The title of this post is a question someone asked on Quora.

Here is the response I gave, which is on-topic here as it references the work of two noted science fiction authors, Harry Turtledove and Philip K. Dick.

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Most historians agree this is because of Russia’s warm climate and mild winters. If Russia had extremely cold weather instead, the advance of Napoleon’s troops on Moscow would likely have bogged down instead with heavy casualties, and history would have been very different, as Russia would not have had to sue for peace on unfavorable terms.

In fact, the consequences of Russia having a colder climate at that time were examined in the alternate history novel The Bear Lies Heavy by Harry Turtledove and Philip K. Dick. In that novel’s alternate history, because Russia was still an important military power, during World War I, a revolutionary (called Vladimir Lenin in the novel) was shipped to Russia from Switzerland in a sealed train, where he instigated the overthrow of the government, and caused Russia to become a neutral in that war, instead of an ally of France, Britain, and the United States. However, as in the real world, Germany still lost that war despite that ploy.

Russia’s regime, under a system called “Communism”, was considered frightening by many, particularly wealthy businessmen, in the West. Briefly, during World War II, there was a period when Russia was accepted as an ally against Hitler. As a mark of their consistency, the authors note that despite the more advanced technology of the time, the colder weather in Russia in this alternate universe still caused serious problems for the German forces on the Eastern Front.

But after the end of hostilities, when it was learned that Russian spies had stolen the secret of the atomic bomb from America, this quickly changed. The United States was further galvanized when, in 1957, Russia launched the first artificial satellite, which it called “Sputnik”, a word usually translated as “fellow traveller”, which was also a phrase used by Russian spies for people with Communist sympathies in enemy nations. This led to a frantic response by the United States, which culminated in the first manned Moon landing taking place in 1969, instead of in 2001 as in the real world.

After decades of hostility between the West and Russia, the revolutionary regime first mellowed and then collapsed. But in less than a decade, a former member of the Communist secret polilce took power in Russia, creating a fascist regime instead of a revolutionary one, but still hostile to the world’s democracies.

By the end of that novel, set in the year 2022, this regime actually launched an invasion of Ukraine, which no doubt strained the suspension of disbelief of many of its readers to the breaking point!
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Hopefully, this comprehensive answer will clear up the questioner's confusion.

John Savard