The Soviet Union without Joseph Stalin

[TheRomanSlayer]

What's his personality like in this TL?

I haven't gotten around to write it yet, but the title of that planned project would be Orphan Joe.

 

[Firebat]

Would the Nazis still come to power in Germany or would their path to power be blocked due to the Soviet Union telling the German Communists to support a non-Nazi governing coalition, either from within the coalition or from outside of the coalition

Nazis came to power in a quiet coup by conspiring together with President Hindenburg's inner circle (the man himself was basically senile at that point) - what German historiography calls Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). There was a convenient loophole in German constitution which was used to justify the process. With state apparatus, police and army under Nazi control, there was nothing German communists (or social democrats, or centrists, or anyone else for that matter) could do about it.
The idea that KPD had somehow destroyed the republic and handed Hitler the reigns of power is a fabrication.

And what other meaningful changes would there be in this TL relative to our TL?

A lot fewer than one might expect. Before 1939 Soviet Union wasn't particularly important player on international stage.

 

[VictortheMonarch]

Not as knowledgeable on the nitty-gritty as other posters, but my understanding is that Trotsky, being an internationalist ideologue who wanted the USSR to set fires and embark on world revolution almost immediately (as @Buba noted), was in some ways worse than Stalin?

Sure, I can see him being marginally less repressive on the home front, though at the same time, you don't become leader of the Red Army—much less a leading contender for Lenin's successor—by being a nice or democratically inclined philosopher-king who prefers to read Shakespeare and sip tea in their study. And frankly, Trotsky was neither, which is sure to carry over to his governing philosophy here, just as it did with Stalin IOTL.

Though many people like to make Trotsky out to have been the hero of the Soviet Union State (Or S.U.S, for short) he was completely retarded, you don't fight a civil war then vie for war to expand communism. A Trotskite S.U.S would have fallen, either by revolt or a coalition in the 1920's to early thirties.

 

[WolfBear]

Nazis came to power in a quiet coup by conspiring together with President Hindenburg's inner circle (the man himself was basically senile at that point) - what German historiography calls Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). There was a convenient loophole in German constitution which was used to justify the process. With state apparatus, police and army under Nazi control, there was nothing German communists (or social democrats, or centrists, or anyone else for that matter) could do about it.
The idea that KPD had somehow destroyed the republic and handed Hitler the reigns of power is a fabrication.

To be honest, I'm surprised that Hindenburg didn't retire in 1932 due to his age and instead endorse Hugo Eckener. One would think that a senile old man would actually want to retire as soon as possible, after all.