Largest plausible Russia/USSR?

[Urban fox]

Well, that should be enough time to result in an early entente victory, which would lead to Russia picking up perhaps Galicia and Bukovina, Great Poland and bits of Silesia, the straits and a chunk of eastern Anatolia, and we could subsequently have Russia stay together and create spheres of influence in the Middle and Far east from Anatolia through the Mashriq and Iranian plateau up to the outer ramparts of China, Manchuria, and Korea. Much bigger than that is really pushing it, and as I said, a lot of that would be spheres of influence. As RGB has pointed out, Russia has in the last century been propelled rather above its station by events and brought back down. The borders of 1914 represent a very respectable chunk of the world under Russian sway. It could certainly hold these to the present day, but it doesn't have much reason to go much further.

The only other thing of note is that Bulgaria applied for SSR status at one point.

Eh? If anyting the population and resources at it’s disposal Russia was long overdue to becoming a superpower, it was incompetent leadership and a feudal monarchy in the 19th century that held it back. Had the Romanov’s been overthrown around the same times as the Bourbons in France and replaced with a republic or constitutional monarchy Russia would’ve made far greater progress.

Major industrialization would’ve happened in Russia sooner, without the nobility there to deliberately hold it back.

 

[Emera78]

If anyting the population and resources at it’s disposal Russia was long overdue to becoming a superpower, it was incompetent leadership and a feudal monarchy in the 19th century that held it back. Had the Romanov’s been overthrown around the same times as the Bourbons in France and replaced with a republic or constitutional monarchy Russia would’ve made far greater progress.

Different geography and different population. France ruled over far more unitied ethnic and religious population then Russia did.

Was there any possibility of revolution at the same time as in France-and wouldn't it mean that Russia would actually be smaller ?

As to POD after 1914-assasination on Franz Ferdinand fails, or doesn't happen, the war is posponed till 1915 or early 1916 at the max. Russia is far better prepared and armed for conflict and CP are beaten faster. Sazonov's demands are met, and Russia gains Galicia from Austro-Hungary, East Upper Silesia, Posen from Germany. Unrest happens but the government is stable enough to ensure transition to constitutional monarchy.

 

[LeX]

If the USSR captured Poland and Finland after the Civil War, I could see Stalin (in OTL he had a hand in messing up the Polish campaign) toying with the idea of more national (not necessarily socialist) expansion. WW2 gives Stalin his chance, and he annexes Romania and other parts of Eastern Europe. In the east, he may choose to set up a North Chinese Soviet in Manchuria, possibly after Zhukov kicks Kwangtung ass. After the war's end, Hokkaido is taken for Russia and the Chinese Soviet becomes a safe haven for the CCP which was badly damaged by a KMT offensive that was able to manifest itself in light of the beating taken by the IJA.
If Stalin annexes parts of eastern Europe, he will have to implement hardcore assimilation policies and probably "accidental" famines in rowdy areas like Poland, followed by mass deportations and population resettlement (Poles sent to Siberia, Ukrainians sent to Poland, etc.).

This extended USSR could easily have a population nearing 400 million, and any post-Stalin leadership would have to be VERY wary of liberalization because of the vast non-Russian populace (over half of all Soviet peoples will be non-Russian). The United States/NATO would probably take an even harsher stance toward the expansionist Soviet menace, and set up close ties with Western Europe, Japan, and China from the 50's onward. The USSR, being very cautious about its volatile demographics and surrounding by the West, might actually survive into the present day, in a manner similar to the [OTL] PRC. Like OTL China, it would recognize that direct confrontation with the West would only mean political collapse, and that instead of an outright command economy, it is better to have growth-oriented fascism.

The USSR of this TL would, no doubt, be much more dystopian and brutal.

 

[Urban fox]

Different geography and different population. France ruled over far more unitied ethnic and religious population then Russia did.

Was there any possibility of revolution at the same time as in France-and wouldn't it mean that Russia would actually be smaller ?

As to POD after 1914-assasination on Franz Ferdinand fails, or doesn't happen, the war is posponed till 1915 or early 1916 at the max. Russia is far better prepared and armed for conflict and CP are beaten faster. Sazonov's demands are met, and Russia gains Galicia from Austro-Hungary, East Upper Silesia, Posen from Germany. Unrest happens but the government is stable enough to ensure transition to constitutional monarchy.

No so much the Russian Empire's core population of Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians & Belarusians) was quite cohesive, loyal and had the same religious beliefs. Russia’s geography was mixed Ukraine had some of the best soil in the world ditto the north Caucasus.

Trust me any failure by this more liberal Russia to gain more territories in Central Asia and the Caucuses (not anywhere near a sure thing as even liberal nations expanded their empire’s massively during the 19th century, it was the done thing) would be massively outweighed by the economic and social development that would take place, without the stunting and stupefying effects on the country of being ruled by a bunch of reactionary-to-the-core medieval monarchs during that century. Particularly since most went very good rulers to begin with.

Don’t even get me started on the rest of Russia malign autocratic class and their highly destructive effects on the country. Al in an effort to cling onto their power. (that came a cropper in the end with the rise of Lenin)

 

[I Blame Communism]

Eh? If anyting the population and resources at it’s disposal Russia was long overdue to becoming a superpower, it was incompetent leadership and a feudal monarchy in the 19th century that held it back. Had the Romanov’s been overthrown around the same times as the Bourbons in France and replaced with a republic or constitutional monarchy Russia would’ve made far greater progress.

Major industrialization would’ve happened in Russia sooner, without the nobility there to deliberately hold it back.

I quite agree that Russia has been on a run of shit luck since the Napoleonic Wars and a good place to start it out on a better path would be to avoid the stagnation under Alexander and then Nicholas and keep the earlier dynamism going in the state; however I don't think this is likely to enlarge the Russian Empire significantly more than it enlarged itself in the 19th C OTL (which was mostly moving into natural spheres of influence dictated by geography); the establishment of a stronger and more legitimate state structure that can change itself more easily makes the loss of peripheral territory to a social breakdown very unlikely.

"The last century" is the twentieth century, though, and by 1900 it's too late for any of that; the strains of the belated industrialisation on society were already severe. In the course of the century, Russia was obliged to fight one of the largest land wars of all time, lose badly, socio-economically implode, pull itself back together again, undergo crash industrialisation, fight the biggest land war of all time, and then recover from genocidal devestation at the same time as propping parasitic regimes, doling out aid to sympathetic factions in the third world, upkeeping a massive army and nuclear arsenal, and trying vainly to outsize America's space-penis. All that and the "demographic curse", and it's hardly surprising that Russia crashed and lost territory that it had no obvious reason to lose.

With a PoD of 1900, I don't see any way to make Russia significantly bigger without overstretch. In 1800, the story is differant, although I'd still expect a few peripheries to be more likely than the conquest of China or something.

 

[Old Airman]

The most wankish scenario of surviving Russian Empire I've seen (although it does not fit the OP perfectly, as the POD is sometime in 1895-1900) is OTL Western border of the Russian Empire plus what Stalin grabbed on the west in 1945 (Transcarpathian Ukraine), an exclave around Black Sea Straits, Persia's Caspian provinces being annexed (there's no rhyme or reason for it, so I suspect it had been introduced just to have a nice map), Manchuria being annexed and Korea being turned into Russian satellite.