OK, I see your point. Then again, we can't do A/B testing on history. It's very hard to say "what if" (the USSR didn't fall apart). Knowing the history of Russi

OK, I see your point. Then again, we can't do A/B testing on history. It's very hard to say "what if" (the USSR didn't fall apart). Knowing the history of Russia, it's not hard to imagine someone much worse than Putin could appear. Also, almost all republics had surprisingly high turnout in the referendum - Nakhchivan and Checheno-Ingushetia aside, all the rest had the turnout of at leas 2/3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum