Differences and Similarities from OTL (Alexander the Liberator)

This is a reference page dedicated to the Differences and Similarities from Original Timeline (Our Timeline) in the timeline, Alexander the Liberator.

Russia
Perhaps the most notable change within this timeline is the fact that the Romanov dynasty has survived, and the Russian Empire has received the political reforms that it so desperately needed during the reign of Nicholas II. Without the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, the Romanov establishment is not afraid of reform. Not only has the dynasty survived, the monarchy was never abolished and the Russian Empire still lives in the form of a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system.

Prince Andrew Andreevich Romanov, who is the disputed head of the House of Romanov, is the Emperor (or Tsar) of Russia in this timeline (as Andrew II). Vladimir Putin, who is the President of the Russian Federation in our timeline, is the Prime Minister of Russia within this timeline. The version of Russia that exists in this timeline retains the post-1945 borders of the Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail Gorbachev never joined the Communist Party and instead served as Prime Ministers of the Russian Empire. Josef Stalin would never gain political power as he did in our timeline but instead become a Marxist rebel in Georgia who would attempt to establish a Marxist state within Russia, and Stalin would end up being hanged for his violent rebellion. Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky would flee the Russian Empire and Lenin dies in exile as he never lives to see a creation of a socialist state. Alexander Kerensky, who led the February Revolution in our timeline, would serve as the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire up until 1942.

In this timeline, it is obvious that the Soviet Union would never exist. Many aspects of Russian culture that were never censored or banned in order for the Soviet regime to promote socialism. The black-yellow-white imperial flag would remain the national flag of Russia and Saint Petersburg would remain the capital city. "God, Save the Tsar" would remain as the royal anthem while "Farewell of Slavianka" would be adopted as the national anthem.

America
During the Great Depression, the Free World suffered from economic instability. One man who settled in the United States of America in 1920, decided to take advantage of the situation for his own purposes to create a "pure socialist state", and his name is Leon Trotsky. The charismatic Trotsky would go on rallies across the greater United States, blaming the disasters of the Great Depression on the administration of President Herbert Hoover. Trotsky gains political power slowly, and he is elected as Senator from Washington State in 1925. Despite the strong opposition from around the nation, Trotsky's popularity grows. In 1933, Leon Trotsky announces his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. Trotsky promises to repair the economy, repair the damages done by Hoover, flush out corruption, and bring peace and harmony to the American people.

Leon Trotsky was born from a Jewish family in the Ukraine, and he openly called for the United States to adopt Socialism (secretly he planned on adopting Marxism). Trotsky's candidacy cause controversy in the United States, many protested against Trotsky, not only for his roots, but also for his socialist/Marxist beliefs. At the time, many doubted that Trotsky would win the election, let alone become the Democratic Party's choice for candidate. However to the surprise of many, Leon Trotsky became the Democratic candidate. President Hoover ordered J. Edgar Hoover (no relation), Director of the Bureau of Investigation, to investigate Trotsky and watch his every move. Through charisma, corruption, and bribery, Leon Trotsky would surprisingly become President of the United States of America.

Trotsky's political reforms included the abolition of the United States Congress and the Bureau of Investigation, replacing them with the Chamber of the People (the new legislative branch) and the State Council of Investigation (the state police). Through State Police and censorship, Trotsky quickly gains power and declares the United States to be a Marxist-Leninist state.

In our timeline, Trotsky initially supported the Menshevik Internationalists faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, he later joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, immediately becoming a leader within the Communist Party. He would go on to become one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution.

During the early days of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army, with the title of People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He became a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–22).

After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Josef Stalin in the 1920s and against the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was removed as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (January 1925), removed from the Politburo (October 1926), removed from the Central Committee (October 1927), expelled from the Communist Party (November 1927), exiled to Alma–Ata (January 1928), and exiled from the Soviet Union (February 1929). As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued from exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born NKVD agent, dying the next day in a hospital. Mercader, who attacked Trotsky with an ice axe, acted upon instruction from Stalin and was nearly beaten to death by Trotsky's bodyguards, with Mercader spending 20 years in a Mexican prison for murdering Trotsky. Stalin presented Mercader with an Order of Lenin in absentia.

Trotsky's ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that opposes the theories of Stalinism. He was written out of the history books under Stalin, and was one of the few Soviet political figures who was not rehabilitated by the government under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s.