The hard part of counterfactuals is that the result of a counterfactual is often an entity that shares only a name in common with the real historical entity. Could the Soviet Union have survived? Sure, maybe, if it didn't look anything like the Soviet Union that actually existed. Could the Chernobyl accident have been avoided? Sure, if the reactor hadn't been designed for better weapons production, if the crew hadn't been pushed to perform an unusually risky procedure, or if the crew had the initiative to avoid the problems they encountered. But the Soviet Union that actually existed was overly militarized and had a culture where obedience was more important than safety, and if it didn't have those traits then it wouldn't have been the Soviet Union that actually existed