At first I want to apologise for my bad English, but my mother tongue is German and I am really not the best in learning other languages.
I think it was quite unlikely in 1936 of Trotsky to take power in the USSR, but indeed Trotsky and the Left Opposition or the United Opposition (including not only the Trotsky gues but also the former supporters of the triumvirat of Stalin, Kamene andSinowjew [the latter sided with Trotsky for a short period]) posed a real threat to Stalin. Most people in the Gulag-System of Stalin were communists who sung the "International", when getting shot. We know that since the opening of the archives of the former Soviet Union in 1989. Stalin hit against many Red Army leaders because it was Trotsky who founded the Red Army in civil war. A brutal civil war, which should not be over-ideologised in any way, especially concerning a game. So I won't deal with anti-communist (although I indeed think it's stupid) propaganda, because I think I commie vs. anti-commie discussion want provide anything useful for the game. But I want to mention that you got shot by "democratic nations" to as a disobdient soldier and a well-known British war hero called Bomber Harris really was fond of his work (like personally enjoying it), when he killed many Kurdish civilians, which expressed their disobidience to the British colonial-government in Iraq. Or why do you count the famine-victims in Ukraine on the "Socialism"-counter, when on the other hand the famine-victims since the 50ies have not been counted on the "Capitalist"-counter. So such discussions lead to no-where, especially, because there is just one thing we all could agree on: We want to have fun, when we play HOI IV.
How would Trotsky work out in an USSR game or how should he? My knowledge comes from Russian-historics, the original writings of the time and exiled-Russian historics (and my ability to understand basic Russian). In my opinion he would embrace significant more Democracy (why? because he got killed because of his propaganda for communist democracy for instance and his main work was "Revolution betrayed" which prophesies that the Soviet Union is going to become a capitalist dictatorship (Putin) if it does not embrace democracy). It does not really matters if it was his genuine belief or just a tactical manouvre: He would not be able to overthrow Stalin without such demands and could not hold onto any power without giving the Soviet population at least some significant Democracy. Because he would not be able to perform a coupe d'etat, you would need at least some revolutionary processes to put Trotsky in power and then he would have some support from a part of the military leadership, because they would think Trotsky is a safer choice then the purges of Stalin. So far my humble opinion on internal relations.
Now to Trotskys foreing policy. It's true that Trotsky is the internationalist, but indeed he was against on spreading the revolution with the power of bayonet. He opposed Lenin for instance on the attempt to do this in the Soviet-Polish-War in the 20ies. But, he would indeed support the Spanish Revolution maybe as far to the cost of an early-all-out-war, he would support the Reds in China and the Yugoslavs in their guerilla war much more than Stalin. He would not perform the Molotov-Ribbentrop-pact, but I think he would not work as fine together with the Allies as Stalin after the German attack on the Soviet Union.
