Anyway, Trotsky unquestionably was a tyrant, as was Lenin, for whom "most advanced members of the working class" and "most class-conscious members of the working class" actually meant "members of the working class who agree with Lenin and Trotsky." Moreover, most people in the Russian Empire were not in the working class in the first place. The anti-religion campaign of blowing up churches, mosques, and buddhist temples was not exactly a populist move, and probably a major contributor to the Chechen rebellion against the Bolsheviks in the mid-1920s.
One can argue that given the circumstances this tyranny was justifiable, but grass-roots democracy it was not.