Can the Cold War End With Both Superpowers Surviving?

A scenario where Gorbachev somehow survives, along with the USSR, carries the problem in that the USSR won't be a superpower any more if he remains. He had alread presided over the collapse of the Warsaw Pact states and was in the process of negotiating a new Union treaty which would have reduced Soviet power in favour of a confederated model. It's also quite likely he would have pulled the plug on the military-industrial complex and any other prestige projects to divert the money to the rest of the economy.
 
If the Soviet Union liberalizes into a Democratic Socialist state, it would probably grant independence to the Baltics and Georgia, but in the other Republics, few people actually wanted independence. The USSR could very well survive as a Confederation with a common currency and broad autonomy for the consitutent republics: in fact this was the endgame that most in the West sought.
 
No August coup.

Gorbachev's reforms succeed, and the USSR eventually becomes a social democratic/democratic socialist multinational partnership like the EU, though probably a little more connected.

Actually, his reforms brought general living standards down starting as early as ´86, it had already fallen significantly by the time yeltsin took power.
 
No August coup.

Gorbachev's reforms succeed, and the USSR eventually becomes a social democratic/democratic socialist multinational partnership like the EU, though probably a little more connected.

Gorbachev is not enough. The international climate was wrong. Remember, his rise to the leadership of the USSR followed on the heals of a change in American leadership away from Detente. A maintenance of detente would have eased the need and the time available for reforms in the USSR.
 
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I personally believe that Soviet rule in the puppet states can't be maintaned-too costly to fight people who hate you for (mostly) loyal puppets.

The USSR itself, while it can keep the SSRs, has to democratise and capitalise. Fast. Maybe earlier, more sweeping Gorbachov reforms make the USSR more like Sweden at the cost of the vassals. Then, as Vultan says, something comes along to unite them...
No, faster reforms would only make the USSR collapse even more. The shock at which Gorbachev led the Soviet Union to open up its media and economy led to recession and economic instability that lasted through much of the 1990s, and prompted the outbursts of nationalism that led to the country's fall. The Soviet Union needs more gradual reforms so that their economy can ease into a capitalist society. Or have Brezhnev leave and the reforms happen in the late 70s when Keynesian economics were still in vogue and neoliberalism hadn't caught on yet.
 
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