Leon Trotsky against Stalin
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On 21 August 1940, Leon Trotsky was killed by a Spanish communist in Mexico. The murder was probably commissioned by the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky was the Soviet Union’s deputy leader after Lenin until Lenin’s death. After Lenin’s death, a power struggle arose in the communist party. Stalin won that power struggle. Leon Trotsky and his supporters lost their positions, including in the Politburo. In 1929 he was expelled from the Soviet Union, and at the same time several thousand members of the Communist Party were sent to the Gulag prison camp, allegedly for being supporters of Trotsky.
What differentiated Stalin and Lev Trotsky?
Leon Trotsky was a central figure during and after the revolution. His ideas on how the Soviet Union should be governed are characterised as Trotskyism. Trotsky’s thinking was that revolution is a continuous process. Open debate within the Communist Party was necessary. Criticism and debate would develop communism. He strongly disagreed with Stalin’s authoritarian regime and persecution of his opponents. Leon Trotsky believed it was destructive to the revolution and incompatible with communist thinking.
While the Trotskyists wanted an open and critical debate. Stalin stood for the exact opposite. He ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist. The country is ruled by an elite, without debate. Those who tried to make critical remarks were killed or sent to the Gulag camps. This is a concentration camp that I have written about in a previous blog .
Today, most communist parties and countries governed after communism distance themselves from Stalinism. After Stalin’s death, the Soviet Union released most political prisoners from its camps. It also opens up a moderate debate within the Communist Party.
Expelled from Norway
Leon Trotsky travelled to several countries after his expulsion from the Soviet Union. First he was in Turkey, then France, and then came to Norway in 1935. He is expelled from Norway in 1936. Allegedly, the reason was that he had the prerequisites to run political activities. The reality was that Norway expelled Trotsky following pressure from the Soviet Union.
4 years later he was liquidated in Mexico. People who Joseph Stalin saw as opponents tended to disappear, be killed or be placed in the infamous Gulag camps.
What would the Soviet Union be like under Trotsky?
This is a question many have asked. There are many speculations. The idea that a revolution was a process that would always be ongoing and require debate opens the door to a different Soviet than the Stalinist regime that came to power. A free debate within the Communist Party, where different opinions are expressed, is a completely different system than what Stalin is known for. The Soviet Union developed into a dictatorship where dissenting opinions were not allowed and those who tried to speak out were persecuted.
How Russia would have developed under Trotsky is also a question of what Europe would look like today. What would have happened during World War 2? What would Europe be like after World War 2? Would the Cold War not have happened? Would the Soviet Union develop a form of democracy?
The only thing I am absolutely certain of is that the Soviet Union and now Russia would be different today if Leon Trotsky had been the leader of the Soviet Union and not Joseph Stalin.
Sources:
Trotsky’s Struggle against Stalin | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)
Leon Trotsky – Soviet Revolution, Marxist Theory, Exile | Britannica