WI: Soviet Union in the 1860s

In 1860, there's not going to be a Communist state. Not remotely. The Narodniki might well implement a more benign system of government and democratise the state, though it is likely they quickly find it falls apart around their ears, but there is no way they will be able to create a Communist Russia with nobody to support it. The country has few industrial cities, practically no proletariat, and the peasantry wouldn't go along with any of that stuff.

TBH I am not sure a narodnik state can work at all, given the only real power base throughout the country is the government, and its future depends on extracting tax from the peasantry. But if it does, it would likely look much more decentral, traditionalist and inward-looking than the USSR.
 
A Communist state in 1860 would probably be elsewhere in Europe. Marx would never have guessed that Russia of all places would become the first Communist country.
 
Was even communist yet in 1860?

In theory, yes. The idea certainly existed. But there was not yet a powerful, well-organised Communist party or even a mass movement, and while Marx was an influential Communist, he was not the undisputed leader of the movement. Establishing a Communist state at that point would be extremely difficult.
 
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