Can the Soviet Union go the way of the Popular Republic of China?

Reform, instead of collapse? How would the 1990s and 2000s look with the USSR still in the map?
 
I think you mean the People's Republic of China. And yes, the USSR could reform. Avoid the 1991 coup, and let Gorbachev carry out the rest of his reforms. Russia becomes a (mostly) democratic nation, and a member of the Union of Sovereign States. It would be extremely hard, if not down right impossible to keep the Baltics or the Caucasus, though. Without the breakup of the USSR, no Chechen War, for one. The Mujahideen might also attack Russia, the larger, closer and more recent enemy, rather than the USA, thereby avoiding 9/11, at least in New York.
 
In Spanish, "People's" is translated as "Popular." I find it's generally poor form to criticize a person's grammar online, especially on a multinational forum.
 
The USSR could have reformed and still be around today. But they couldn't have gone the way of the PRC. That required a certain set of circumstances. You needed the Sino-Soviet split, so that the enemy (PRC) of my enemy (USSR) is my (USA) friend. Then you also need a huge pool of cheap labor that western business interests would want to exploit and a political system that will keep them under control. The average Soviet would not be willing to work for similar pay and under conditions that the average Chinese worker was willing to do. Plus, I don't think we'd be willing to send our industry over to our number one rival while the Cold War continues.
 
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