This question must have been asked at this site at least once but if so - looking for the threads is pointless because comments are hidden.
I actually don't think it would have been much different. We probably would have gotten a few new books of theory. NEP might have lasted slightly longer, but the demands for collective land would have forced Lenin's hand to institute more rigid state planning like what happened in our timeline. The early USSR had such immediate hostility from all sides their policies were shaped by the besiegement. Don't know what would happen with Trotsky or Yezhov.
WW2 might have started a little earlier actually, since uh, Lenin wasn't exactly as polite or cautious in terms of diplomacy as Stalin was. He would have frightened the fascists and allies more than Stalin did. Lenin didn't take shit and he'd call out people to their face. The man was fierce and didn't hold back. He was incredibly brave, confident, and had the sharpest political mind of his time. Call me out for hero worship or whatever, but there's a reason Lenin has such a glittering reputation. The man was a fighter and I can easily see him pushing a more assertive international policy than Stalin did, especially once Germany goes fascist.
I honestly wonder how he would have handled the Spanish Revolution as well
Probably the same. Germany descending into fascism was all but set in stone after the Spartacus revolt failed in 1919 and the civil war in Spain was in part proxy war between the Soviets and Germany. Once it became clear the Spanish Republicans weren't going to win, the USSR pulled back to reinforce the western border. I think Lenin would have made the same decision.
I think it's impossible to say. It would be undialectical to say "he would've made the same decisions as Stalin" as so much of what Stalin did was in the context of the civil war within the party that happened in response to Lenin's death.
I think if the contradictions within the revolution and party came to a head during his lifetime and Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, etc tried to seize control, Lenin dealing with them would make the "Great Purge" in our timeline look like a fucking tea party.
I remember seeing a post somewhere saying if Luxemburg had survived and become chancellor of a socialist Germany, she'd be regarded today by some goofy western leftists as a brutal dictator who betrayed the revolution. Probably they'd say the same if Lenin survived until the age of 80.
He would be alive until 1950, that's for sure :galaxy-brain:
Hard to say, of course. I think the USSR still would've faced a crisis in which their best ideologues died in WW2. At the same time, there would be less rhetorical ammunition for a Kruschev-type revisionism and maybe Lenin could've set up a more robust system for leadership development by the time he passed. Leadership being made up of popular / powerful figures during the revolution was not a good recipe for continued revolutionary governance: they needed a rotation driven by good Marxist analysis and engagement by the people, instead they got top-level conspiratorial nonsense and a consistent movement towards the restoration of liberalism.
Without a doubt, Lenin would've been a more major target of anticommunist propaganda, rather than Stalin.
Lenin dying early did a lot of legwork in assassinating Stalin's character because the Capitalists could always say "yeah equality sounds good, idealism is fine, communism works good on paper blah blah blah but you see once the revolution gets taken over by Evil Man it was corrupted and that's also inevitable"
Lenin probably could have prevented the Trotsky Stalin split if he had lived
I wish I had something interesting to say to get the ball rolling. This is seems to be one of those threads that goes nowhere unless somebody says something at least fairly bold.
Ninja edit
What if Lenin lived longer for approximately 20-30 more years? : HistoryWhatIf
As a commie myself, I've thought a lot about this. Based on what I know on Lenin's policies and stances, I'll try to give a sufficient answer:
Lenin and Stalin's policies differed when it came to the treatment of the Jews. Lenin, coming from a Jewish background himself, was highly critical of anti-Jewish pogroms , whereas Stalin persecuted the Jews during the last years of his rule.
As a result of this difference, it's plausible Lenin would have been much more reluctant to make a pact with the Nazis, meaning that WW2 would have started later, and the invasion of Poland wouldn't be grounds for starting the war.
That's assuming the Nazis would have come to power in the first place, though, and that is questionable. Lenin was in favor of international revolution, whereas Stalin favored building socialism in one country. If Lenin had stayed in power longer, the USSR would likely fund and encourage revolutions much more so than it did in our timeline, so a socialist revolution might have succeeded in Germany instead of a fascist one.
Yeah that's such a goofy what-if full of myths I don't even know where to start with it. If anything I believe WW2 would have started earlier, maybe even with the UK joining the Axis. It's true Stalin was more cautious than Lenin, but that's one of the reasons why WW2 was delayed like it was. Stalin kept getting ambassadors like Kollontai to mediate hostilities with western Europe. Lenin in the 30s would have put the fear of god into western Europe. I really believe they were more afraid of him than of Stalin or Molotov or Kalinin.
I also do not understand at all why this writer would say WW2 would have started later if the Molotov–Ribbentrop wasn't signed. That pact delayed the war by at least a year. This writer seems to believe the pact kicked off the war. Yeah wars start with ceasefire agreements. Ok, christ.
also yeah great man theory, I know, but it's interesting to think about
??? a trotskyist site said Kollontai was relegated to useless diplomatic posts as punishment for opposing the party on women's rights. at the time i was like ".....??? was she actually?" and just kept reading but fucking hell i thought the main thrust of things shared on communist info sites, even trotskyist ones, were generally true
Kollontai was instrumental in delaying the war through mediation with Germany through her job as Swedish ambassador. It was a really important job when she had it. She had enemies in the party for sure, but the idea she was given a job as an ambassador as a punishment is just weird. If they truly didn't want nor need her, they could have expulsed her from the party entirely.
What a lib ass hypothesis lol
Stalin was fully in support of executing anti-semites
The German revolution of 1919 failed while Lenin was alive (he died in 1924)! Not after his disability or death. The fascists already won in Germany before Stalin even took power.
Lenin would have made a similar non-aggression pact with a technologically and militarily superior neighbor while he electrified and industrialized. Lenin would have also tried to get the west to ally against Hitler, and would have also likely been unsuccessful.
As a result of this difference, it’s plausible Lenin would have been much more reluctant to make a pact with the Nazis, meaning that WW2 would have started later, and the invasion of Poland wouldn’t be grounds for starting the war.
The Molotov-Ribbentropp pact was mostly a measure to buy time while Stalin moved the USSR's war-relevant industries eastward to protect them from a German invasion he fully anticipated (cf. Hitler being dumbfounded and terrified that his troops found railroad tracks in Russia that were not on any of their maps). I don't know how anti-semitic Stalin really was in his later years, there's some plausible doubt on the "doctor's plot", but even if we buy that, these weren't Stalins later years, these were the 1930s when it was absolutely clear what the nazi war machine was aimed at, which was the Soviet Union. Stalin had asked the UK and France about pre-emptively attacking Germany for a whole year, but the UK had declined. I doubt Lenin would have fared much better in persuading them, he was during his lifetime equally feared and reviled among the western powers. Would he have made the same desperate decision as Stalin? IDK, but he would have faced the same strategic challenges as Stalin and it's likely he would have come to similar conclusions.
That’s assuming the Nazis would have come to power in the first place, though, and that is questionable. Lenin was in favor of international revolution, whereas Stalin favored building socialism in one country.
There were plenty of attempts at a socialist revolution in Germany and some of them had direct backing from the USSR. Germany just had too many class collaborationists, too many reactionaries with too much backing from a revanchist ruling class that was not as absurdly incompetent as the Romanoffs, and the more radical workers weren't as tightly organized as the bolsheviks and actually jumped the gun on several attempted insurgencies. All of them happened while Lenin was still alive. As with the war preparations, Lenin would have faced the same conditions as Stalin and i don't see much reason to make different decisions, viewing Germany's socdems as the left wing of fascism like Stalin did wasn't a far-fetched conclusion after all the chauvinist, anti-communist, imperialist and class collaborationist crimes they had committed in the 1910s and 1920s. Lenin doesn't strike me as the man who'd keep repeating something that had failed over and over again.
Maybe the purges would've gone differently under him, i think Stalin did go overboard there, but purges in and of themselves were a neccessity in the early USSR, Lenin regularly had purges conducted to fight careerism, corruption and incompetence among the party ranks. Stalin was fed a lot of false intel about supposed coup attempts by German spies, and he unfortunately was very prone to fall for such red herrings, maybe Lenin would have been more careful and measured in that situation. Which would have led to the USSR and the Red Army in particular having more experienced personell to work with, which may actually have made a difference during WW2, bringing swifter victory at less Soviet casualties. That's possible. A lot of such small things are possible. But i don't think they would've tipped over to any significant alteration of history as we know it.
and the invasion of Poland wouldn’t be grounds for starting the war.
This literally saved millions of Jewish lives ffs. The soviets moving into Poland secured the lives of 3 million jews who would otherwise have fallen under nazi hands.
The Great Purge would have been even more based.
I think there's a decent chance the Allies would've just allied (lol) with Nazi Germany, and Fascist Japan, seizing this opportunity, would completely focus on Hokushin-ron, invading Mongolia and the Soviet Union through Manchuria. The Allies would mostly sell weapons to Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan before directly intervening once the Wehrmacht and the IJA suffer enough defeats. Who knows, maybe the US would've nuked a Soviet city to force a favorable ceasefire between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Hokushin-ron
Thanks. I didn't know that term. And I love links.
Who knows, maybe the US would’ve nuked a Soviet city to force a favorable ceasefire between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
I liked The Man in the High Castle. But I wish Philip K. Dick had used a creepy scenario like that. It could have made a far better story.
