernisation – farmers relied on manpower and outdated technology such as wooden ploughs. World War I wrought devastation on the pre-industrialised Russian economy. It is difficult to quantify the loss to Russia in terms of men, but cautious estimate put that figure somewhere between 5.3 million and 5.5 million killed in action. As a proportion of population Russia suffered less casualties than Germany and France, however this reality does not include those men recorded as missing (estimated 500,000), prisoners of war (estimated 3 million), the disabled (estimated 1.1 million), refugees (estimated 6 million) and countless civilian victims. The impact of losing so many men, who would be out tiling the fields growing food, was incalculable emotionally speaking, but it also served to highlight the class divide. The army was reorganised to replace professional officers with educated peasants from the lower ranks, but the gulf between the troops and their high-ranking official was growing and gave rise to the 1917 mutiny. The size of the country also contributed to the hostile emotion toward the Tsar and Russia’s war effort the distances made effective communication difficult which often gave rise to ‘fake news’ which only served to add to the anger that was bubbling under the surface. Stalin faced an uphill struggle to modernise the Soviet Union. He instituted a five-year plan to develop heavy industry and to collectivise the agricultural sector. The five-year plan was a success of sorts but came with a heavy human toll. Soviets had seized control in 1917 but had little idea about how to run an economy and the Great Purge, between 1937 and 1938, didn’t help the situation as a paranoid Stalin sought to eliminate any opposition to his authority. The fledgling Soviet Union was like the Weimar Republic – its economy was ravaged by war, inflicted by massive social upheaval and plagued by political and fiscal instability. Stalin eyed up the riches of the West and Middle East with envy. What if… Stalin seeks to take advantage of the situation in Europe following the war. Can he make territorial gains in the Middle East. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to France and Great Britain taking large sections of the Near East and Middle East – if Stalin was capable could he take some of the land such as Iraq whilst trying to make the most of the resource rich Siberia. Would China pose a threat to the development and what about Japan. The Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany signed an Anti-Comintern Pact. If Stalin changes the course of events in the interim war period what affect with that have of Japan’s foreign relations with Soviet which were strained in OTL.
I think unless you greatly reduce the damage done by the civil war Russia is in no position for major aggressive action in the aftermath of WWI. Between war and civil war the country was devastated and the idea of expanding an atheist regime deep into the ME would have been extremely unlikely to succeed. Britain in defending Iraq would have had much shorter and simpler sea supply lines as opposed to a Red Army advancing through its own devastated lands and then the hostile and poorly developed uplands of Iran and northern Iraq.
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Post by Max Sinister on Apr 12, 2023 0:44:21 GMT
a): Agreed. b): That's the question. Did anyone ever develop a scenario that looks at how Soviet economy might develop under Trotsky? I don't know from the top of my head what he thought about the NEP. If he kept it, and didn't kill millions in a Holodomor, who knows, maybe the SU will be better off?
Too long since I read up much on the period but he seems to have been seen as the more radical option when it came to selecting a successor to Lenin. As such I doubt the NEP would survive long under his rule although he might not deliberately seek to do something like the Holodomor. If he gained power he would I fear be more ruthless in suppressing 'reactionary' opposition to the revolution but he probably wouldn't have the same cult of personality and possibly be a bit more approachable to other figures in the party than Stalin was.
But if neither Stalin nor Trotsky was OK with the NEP, I wonder how Lenin ever pushed something antithetical to Communism through.
There's the question whether Soviet economy would grow faster than under Stalin. Could well be, unless oligarchs grabbed everything.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Apr 12, 2023 19:15:46 GMT
Too long since I read up much on the period but he seems to have been seen as the more radical option when it came to selecting a successor to Lenin. As such I doubt the NEP would survive long under his rule although he might not deliberately seek to do something like the Holodomor. If he gained power he would I fear be more ruthless in suppressing 'reactionary' opposition to the revolution but he probably wouldn't have the same cult of personality and possibly be a bit more approachable to other figures in the party than Stalin was.
But if neither Stalin nor Trotsky was OK with the NEP, I wonder how Lenin ever pushed something antithetical to Communism through.
There's the question whether Soviet economy would grow faster than under Stalin. Could well be, unless oligarchs grabbed everything.
I think the answer was sheer desperation. Things were falling apart so rapidly economically and politically they had just had the mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base, which had previously been a staunch supporter of the Bolsheviks.
If the NEP had been maintained and had avoided corruption and the rise of oligarchs - which could be difficult given the totalitarian nature of the regime - then the Soviet economy might well have grown faster, although probably with less development of heavy industry as more resources are likely to go to agriculture, commercial goods and the like. Also how long could the system being maintained without the party screwing things up?
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