A recent biography about Trotsky (by Joshua Rubenstein, Yale Press 2011) reminded readers about how Stalin gave Lev the old boot (and then the icepick).
But was this ordained that Stalin would fight Trotsky? if Trotskty was willing to treat Stalin like Lenin’s successor, would Trotsky have been able to survive (even sucking up to Uncle Joe)? Or would Stalin have purged his old chum Lev no matter what?
In other words, once Stalin had power, was it absolutely done for Trotsky?
I can’t see any scenario where Stalin would have left Trotsky alive.
Stalin had no friends. Even guys like Beria and Molotov were in constant fear for their lives. Anyone with charisma like Trotsky would have been perceived as a threat and hunted down like Trotsky was.
Was Stalin ever buddy-buddy with anyone? Sooner or later, he’d see them as a threat and/or rival and even if it was only a temporary emotional outburst on Stalin’s part that he’d later regret, that’d be little consolation to the people killed on his order.
Wasn’t going to happen. With Stalin, you didn’t have to be a threat - you just had to be somebody who could become a threat. So it wouldn’t have mattered how much Trotsky supported Stalin. The fact that Trotsky had the potential to change his mind and lead a faction against Stalin would have made his continued existence unacceptable to Stalin.
I’d say so. Stalin purged practically everybody who had been his comrade in the Revolution, all the “Old Bolsheviks.” He wanted the Party reshaped in his image.
A tyrant can’t tolerate anyone in his house with an independent power base. That’s why the crock about Al-Queda in Iraq was a tip-off that our pending invasion was not legit.
No. Trotsky was not an inhuman despot-he did have some (albeit limited) respect for human life.
In reading Kruschev’s memoirs, it is interesting to sense the terror that Stalin inspired-which is why Kruschev got involved in projects that took him as far away from the Kremlin as possible (Ukraine, Moscow Subway).
It was safer for you, and better for your long-term survival.
In support of this, read “Let History Judge” by Roy Medvedev. He did his best to collect all the murders and purges; it’s striking how many were Stalin’s former comrades.
When Lenin died Trotsky was perceived as being the most likely successor.
He had proven himself during the revolutionary and civil war era to be the
greatest military commander and orator of the Communist party leadrship,
not excepting Lenin himself. I do not think Stalin would have allowed a figure
of Trotsky’s eminenece and ability to survive.
As it was, Stalin was not the only one who wanted to reduce Trotsky’s powers:
Stalin was joined by most of the rest of the USSR’s half dozen so most powerful
figures, including Kamenev (Moscow Party chief and Trosky’s brother in law),
Zinoviev (Leningrad Party chief) and Bukharin (leading party theorist) in a coalition
against Trosky which could not be defeated by peaceful means, and Trotsky
(then Red Army chief) seems not to have considered using force on his own behalf.
He was also at an initial disadvantage by being serioulsy ill in the first days of
the transition.