5 ways the USSR could have won

one has to define win. as in collapse of the west? The USA splits up?! that's a tough sell.

outside of the moon, the soviets won the space race for all intensive purposes they hold most firsts.
the soviets excelled in sports and cultural things such as music and ballet along with education and science.

The soviet collapse could very much have been prevented, that said the repression needed to keep it going would be quite ugly and unproductive from a population stand point.

The Soviet Union Reforms, opens up and becomes more liberal ( not full on USA crazy, but more of a Social-democratic-semi free market federation ? Baltics go their way. plausible. would require a lot of political skill and moxie to keep things together but its not impossible.

Khrushchev was the key time for this to happen. to disavow stalins policies, to work to build a more fair and equal soviet society. ( we saw what that got Khrushchev.

Brezhnev kicking the bucket mid 70's might help, Andropov while still old school understood that things needed to change, does he act on it? It took Gorbachev and the younger generation to finally push to undo Stalins system, once that can of worms was open ( much to late ) everything blew apart. Combine that with Distrust of the Soviet Government by its own people, the growing disparity between east and west, long lines, fluctuating policies from Moscow on glasnost and perestroika, Chernobyl; ( they waited 3 days to tell people and evacuate!, over may 1st celebrations! )

The Soviet Union was not going to "WIN" the cold war. Adapt, and thaw, yes. outright win? no, and hell to the astonishment of the United States and everyone else, NO ONE expected the Soviet Union to collapse as it did.

the old saying applies, if the foundations are rotten and no one is fixing it, well.. you get what you invest in.
 

Deleted member 94680

Initial thoughts:

1- Why would a state run by 'battle-hardened revolutionaries' be better than 'cautious bureaucrats', and would the former have actually saved the Soviet Union?

Because the Soviet Union 1922-38 was the very model of a well run, highly motivated, forward thinking state, obviously!
 
3) Read Hackett's "WWIII". It's basically his thesis. West Germany sues for peace before American military power comes to the forefront and before the the nukes fly.
I've got it somewhere. Good book spoiled by a bizarre ending.

While I agree that the West was in a sorry state in the 1970s, France would not fold. Their policy was to glass Central Europe and not allow anyone to approach the Rhine if it came to that. Their policy was probably callous but very much self interested and everyone knew it.
Technically, no. Their policy was to wait until Soviet tanks reached the Rhine then unleash their nuclear arsenal, mostly on Germany although Moscow would also have been a target. A very French solution to the problem...

The idea that Italy and France could have gone Communist, thus raising the chances of Western Europe going Communist in its entirety over time, isn't unreasonable but the PODs would have to be significant. Britain, I very much doubt it.
One other thing to note - unless France and Germany went Communist due to Soviet tanks on their front lawn, the Communist parties there are very unlikely to follow the Moscow line. Plenty of funding and some influence from Moscow, but once in power that loyalty would evaporate in a heartbeat and you'd have another couple of Titos on your hands - at least one with nuclear weapons.
 
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