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What if the USSR, upon installing friendly governments in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and moving it's troops into them didn't proceed to make them constituent SSRs of the Union, but kept them de jure independent.

They could keep their own colours on their flags and wouldn't have to call themselves SSRs, although the new communist governments might still change the official names of the countries. The relations between Moscow and Tallinn, Riga and the newly Lithuanian Vilnius would be handled using international agreements. The presence of the RKKA would be justified with a defence pact.

What could be the reason for this change? More importantly; how would this change WW2 and the post war world?
Would the peoples of the three countries be more inclined to resist the Germans? Would there be less Russian migration to the Baltic? Anything else?
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