AH Challenge: Soviet Union lasts to the present day

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Lenin return from the death??

US and other Capitalist countries collapse??

1985 the USSR had been declining so long that only a miracle could save them.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
This may not be what you're looking for, buut-

You might keep a USSR by simply having Yeltsin or an alt-Russian president be interested in keeping a union together. In OTL, Yeltsin thought Russia could do better, and he could do better personally, by ditching the other republics.

If the Russian leadership wants to keep a union, the Baltic states, and probably Georgia will still go, (not to mention the Warsaw Pact states), but the Central Asian states, which had independence thrust upon them, would gladly stay in the union, as would Belarus and even Ukraine (though with more west Ukrainians interested in changing that status).
 
Gorbachev planned to keep the USSR in existence just as a democratic state with devolution for the republics.Ironically the August coup dashed that hope.
 
maybe if the coup members did not make a coup, and were disposed of by a pro-USSR Yeltsin behind the scenes, then the USSR would still be around, just no Communist. The Baltic States might get their independence over the course of 90's.

The Soviet military, on the other hand, probably cannot hold, and we'd see a mass reduction in USSR military strength from 1990-2000 like in OTL.

By the way, was the USSR's population going down at this point?
 
Have liberalization go slower and steadier than it did in the OTL and have detente between it and the US rather than attempts by both to compete at military build up.
 
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