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I am working on a map/TL and I cant decide what to do with Alaska. In the TL, Russia hangs on to alaska and doesn't have to sell it. The two options that I cant decide on are:

1. Russia keeps Alaska as a territory and it eventually becomes independent but still a close ally.

2. The russians use it as a penal colony ala australia and send Lenin and any communists to gulags in Alaska. After a prison break, Lenin overthrows the territorial government and we basically end up with a soviet union in alaska.

Is option 2 even plausibly possible? Or is russia more likely to try to incorperate it directly if oil is discovered soon enough?
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