Oh god, you could see NEPers advocating for Market Liberalisation versus the Red Technocrats who believe in Planned Economy's etc.
Actually, if the Soviet Union has a semi-planned economy this would actually effect thought outside the Soviet Union. What Fabian Socialism became in the 1940s and 50s was inspired by visits that academics took to the Soviet Union during Stalin’s early years. So if you have a Soviet Union that’s in awe to the NEP, then Fabian Socialism is already different.
It's worth remembering that everyone advocating for the NEP did so on the basis of it as temporary, even arch-NEPer Bukharin. What Bukharin wanted was a gradual phase out rather than Stalin's crash collectivization.
I could see the lesson taken abroad being "maybe don't nationalize if you don't need state control of it". Some sort of mixed socialist economy would be much healthier for parliamentary socialists to attempt.
Though I could see Trotskyism also being targeted too given everything that would have happened. There probably would be purges of ‘Left’ opponents though not in the Stalinist manner.
Trotskyism is going to stand for return to war communism and permanent revolution. Yeah I could see that being popular with Ultras.
It will probably lead to purges of figures judged too adventurist. Otherwise, Bukharin had broad support and legitimacy so he wouldn't need to purge much.
Interesting but yeah, a lot of folks who would have been purged certainly wouldn’t. Also the Soviets would support the Communists in Iran and Non-Communist Iranian Socialists as a way to gain an oil supply. I think Popular Fronts would probably be more of a thing, since the Right Opposition probably wouldn’t be as bothered with uniting with Social Democrats against Fascists.
It's worth remembering that in countries where the Social Democrats didn't use Fascists to suppress their left, popular fronts did happen.
France will still have them, as well as Spain. Spain might fare better with a non Stalinized PCE. They may win a tangle with the right if a popular front force them into action. In France, the PCF is likely to do even better than OTL considering the friction of Stalinization hurt their growth and sent a lot of their initial enthusiastic membership back to the SFIO. Initially, the SFIO did overwhelmingly (3/4 of it) vote to join the 3rd internationale, leaving the party to form the SFIC. But they bled back in as that proved to be less than free.
Germany though? Unless Bukharin magically show up in Berlin to stop the Spartakus uprising and its repression, the well is thoroughly poisoned. No Stalinization means the KPD will be more competent and will see the threat of Hitler, but the SPD will still outlaw their militia for daring to fight back and never use their own as the Nazis intimidate everyone on the streets.
Someone said somewhere else where I posted this that the Right Opposition would be liquidated by starving urban workers, due to famines caused by the scissors crisis.
Would that be possible? I doubt it but it would be very Soviet for the NEPers to be killed by starving factory workers.
Probably forces Bukharin into compromising on the NEP line actually. I'm pretty sure more intervention will be the answer to market failure no matter who's in charge.
It's worth remembering that Bukharin was pro-NEP mostly because he cared about maintaining the alliance with the peasantry, with the NEP aiming at satisfying their pre revolution aspirations. He was far from the market ideologue some market socialists would like to make him out to be. In fact he was initially a pretty big supporter of war communism, like most Bolsheviks. His support for the NEP was one of political concern, not really economic belief in its superiority.
He'll want out of it, just more gradually, which means anything built to replace it won't be as much of a shoddily built nightmare.