SORAverse Russian History

- 1917: The October Revolution is a success. The three paramount leaders are Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (later to take on the name 'Stalin'). Lenin is the head of the Bolshevik Party and Trotsky is a former Menshevik who comes over to the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. While Lenin is undisputed political leader, Trotsky is a close partner, leading the Petrograd Soviet and its Military-Revolutionary Committee. It is the MRC which storms the Winter Palace and ejects the liberal Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky.

- 1918-1922: Revolutionary and Reactionary armies fight across Russia in the Russian Civil War. Trotsky leads the Red Army (which he is credited with creating) as War Commissar, joined by genetically-engineered human-animal hybrid soldiers freed from Tsarist science facilities. His armoured mech squadrons flies from front to front, battling the White armies under Supreme Commander Alexander Kolchak and its supernatural allies summoned by the mystic Grigori Rasputin. Stalin and Trotsky clash in the Ukraine and Stalin is sent packing. The Reds win the Civil War and Trotsky is hailed as a hero.

- 1922-23: Lenin’s health declines, partially as a result of an assassination attempt in 1918 that left Kø-infused crystal fragments in his system. Two strokes cripple Lenin in 1923 but he still writes as brilliantly as ever. One of his last efforts is his testament which criticizes Stalin and asks the Communist Party Central Committee to remove him from his office as General Secretary. Lenin wants the testament read at the XII Party Congress in 1923, but he is paralyzed and his wife, Krupskaya, wants to keep the testament secret in hopes he will recover.

- Trotsky is seen by many as the likely successor to Lenin, but he is disliked as arrogant. His sharp wit and criticism took aim at Lev Kamenev and Gregori Zinoviev, whom Lenin called the “Strikebreakers of the Revolution” for their initial open opposition to the October Revolution but later switched sides and played important roles in the new Soviet state. Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed the rise of Trotsky and considered an alliance with Stalin, the centrist on the Central Committee and no match for the more skilled and educated duo.

- But at the XII Party Congress, Krupskaya decides to publish Lenin’s testament. As a revolutionary, she decides the party needs to hear the words of Lenin and take appropriate action. Stalin is humiliated, but the Congress does not immediately remove him from his position. He is, however, on the defensive.

- Trotsky is proud and considers it beneath him to fight for top position after Lenin, but reconsiders after the Party Congress. The party is in turmoil as members rally for or against Stalin. Trotsky decides to stake his claim and asks Zinoviev to support him. Trotsky appeals to their ideological closeness (the three are the “left wing” of the Central Committee) and Trotsky gives his personal pledge of support. Zinoviev and Kamenev, afraid to lose their chance to back a winning candidate, back Trotsky.

- 1924: Lenin dies in January and the Central Committee meets to nominate a successor for the Communist Party (and effectively for the government, which is dominated by the party). Trotsky is made Chairman and also becomes Premier of the Soviet government. Stalin loses his position on the Central Committee but remains a party member.

- 1924-29: Trotsky and the government embark on an industrialization program and collectivization of agriculture. Conflict breaks out with the peasants and the government is forced to compromise and allow some private enterprise (a return to the New Economic Program). Industry continues to be the economic priority.

- Stalin makes several attempts to build his own faction, but no one is willing to be tainted by “Lenin’s Testament.” Internationally, the Soviet Government supports the Comintern – the international party organization. The rise of Fascism in Italy is seen as a challenge to the revolutionary socialist movement. The Soviet government flirts with formation of popular fronts with liberal and socialist parties to oppose Fascist parties in Italy, Germany, France, Britain and Spain, but the Communists are initially unwilling to compromise with “bourgeois democrats.”

- 1929-32: The Great Depression hits the world but Soviet Russia, with its centrally managed economy (and dependent on its own economy because of isolation from the West) is able to weather the Depression better than most countries. Communist parties surge in strength, as do the Fascists, as citizens look for a radical solution to the economic crisis. In Germany, the Nazis come to power, and the Soviet Union and the Communist Party face a deadly new ideological and national enemy.

After the events of Weird Games and WWII:
 - In post-war Russia, victory in the war and a rising standard of living led to demands for change within the Communist state. Factional leaders and their supporters began demanding openly competitive elections for all offices in the Soviet state. Democratic leaders pointed to the support for debate under Lenin and the rough and tumble politics of the Trotskyist party. At the XXXIII Party Congress, democrats finally forced through their own slate for the Central Committee. Trotsky remained on the CC but was now surrounded by “New Democrats.” Bowing to the inevitable, Comrade Trotsky announced the legalization of political parties and new elections. The resurgent Social Revolutionary Party, the old party of the peasants, is the winner of the first democratic elections in the Soviet Union.

- However, fears over the spread of Chinese Maoism (which was closer to the Stalinism condemned by Lenin) and American capitalism made the USSR undertake a foreign policy with some slight similarities to its counterpart in our timeline. Here, the Sino-Soviet split is more severe, with China and Russia on the brink of war.