I thought this would be interesting and as its 20+ years since the fall of the Soviet Union it can be approached with a little historical distance.
The scenario, its 1953 and after having gotten the Cold War between East and West off to a suitably confrontational start The Great Leader Joseph Stalin has bought (sorry shared equally in the common wealth of) the Great Collective Farm in the sky.
By Power of Plot you have negotiated the subsequent power struggle and stepped into his mighty shoes as uncontested leader of the Soviet Union.
The question is, from this position how do you go about preventing what Putin is on record as describing as, “The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” (referring to the fall of the Soviet Union).
Your goal is to maintain the USSR while increasing its power and influence as much as possible at the expense of the West. (although genuine efforts at maintaining peaceful coexistence may be the way to go)
I have my own ideas on the subject but I’d be interested on reading other peoples opinions first.
So, what are your orders General Secretary? salutes
*Assume that your plans and directions will be accepted and carried out by your subordinates and that, at least initially, you have no concerns regarding being toppled from power, also you can make long term plans with the assumption that you will be able to follow them through
*You can operate from the position that you have knowledge of the future or not, whatever you find more interesting, but of course as soon as you start setting things on a different course future history will quickly diverge from what you know
*leaving your own politics and opinions aside, I think we can all agree that the USSR was A Bad Thing, but just pretend for the sake of the scenario that your a committed Communist and true believer
btw there was a fun game in the early 90’s with this same basic scenario, I recall playing it until it advanced to the year 2017 (or thereabouts) and the game designers had it end by a massive asteroid strike flattening the country!