kernals12
Banned
In this scenario, communism, not Russia, would lose the cold war. And giant Russia would still be a superpower.I disagree. Better for Russians, maybe (I doubt Russians would really feel much of a difference of keeping the periphery vs losing it, and it might even make the situation worse, as much of the government's funds would have to be diverted to developing the periphery instead of developing the Russian core), but better for the half of the Soviet population that wasn't Russian? Not at all.
Knowing that the only way that a (supposedly) democratic Soviet Union would be able to keep the Baltic states in line would be through undemocratic suppression of the will of the people living there, be it through vote rigging, suppressing protests or Russian colonization, I would not want to live in such a universe. (Of course, that's my personal experience showing, as a TTL version of me would probably write in this forum from jail.)
And, in my opinion, Russia keeping all of the USSR does not prevent the rise of a Putin-style strongman. Losing the Warsaw Pact and reforming to the ideology of your opponent is still a defeat in the Cold War, even if you keep your empire.