You can find more detailed analysis on other threads but in short Trotsky was kind of an unlikable prick on a personal level and the Bolsheviks had a deep-seated paranoia of some asshole pulling in Napoleon and derailing the revolution.
ITTL Trotsky negociated a favorable peace for the USSR with the CP, it would make him more popular. And I'm not saying Trotsky wasn't an asshole, but Lenin's Testament described Stalin as an asshole too (I quote: 'Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.') I know Lenin's opinion is very far from being every bolshevik's, but it is still an indication of how Stalin was seen by some leaders. But you're right to say that they both weren't the only candidates for power, but I doubt there would be someone having as much influence in the party as Stalin or having as many prestige as Trotsky. Maybe Bukharin, but he was hated by many, or Zinoviev, but OTL he chose to support Stalin (maybe ITTL he chooses differently).
Are we sure we would have Red France and Italy? For Italy, the fascists might well take power like OTL, and for France, no one would want a communist state in the middle of Western Europe (not Germany or the UK) and OTL as well as ITTL, the great majority of the left chose to support the government during the war. They were thus very discredited among the workers and those who refused to support the war were imprisoned. So to have a communist revolution, there would have to be a complete fall of the current institutions which allow the few non-discredited communists to free themselves and prepare a revolution, while the Germans are a few kilometers from Paris. This doesn't seem very likely, IMO.
Lenin said this once he and Stalin started hating each other, most communist leaders wanted Stalin with them to counter Trotsky's power which is why he remained in power IOTL despite Lenin's clear opposition to him (the Testament was released after Lenin's death).
I think the other members of the Troika are the most likely candidates outside Stalin and Trotsky since these 4 seem the only ones to have a significant support base.
The PCF was created in 1920 so there is no way it gains a substantial enough following to come to power.
That's true. I didn't say that it was very likely that Trotsky would become leader of the USSR, I just argued that it wasn't impossible.
So Kamenev and Zinoviev? I agree, even if Kamenev seems too 'weak' to rival Stalin's intelligence. However, Zinoviev could be a good candidate if he succeeds in outflanking Stalin and marginalizing Trotsky, Kamenev and Bukharin (for the latter two this shouldn't be very difficult).
Yeah you're right. The French communists clearly lacked organization and supports to make a succesful revolution, let alone create a new regime, like in the USSR, especially when the Germans are very close and the Brits would refuse to help them (for obvious reasons).
I was saying that Stalin wasn't really hated for his personality unlike Trotsky who had a talent to alienate the rest of the Politburo. Also even IOTL it isn't impossible to achieve, you just have to remove Trotsky's illness and make Troika collapse from the inside.
Kamenev would be very interesting since he seems less radical than Stalin, Lenin or Trotsky and Zinoviev also seems slightly less totalitarian.
It's enough to see how things went in 1947 to see that it wasn't ready to take over the government without outside support.
Not that it really matters, but I believe you're referring to my thread here just in case people wanted to check out the full thing
That's the one, thank you for finding those sources. It was very interesting to a WWI fan* such as myself.
“A Day in July” made great use of Yakov Sverdlov and neatly avoided all the “muh Trotsky” cliches
From what I've read the Kerensky Offensive is completely independent from the US entry in the war, Russia had to attack Germany and relieve pressure from the other fronts since at this point they were entirely dependent on Entente help to survive their war effort and they also hoped to legitimize the Provisional Government, but don't quote me on the second point.
The offensive against Germany in the North becomes the main one and likely is a failure but I doubt the Germans win at Verdun or AH is particularly better since IIRC the offensive meant that a lot of bad commanders (who arrived from the nobility) were replaced by more competent German ones. Morale in AH is better and in Russia is worse.
France going Red is unlikely IMO, all political parties supported the war including the socialists which means they cannot pull a Bolshevik by criticizing the government for continuing the war effort, and support for this one is much higher in France than in Russia because of a combination of better conditions and lack of one figure hated by the all of the population.
I think a "red wave" is possible, but you would need a series of PoDs specifically trying to get such a scenario. It's unlikely to come out of the butterflies of another timeline.
You would have to change a lot of things, the conditions that allowed for the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia are not going to repeat themselves anywhere else.
Yeah, which is why something like that would have to be its own timeline.
Yes please. Put as many Italians as there are Germans in Austria-Hungary, this sure won't cause any issue.
You think the Austrians had a problem with that? They, up until that point, did exactly that by putting more and more Southern Slavs into the Empire. The Austrians certainly won't only demand minor border from Italy adjustments if they've won the war.
It was just Bosnia, the rest of those southern slavs had been under Habsburg rule for centuries (and under Magyar rule for longer).
They had ambitions on the Balkans, annexing Bosnia wasn't the end goal in the Habsburgs' minds. And Bosnia shows that the fact that they will be annoying ethnical minorities isn't a problem to the Habsburgs, after suffering trough WW1 and hundreds of thousands of deaths because of the Italians they aren't going to let them of the hook with only minor border changes.
