Easy. Jimmy Carter wins instead of Ronald Reagan.
6 Dead Red Ted Kennedy’s collusion with the Soviets is successful in defeating Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984.
Not really. The article makes a case that the Stalinist purges destroyed the generation of thinkers required to maintain the Soviet lie. The Afghanistan adventure was unaffordable, unwinnable, and they knew it.
The USSR’s incompetent, shuttered leadership brought it to a tipping point, an economic tipping point that Reagan pushed over, bringing about in internal collapse rather than an outward explosion.
IOW, Reagan was neccesary, but not sufficient.