A Constitutional semi- democratic Russia with a relatively stable Market Economy would change a lot of things. However some interesting questions occur;
1. WW1, the starvation, the crises, how would a Constitutional Russia handle it.
2. Will there be a Bretsk- Litovsk or will Russia be a victor perhaps taking East Galizia in Versailles. What about Russian claims on Constantinople?
3. The state of Constitutional Russia;
a) elections, will everyone be able to participate or are leftist groups like Mensheviks and Left SR banned?
b)parliamentarism, has the elected duma any power, or is the real power still in the Czar's office. is the Government appointed by the duma or the czar?
c) Market Economy, how great will the reforms be and how well will they be recieved by the Russian people.
4. Minorities, how great would the autonomy for Finns, Poles, Estonians etc. be. Will there be a separate Polish Kingdom and Finnish Grand Principality in a Personal Union with Russia, or will they be concidered parts of Russia proper?
sidenote; without a communist state there will be no red scare, and both Mussolini and Hitler will probably fail. Mussolini might even still be a socialist in this TL.
A Constitutional Russian state may very well do better in World War I, and would also find an easier time getting international assistence in the postwar period with any famines. It's hard to predict exactly, though.
Constitutional-democratic Russia may have little use for Constantinople, it seems to me to be the project of Holy Russia, not to mention a fool's crusade. Solid relations with a Turkish republic might be more useful anyway.
I've wondered about, perhaps, a less severe Brest-Litovsk, where the Germans seize Congress Poland and Lithuania, perhaps some Belorussian or Ukrainian territory, but far less than IRL, and then Russia getting back most of that land, except for Congress Poland. East Galicia would likely either end up in Russian hands or be divided between Russia and the new Polish state.
My idea was that either every party could participate, or, possibly, that extreme leftists (and rightists) might be omitted from the process. If things go well, the socialist movement may very well turn into a Western-style non-revolutionary socialist movement anyway.
The elected Duma would have real power. The idea is for constitutionalism to be actually significant, rather than a gloss over Tsarist power. I expect that for a while, however, the Tsar and his ministers will have considerable influence over the government, particularly in foreign affairs. Russian democracy will blossom gently.
I anticipate that the Russian economy will eventually end up as a mixed-market economy, possibly comparable to the Scandinavian countries or just a little less so. One of the major economic programmes of the Russian government might be the encouragement of the 'kulak' class in the hopes of creating a strong class of independent farmers. Economic development may be slightly slower than the Soviet version, but it will also be less brutal and probably better received. I'm sure it won't all be tea and stroganoff, but some of the problems created could be explained, simply, as being necessary in order to build a stronger nation.
As for minority policy, there will likely develop some form of autonomy for non-Russian minorities, including the Baltic peoples, but also the Muslim peoples of Central Asia and others. As for Poland, in the long term, my suspicion is that it would end up as an independent state, either in personal union, or without any formal ties to the Russian Tsar. Finland would either recieve some sort of home rule or satellite status.
