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Cont'd

Now moving forward, the crusades will not take place. Certainly not as they did in OTL. Remember, the rationale behind the Crusades was that good Christian pilgrims were blocked from Jerusalem because of the Muslim conquests. This falls flat because even if the Arabs conquer Jerusalem, it wouldn't be much of a holy site. Even under the possibilities (however remote) that Jesus and Muhammed are both considered bodhisattvas or high lamas and both had their meditative experiences in Jerusalem, the High Priest in Rome wouldn't have a theological basis to call for an invasion of the Levant. Holy warring simply doesn't exist in Buddhism.

But don't be discouraged! Historians now tend to agree that the crusades were wars over economic control of the western terminus of the Silk Road (Constantinople and the Levant, specifically) than wars of religion. There won't be any grand Vatican councils to declare war against the infidel, but gradually we'll begin to see wars from the merchant republics of Italy and the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe over control of this delicate region. The result will eventually be a region divided by history and a patchwork of Buddhist states. My guess is that it will be just as contentious as our world's Middle East with conflict driven more by race and ethnicity than religion (since the vast majority will be Buddhist).

That said, eventually the New World transmission will take place Buddhist conquistadors will scour the Americas from Newfoundland to Tierra del Fuego. It's way too removed from our POD to be able to determine exactly how the New World would be divided or how bloody the conquest would be. Personally, I'd like to think that Buddhist missionaries would seek to civilize the indigenous tribes before the conquistadors sweep in with swords and the excuses of, "We're not monks." This, after all, tends to be the pattern of Buddhist transmission: the kingdoms and tribes that survived slaughter tended to adopt Buddhism from the missionaries and then when the conquerors came, the newly Buddhist kings would throw up their hands and say, "Would you kill fellow sangha members?"

So say the Aztecs and Inca still exist by the time the Buddhists show up, I'd like to imagine that missionaries - Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana - would approach the natives and try to convert them. After all the Tibetans practiced human sacrifice before the second transmission of Buddhism. Maybe Buddhist Cortez will approach Mexico and find out that he can't slaughter willy nilly without incurring the wrath of High Lamas and teachers. Unfortunately, disease doesn't know religion and plagues will still wipe out huge swaths of the Native American tribes.

Buddhist monasteries (and I'd like to think this is a result of their decentralized nature) have supported learning especially in proto-sciences so I'd also like to imagine that missionaries would traverse the Americas seeking to stem the tide of smallpox and typhoid. In this world, perhaps the slaughter and plague would both be decreased by at least a quarter, maybe as much as half.

Where it would get really interesting would be if/when Buddhist Europeans would finally cross the Pacific and meet China and India. The cultural shock would be reduced quite a bit if ships sailed into Hangzhou with an altar room dedicated to the Buddha. Or if the ship's chaplain was able to discuss the Dhammapada with the Son of Heaven's court priests.

The timeline here gets absurdly fuzzy by the Alternate Colombian Exchange. After all, the butterfly effect demands that different dynasties will rise and fall in China, perhaps even the Mongols may be spurred on by a full European conquest, distorting these not-crusades and perhaps giving alt-China time to catch up and explore the New World well before the Europeans. So we're reaching really dark territory but here's my assessment: Roman Europe converting to Buddhism presents a (very) strong probability that Scandinavia and Arabia will also convert to Buddhism (albeit their own flavor). With Arabia being converted to Buddhism, even if they destroy Persia and pour into India as the Arabs did IOTL, then they won't destroy the Buddhist temples and monasteries of North India. This means that Buddhism will remain a major religion of India and possibly (though not certainly) not spread to Tibet. Tibet - somewhat ironically - may convert to Chinese Ch'an Buddhism and not Indian Vajrayana Buddhism as it did IOTL. So with Buddhists spreading from Ireland to Japan, it will no doubt be THE largest and most influential religion in the world regardless of who gets to the New World first, European or Chinese (or Indian?).

I'm not stupid enough to believe that a Buddhist world is a pacifist one. But I'd like to imagine it would be at least somewhat less violent as holy warring is not typically a facet of Buddhist warfare (though textual justification after the fact certainly is). That said, things are somewhat easier when you can travel from Rome to Nanjing and always be among fellow worshippers. If you're more interested in a timeline like this, check out "Buddhist Warfare." You can compare Christian and Muslim warfare with Buddhist ones. No one declared a holy war for Bodh Gaya or Oddiyana even though both were taken over by the Muslims, though the Christians certainly did for Jerusalem. Buddhist history hasn't always been peaceful, but it is nice when a cardinal declaration of your religion is not to harm others.

I can't contribute on the what if question, but I did enjoy a trilogy of books a bunch of years ago by Robert J Sawyer on a similar subject.

https://www.amazon.com/Hominids-Neanderthal-Parallax-Robert-Sawyer/dp/0765345005

The TLDR answer is he attempts to maintain the New Economic Policy, possibly reforming it as needed. He advocated incentives to the peasantry to increase grain production (instead of forced acquisition) and possibly selling the surplus overseas, using foreign currency to purchase foreign goods with the hopes of taking a moderate path towards industrialisation.

After the chaos of the revolution and proceeding civil war, Bukharin's views were moderated and he was leaned towards policies that promoted peace and stability within the Soviet Union. What specific policies he might have carried out would be up for speculation, but let's give it a shot (Non TLDR answer)

Depending on whether or not Stalin and Trotsky are no longer in the picture (not dead necessarily, just not with as much power as Bukharin), Bukharin would most likely open certain parts of the Soviet economy to foreign trade and certain segments to possibly undergo liberalisation without privatisation (state capitalism of sorts).

Depending on how how much of the Soviet economy is interconnected with the World economy, it's likely that the Soviet economy would feel stronger effects from the Great Depression as opposed to OTL. If the economy is hit hard enough, opposition figures in the Soviet government may attempt to influence Bukharin's policies towards more capitalistic relations (Liberal opposition figures) or towards more communistic central planning (the Left Opposition). A power struggle may ensue or even Old Bolsheviks may try to create a populist anti-NEP movement within the working class.

I think speculating any further would be rather unjustifiable on my part(especially since i'm not an expert on Bukharin). If you're interested in reading further on the topic, I recommend Stephen F. Cohen's "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives". It examines attempts at reform and possible avenues of a Soviet Union without Stalinism with a great portion at the beginning dealing exclusively with Nikolai Bukharin, his world view, his personality and his legacy.
https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Fates-Lost-Alternatives-Stalinism/dp/0231148976

Saving Jackie K is an interesting sci-fi novel that starts in an alternate reality where Jackie Kennedy was killed, and involves time travel to prevent the course that history took as a result.