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On the most recent Uncommon Knowledge segment with Peter Robinson on the National Review Online, Hoover Fellows Christopher Hitchens and Robert Service discussed what the Soviet Union might have been like had Trotsky rather than Stalin taken power. Their assessment is straightforward in some areas: no enforced famines, drastically fewer purges, and less paranoia, but it’s less obvious in others. In spite (or because) of Stalin’s paranoia, they assert that he was much less of a risk taker. Trotsky likely would have intervened in Germany to bring forth the a Communist Revolution, starting a very different World War II, one that might have rewritten history. Without a Soviet/Japanese alliance, it’s not certain that the United States would have gotten involved in Europe until far too late.
