Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
It's a stretch to claim that Russia was "almost on par with the West" in 1914 - it was really quite far behind. As for politically, it was considerably LESS democratic than even the Ottoman Empire.
A liberal democratic Tsarist Russia would almost certainly fragment - probably not as much as the USSR did, but I don't see the Baltics, Caucasians, and Central Asians, and Poles staying in short of force.
Maybe with a more gradual change, such as starting the liberal movements in the Russian heartland proper, and creating something akin to "dominion" status for the other states, with a promise of eventual full rights after however many years. After a generation or two where Russia proper is being democratized (is it a right word?) the military control could be somewhat relaxed, and a federation of sorts could be established. I am sure that eventually down the line there would have been an influential political thinker/leader in Russia who would have looked at the United States model of dividing the country into "states" and thought it could be made to work, with certain changes for the Russian psyche and culture...
Poland, however, would be likely to go away, simply because it has long tradition of independence, and never really wanted to be in with Russia. The -Stans, well, they would not really have the institutions or organization necessary at the time to go off on their own, and not to fall into another empire's sphere of influence - the British, or the Ottomans, should they survive, are two prime candidates for this. Rather, Russia could do what it (and USSR) did historically in OTL - integrate the local ruling class into the Russian elite, give them wealth and power, and use them to quietly rule the provinces under Russian sovereignty. The only difference would be that instead of being "Prince" of You-Name-It, or the local Communist Party leader, they would be called "the governor of...".
I do however agree that any sort of democratization would be a slow process, and is not likely to immediately have any effect in outlying provinces - rather, the provinces could only get the benefits of democratization after several generations, if not more. Then again, considering that the US is pretty much the world power everyone looks at these days, it is noteworthy that we had very discriminatory laws, and our rights did not extend to all the citizens as recently as 1960s - and we still see ourselves as "light of the free world", to an extent. Therefore, if a POD is around 1900, give or take few years, Russia may not become the truly democratic, egalitarian society until 1960s or 1970s - but one has to keep in mind that very few truly democratic and egalitarian societies existed until that time in OTL - even the countries we think of as democratic right now had not acquired many of the traits we currently associate with democracy until that time.