Who, if anyone could have made a strong successor to Lenin other than the two most talked about in our time line? What would their particular stewardship of communism and Communist Russia have looked like?
Alternatives to Trotsky and Stalin?
- Thread starter Prime Minister
- Start date
The obvious alternative is Bukahrin and the "Rightists." I have posted about this many times in soc.history.what-if, e.g., https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/_TOi5aFrVkY/-zqzM8IV5c8J
Also, it is conceivable that Dzershinsky, had he lived, would have aligned himself with Bukharin and the "Right": https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/SxgSSqJFFys/DWKwGJ84s9QJ
And then there's Zinoviev. I'll quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine (with very minor changes)
We've had some posts on Trotsky or Bukharin (instead of Stalin) leading
the USSR but I can't recall any on Zinoviev. Yet in the party
"triumvirate" (Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin) that formed during Lenin's
illness, Zinoviev seemed to be the natural leader because of his long
association with Lenin (marred by a couple of severe disagreements I will
get to later), his leadership of the Comintern, and his power base in
Petrograd. Kamenev was the acting chairman of the Politburo in Lenin's
absence and chaired the Moscow soviet. Stalin, as the party's main
organizer and work horse, was less well known. Trotsky's appeasement of
Stalin in the weeks following Lenin's March 1923 stroke has seemed
inexplicable to many, but it may be that he realized that if Stalin were
ousted as General Secretary at that time, Zinoviev would be the most
likely replacement.
To be sure, Zinoviev (like Kamenev) had one major blemish on his record so
far as Bolsheviks were concerned--his opposition to the October 1917
insurrection. Actually, there was much to be said for his position. He
warned that the workers in Petrograd were not in much of a fighting mood,
and in truth they weren't--relatively few of them took part in the
insurrection. (Not that they had to, though--since just about nobody was
willing to fight for the Provisional Government.) More important, both he
and Lenin believed (mistakenly) that while the Bolsheviks might seize
power, they could not *keep* it without a successful socialist revolution
in the West, especially in Germany--and Zinoviev and Kamenev were more
realistic than Lenin in insisting that such a revolution was not imminent.
Furthermore, a great many Bolsheviks who paid lip service to Lenin's call
for insurrection actually shared Zinoviev and Kamenev's belief that a
peaceful transfer of power to the soviets was possible, as I discuss at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/sRxwzgRL6NM/94HZ9IbElCgJ
OTOH, Zinoviev and Kamenev certainly seemed a bit too terrified of the
enemy's resources: "Five thousand military students, *excellently* armed,
*organized*, who want to and know how to fight (because of their class
characteristics), then the staff, then the shock battalions...then the
artillery situated around Petrograd." In the case of Zinoviev, it seemed
plausible to see sheer cowardice behind his sophisticated political
arguments; unlike Kamenev, he had had no particular reputation as a
moderate. Worse still, Zinoviev and Kamenev actually leaked word of the
planned Bolshevik coup and of their own opposition to it to the non-
Bolshevik press. A furious Lenin demanded their expulsion from the party,
but they saved themselves from this fate by backing off from their
opposition.
To compound the damage, Zinoviev and Kamenev again quarreled with Lenin
after the insurrection succeeded: they wanted a coalition government of
all the socialist parties. When they and a number of other pro-coalition
Bolsheviks resigned their functions and pledged an intra-party fight
against Lenin, Lenin was again furious: "The comrades who have resigned
are deserters...Remember, comrades, two of these deserters, Kamenev and
Zinoviev, even before the insurrection in Petrograd acted as deserters and
strikebreakers..." Either they will submit or they will be expelled from
the party, he warned. And of course they submitted, and were readmitted
to grace. [1]
The reason that I dwell on the October-November 1917 disagreements with
Lenin is that they were to haunt Zinoviev all his life. Trotsky in his
*Lessons of October* tried to use them as a weapon against the
"triumvirate"--it only backfired and drew Zinoviev and Kamenev even closer
to Stalin. By the time Zinoviev finally made an alliance with Trotsky in
1926 it was far too late, and seemed ridiculously opportunistic--in 1924
and 1925 he had been the most vitriolic denouncer of "Trotskyism" (Stalin
being careful to take a more moderate tone).
So, let's suppose that in 1923 Stalin is ousted as General Secretary with
Zinvoviev as his replacement; Kamenev is Zinoviev's close ally, and
Trotsky at first supports Zinoviev and Kamenev for tactical reasons but is
later gradually eased out of power. My guess is that Zinoviev might try
ultra-"leftist" policies both at home (against the peasants) and abroad
(in terms of trying to encourage revolution) in order to overcompensate
for his "shame" of 1917. Indeed, Zinoviev had already showed signs of
this in his support of the disastrous "March action" in Germany in 1921.
(In 1923 he was a bit more cautious, but still more confident of a
successful KPD revolution than Stalin.) But with someone with as mixed a
record as Zinoviev, one can never tell: if Trotsky took a hard-line anti-
peasant and anti-NEP line, Zinoviev as in OTL's 1923-5 might portray
himself as a great defender of NEP and align himself with Bukharin--and
perhaps with a demoted but still-influential Stalin. Of course by the
late 1920's this might not prevent Zinoviev from deciding on radical anti-
peasant measures and taking stern action against "Right deviationists"
like Bukharin and Stalin...
One final irony: second-guessers would talk about the terrible error
Trotsky made in pressing his case against Stalin in early 1923. Didn't he
see that this just strengthened Zinoviev, who was far more dangerous to
Trotsky than Stalin could ever be? Indeed, it would be pointed out, the
idea that Stalin could have become dictator was ridiculous--with Lenin's
"Testament" specifically urging that he be removed as General Secretary,
his position would always be precarious!
[1] As Adam Ulam notes (*The Bolsheviks*, p. 384) of the episode of the
resignations: "Many years later in Stalin's Russia most of the surviving dissenters of
1917 found themselves on the bench of the accused and eventually before a
firing squad Among their crimes their behavior in those days was counted
as one of the most heinous: they contradicted and fought against Ilych,
they deserted their posts. But by the rules and spirit of the Bolshevik
Party in 1917 there was nothing illegal or immoral about their behavior.
It was open to any Party member who disagreed with its decisions to lay
down his functions and to state his dissent. 'Your demand...' wrote the
members of the opposition to Lenin, 'that in all our pronouncements we
should support the policy of the Central Committee with which we basically
disagree represents an unheard-of order to act against our convictions.'
And so it was even by the then-prevailing Bolshevik standards."
We've had some posts on Trotsky or Bukharin (instead of Stalin) leading
the USSR but I can't recall any on Zinoviev. Yet in the party
"triumvirate" (Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin) that formed during Lenin's
illness, Zinoviev seemed to be the natural leader because of his long
association with Lenin (marred by a couple of severe disagreements I will
get to later), his leadership of the Comintern, and his power base in
Petrograd. Kamenev was the acting chairman of the Politburo in Lenin's
absence and chaired the Moscow soviet. Stalin, as the party's main
organizer and work horse, was less well known. Trotsky's appeasement of
Stalin in the weeks following Lenin's March 1923 stroke has seemed
inexplicable to many, but it may be that he realized that if Stalin were
ousted as General Secretary at that time, Zinoviev would be the most
likely replacement.
To be sure, Zinoviev (like Kamenev) had one major blemish on his record so
far as Bolsheviks were concerned--his opposition to the October 1917
insurrection. Actually, there was much to be said for his position. He
warned that the workers in Petrograd were not in much of a fighting mood,
and in truth they weren't--relatively few of them took part in the
insurrection. (Not that they had to, though--since just about nobody was
willing to fight for the Provisional Government.) More important, both he
and Lenin believed (mistakenly) that while the Bolsheviks might seize
power, they could not *keep* it without a successful socialist revolution
in the West, especially in Germany--and Zinoviev and Kamenev were more
realistic than Lenin in insisting that such a revolution was not imminent.
Furthermore, a great many Bolsheviks who paid lip service to Lenin's call
for insurrection actually shared Zinoviev and Kamenev's belief that a
peaceful transfer of power to the soviets was possible, as I discuss at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/sRxwzgRL6NM/94HZ9IbElCgJ
OTOH, Zinoviev and Kamenev certainly seemed a bit too terrified of the
enemy's resources: "Five thousand military students, *excellently* armed,
*organized*, who want to and know how to fight (because of their class
characteristics), then the staff, then the shock battalions...then the
artillery situated around Petrograd." In the case of Zinoviev, it seemed
plausible to see sheer cowardice behind his sophisticated political
arguments; unlike Kamenev, he had had no particular reputation as a
moderate. Worse still, Zinoviev and Kamenev actually leaked word of the
planned Bolshevik coup and of their own opposition to it to the non-
Bolshevik press. A furious Lenin demanded their expulsion from the party,
but they saved themselves from this fate by backing off from their
opposition.
To compound the damage, Zinoviev and Kamenev again quarreled with Lenin
after the insurrection succeeded: they wanted a coalition government of
all the socialist parties. When they and a number of other pro-coalition
Bolsheviks resigned their functions and pledged an intra-party fight
against Lenin, Lenin was again furious: "The comrades who have resigned
are deserters...Remember, comrades, two of these deserters, Kamenev and
Zinoviev, even before the insurrection in Petrograd acted as deserters and
strikebreakers..." Either they will submit or they will be expelled from
the party, he warned. And of course they submitted, and were readmitted
to grace. [1]
The reason that I dwell on the October-November 1917 disagreements with
Lenin is that they were to haunt Zinoviev all his life. Trotsky in his
*Lessons of October* tried to use them as a weapon against the
"triumvirate"--it only backfired and drew Zinoviev and Kamenev even closer
to Stalin. By the time Zinoviev finally made an alliance with Trotsky in
1926 it was far too late, and seemed ridiculously opportunistic--in 1924
and 1925 he had been the most vitriolic denouncer of "Trotskyism" (Stalin
being careful to take a more moderate tone).
So, let's suppose that in 1923 Stalin is ousted as General Secretary with
Zinvoviev as his replacement; Kamenev is Zinoviev's close ally, and
Trotsky at first supports Zinoviev and Kamenev for tactical reasons but is
later gradually eased out of power. My guess is that Zinoviev might try
ultra-"leftist" policies both at home (against the peasants) and abroad
(in terms of trying to encourage revolution) in order to overcompensate
for his "shame" of 1917. Indeed, Zinoviev had already showed signs of
this in his support of the disastrous "March action" in Germany in 1921.
(In 1923 he was a bit more cautious, but still more confident of a
successful KPD revolution than Stalin.) But with someone with as mixed a
record as Zinoviev, one can never tell: if Trotsky took a hard-line anti-
peasant and anti-NEP line, Zinoviev as in OTL's 1923-5 might portray
himself as a great defender of NEP and align himself with Bukharin--and
perhaps with a demoted but still-influential Stalin. Of course by the
late 1920's this might not prevent Zinoviev from deciding on radical anti-
peasant measures and taking stern action against "Right deviationists"
like Bukharin and Stalin...
One final irony: second-guessers would talk about the terrible error
Trotsky made in pressing his case against Stalin in early 1923. Didn't he
see that this just strengthened Zinoviev, who was far more dangerous to
Trotsky than Stalin could ever be? Indeed, it would be pointed out, the
idea that Stalin could have become dictator was ridiculous--with Lenin's
"Testament" specifically urging that he be removed as General Secretary,
his position would always be precarious!
[1] As Adam Ulam notes (*The Bolsheviks*, p. 384) of the episode of the
resignations: "Many years later in Stalin's Russia most of the surviving dissenters of
1917 found themselves on the bench of the accused and eventually before a
firing squad Among their crimes their behavior in those days was counted
as one of the most heinous: they contradicted and fought against Ilych,
they deserted their posts. But by the rules and spirit of the Bolshevik
Party in 1917 there was nothing illegal or immoral about their behavior.
It was open to any Party member who disagreed with its decisions to lay
down his functions and to state his dissent. 'Your demand...' wrote the
members of the opposition to Lenin, 'that in all our pronouncements we
should support the policy of the Central Committee with which we basically
disagree represents an unheard-of order to act against our convictions.'
And so it was even by the then-prevailing Bolshevik standards."
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
Yakov Sverdlov was a leading contender to take over from Lenin but he died from an illness in 1919. If he survived he would have been a prominent figure in the Bolsheviks. Apart from the obvious trio of Kamenev, Rykov or Zinoviev, I always thought it would be interesting to go the route of Yagoda or Dzershinsky; essentially the secret police purging all opposition.
In my current TL The British Republics I have Bukharin coming after Lenin (Stalin is killed in the civil war) with Trotsky remaining as general/governor of the Western areas of TTL's soviet Union (mostly Poland+Baltics.) I don't go into detail as its a short form TL but he's a bit of a compromise/anti Trotsky candiate. I was considering Zinoniev but I wanted an agressively expansionist leader to move my plot along 
If Sverdlov Lived
Regarding Sverdlov, I've offered a pretty detailed scenario for what might have happened if he'd lived at:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=130131&highlight=yakov+sverdlov.
My post is also very optimistic, but I based it in part on my readings of Trotsky on China, Spain and Germany, as well as books about the early Chinese Communist Party, including memoirs of some of its leaders (the CCP was the only communist party in the world whose original leadership broke with Stalin and joined the Left Opposition). A more principled Soviet role in the Comintern - American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon wrote warmly about Zinoviev's leadership of the early Third International - could have made an enormous difference in China, Germany and Spain.
I find the impact outside of the Soviet Union of a change in the post-Lenin leadership to be a fairly rarely remarked upon subject, or one where folks just assume that a Nazi Germany, for instance, was a foregone conclusion. As the quote from Adam Ulam that David T cites above notes, the internal culture of the Bolshevik Party had changed a lot between 1917 and the Purge Trials. What if the break with past party practice - internally, domestically and internationally - had not been so great? What if a more healthy party and Soviet state came out of the Civil War and didn't succumb to the new bureaucracy and its creature and leader, Stalin? Sure, things could have gone south, but there are plausible positive scenarios out there, too, I think.
Regarding Sverdlov, I've offered a pretty detailed scenario for what might have happened if he'd lived at:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=130131&highlight=yakov+sverdlov.
My post is also very optimistic, but I based it in part on my readings of Trotsky on China, Spain and Germany, as well as books about the early Chinese Communist Party, including memoirs of some of its leaders (the CCP was the only communist party in the world whose original leadership broke with Stalin and joined the Left Opposition). A more principled Soviet role in the Comintern - American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon wrote warmly about Zinoviev's leadership of the early Third International - could have made an enormous difference in China, Germany and Spain.
I find the impact outside of the Soviet Union of a change in the post-Lenin leadership to be a fairly rarely remarked upon subject, or one where folks just assume that a Nazi Germany, for instance, was a foregone conclusion. As the quote from Adam Ulam that David T cites above notes, the internal culture of the Bolshevik Party had changed a lot between 1917 and the Purge Trials. What if the break with past party practice - internally, domestically and internationally - had not been so great? What if a more healthy party and Soviet state came out of the Civil War and didn't succumb to the new bureaucracy and its creature and leader, Stalin? Sure, things could have gone south, but there are plausible positive scenarios out there, too, I think.
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
I think the Bolsheviks were very aware and would always try to avoid the sort of Bonapartism that would allow the red army to ascend to power. Some of the attacks against Trotsky were based on his close association with the army. Not to say that it could never happen.