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As it stands OTL, the USSR had pretensions of aspiring to a post-ethnic and post-religious society, even if it fell somewhat short of that in reality. I suspect that any other regime- whether that means a surviving empire, a surviving provisional government, or some non-communist faction seizing power- Russian ethnicity, "whiteness" and Orthodoxy would play a large role in culture and politics.

This would presumably not be good news for minority populations within Russia, even if it's democratic and nominally "liberal"/leftist. Russia is likely to face continued resistance to it's rule, in the Polish and Turkish territories especially, so inspiring authoritarian crackdowns. If this Russia is democratic, then there's a likelihood of bigoted populist movements moving for greater persecution/dispossession of minorities(especially Jews and Muslims), and perhaps excluding them from suffrage or eligibility for welfare programs(especially since the Central Asian territories are likely to be the poorest regions of Russia and therefore take up a disproportionate share of the Russian budget).

This might mean that Russia will ultimately lose possession of much of this territory, much as the other empires did. This is however complicated by the large Russian settler population in much of this territory, it's contiguity with Russia and the fact that Russia will likely be reluctant to yield the enormous oil reserves within these territories. In any case, the other European empires did not(for the most part) yield their territory easily/happily, and I see no reason to believe the Russian empire/republic would.
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