The easiest answer here is a POD that allows for internationalist-minded communists to come to power in Russia and Germany pre-WWII.
Does that still count? A Soviet Union, rather than The Soviet Union, you know?
I like it. It counts, 'cause the POD doesn't have to be after WWII.
Here's what the superpowers had:
USSR:
- Economy/nation wrecked by Nazis
- Militarily powerful but was unsustainable due to physical destruction of the nation.
- Bad economic system, with inflexible leadership.
NATO:
- Economically powerful, good in standing because of lack of destruction.
- Militarily powerful and could back it with good economics.
- Had competitive capitalist system.
- Was territorially at huge advantage; USSR had only Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and a couple of unloyal African clients, while NATO was in a great position for picking up many more clients and already had allies and bases to surround the USSR with. Also, China was a huge strain on USSR as well.
Therefore, the USSR was totally screwed in the Cold War no matter how you look at it. Their only option is to do all the follwing with PERFECT execution, and only then will they be able to surpass NATO:
- In WW2, USSR decisively defeats invading German armies at around Poland. Hitler pisses his pants and, acting as stupidly as always, continues a losing war in which Germany is overrun in 1943/4 and the USSR lords over most if not all of the Continent. Here, the requirment for "no destruction of Russian nation" is fulfilled.
- After (or in late stages of) WW2, China (nationalist or otherwise) buddies up with USSR, sharing tech and other exchanges. They are probably able to lord over Korea and maybe able to eventually get Japan to be militarily neutral in the upcoming Cold War.
- When India gains indepence, it goes as in OTL to the semi-socialist camp. For extra points, have the combined pressure of USSR, China, and India cause Pakistan to Balkanize.
- In 60's and 70's, USSR keeps solidifying its influence over Eurasia. With reagrds to Central/Eastern Europe, let's say that the Soviet Union sees little value in holding them against their will and allows economic reforms a la China in OTL. These reforms have to occur in the USSR itself as well for this part to work, and they should be able to pull it off since the USSR has much resources to work with.
- In 80's and 90's, the USSR rivals, if not overshadows NATO in terms of might. NATO has probably been restricted to an Oceania (1984) sized territory, with the main area of contention between the superpowers being in the Middle East and probably Western Europe.
-Even in this scenario where the USSR does EVERYTHING right, it is still venerable to whatever the Chinese want to do. If things go well for the USSR, China will just develop mostly economically, competing with the East Asian powers, while aknowledging the USSR's role as a counterbalance to the US military power. If things go badly, by the year 2000 China will have splut with the Soviets and have gone their own way, maybe even allowed Americans to get into East Asia. Even if the USSR survives, it can't "win."
So this is a very hard scenario to pull off. I'd like to read a good TL on it though. I really love uber-USSR situations, since America being the only powerful guys is kinda bland.
Good answer. Covers a lot of bases. The importance of China is hard to overstate. I'd say it's a bit easier than you suggest, because we don't need to have Stalin as a starting point.
I have a lot of timelines in my head that so far have not come to fruition, so don't expect this one anytime soon, if at all. Still, here's the basic outline of the uber-USSR situation that bore this topic. Some time ago, in a fun thread called "best movies not yet made" in the FH section, I proposed one called "The Space Age," about Orion warships[1] doing battle in a Cold War that had extended to space. The idea was that the bomb has been delayed and was not deployed in World War II, and ideas and fears about nukes are different. Rather than the MAD we know and love, the Space Race has gone nuclear. Nukes were not used on Earth--or were in a brief and horrifying World War III--and the superpowers, thinking nuclear war inevitable, have moved it to space.
Whether I can make Orion ships plausible or not I don't know, but it got me to thinking what a world that might produce them would be like. I ended up with the idea that a Cold War gone badly has done horrible things to the United States. The noble and just impulses of my country which in OTL are ultimately triumphant have been drowned out by the things I don't like (the ideological simplicity, the atrocious urban design, the arrogance, McCarthy...) because the USSR is continually dealing blows to US national identity by winning. Britain, which can almost see the Iron Curtain from Dover on a clear day, has if anything turned out worse--and what kind of self-respecting dystopia doesn't include London?
The USSR meanwhile is pulling a heel face turn[2]. It's liberalizing its economy and eventually its politics while becoming more true to its theoretical basis in equality for workers and women that IOTL it failed to do. In attempt to distinguish itself, the US has mutated into a place of militarism, patriarchy, and religious fanaticism. The counterculture has been dealt with by a nasty counter-revolution, and the South suffers under apartheid through to the end of the century. Eventually it will retire from the 20th century adventure of international standing and return to an isolationist tinkering with the Americas. Unipolar hegemony and globalization will be achieved under an international socialist order.
Unrealistic, and cynical about my own country? Perhaps. This is just a starting point. It also gets some leeway I think by being not only AH but also science fiction, and an elaborate criticism of modernity. Still, the US will probably remain the "good guys" and the USSR the "bad guys" until about 1980 or so.
Anyway, it's a project I'd like to pursue sometime. I'm not great at budgeting time for these things, though. I worry about starting and never finishing. I also have others earlier in line, particularly one with a PoD sometime in the 19th century that examines a more cordial 20th century relationship between Germany and the US. All in good time, I suppose...
[1] Project Orion was an Air Force venture which sought to create spacecraft powered by nuclear warheads dropped aft and detonated against a pusher plate. They hoped to get one to Saturn by 1970 or so. This is probably an overconfident timeframe, but these things have a lot more Delta V than a regular old chemical rocket.
[2] bad guy becomes good guy