AHC: Communists retake Russia in some form

samcster94

Banned
The goal, with a POD of 1991, is to have a Communist be elected or seize power in Russia. They cannot rebuild the Soviet Union though, but can act like Putin in some form.
 
The goal, with a POD of 1991, is to have a Communist be elected or seize power in Russia. They cannot rebuild the Soviet Union though, but can act like Putin in some form.

Easy, have some scandal about Yeltsin come out just before the 1996 election. Zyuganov subsequently wins the 1996 election and Russia is now being led by the communists again. At this point they'd be more like China style communists though, meaning they'd be more nationalist than communist and working toward a mixed economy. Boy, are the oligarchs going to hate that. Anyway, the communists cannot hope to be more incompetent than Yeltsin was if they tried, so they might be able to stave off total economic collapse and make 1990s Russia a somewhat better place to live.
 
Easy, have some scandal about Yeltsin come out just before the 1996 election. Zyuganov subsequently wins the 1996 election and Russia is now being led by the communists again. At this point they'd be more like China style communists though, meaning they'd be more nationalist than communist and working toward a mixed economy. Boy, are the oligarchs going to hate that. Anyway, the communists cannot hope to be more incompetent than Yeltsin was if they tried, so they might be able to stave off total economic collapse and make 1990s Russia a somewhat better place to live.

Zyuganov did win the 1996 election, the election was literally rigged against him to hand it to Yeltsin. Yeltsin had support that makes any of Putin's elections look 100% fair, free, and legitimate. Even with all that, there's still reason to believe Zyuganov was the legitimate winner. And Dmitri Medvedev once said, "There is hardly any doubt who won [that race]. It was not Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin."
 
Zyuganov did win the 1996 election, the election was literally rigged against him to hand it to Yeltsin. Yeltsin had support that makes any of Putin's elections look 100% fair, free, and legitimate. Even with all that, there's still reason to believe Zyuganov was the legitimate winner. And Dmitri Medvedev once said, "There is hardly any doubt who won [that race]. It was not Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin."

Electoral fraud has been alleged but, depending on the source, it isn't sure how much of an impact it made on the outcome of the election. I'm aware of what Medvedev said though. The required PoDs would then either be: a) Zyuganov winning despite the fraud or b) the fraud being exposed.
 
If Zyuganov had been elected, what kind of policies might he follow? I remember that election (I would have been in 5th grade at the time and was only beginning to get interested in politics) and all I can think of is Zyuganov promising to nationalize the vodka industry and use the profits to fund various initiatives.
 

samcster94

Banned
The 1996 one is the most obvious way, but there are other roads, especially in a Putin-less Russia. What if Yeltsin appoints one as PM?
 
The 1996 one is the most obvious way, but there are other roads, especially in a Putin-less Russia. What if Yeltsin appoints one as PM?

The oligarchs would cry bloody murder if Yeltsin appointed a communist to any position of importance. The communists retaking power means nationalization of key industries that were under oligarch control after 1991. They stand to lose a lot.
 

samcster94

Banned
The oligarchs would cry bloody murder if Yeltsin appointed a communist to any position of importance. The communists retaking power means nationalization of key industries that were under oligarch control after 1991. They stand to lose a lot.
True, it'd be ugly if and when they did take over in the 90's(or later w/o Putin/Putinclone).
 
One thing you would see that people haven't talked about is a major increase in anti-Semitism. The CPRF is a very anti-Semitic party (look up General Albert Makashov and how the CPRF reacted to his comments if you don't believe me), and once in power they'd continue the Soviet tradition of scapegoating Jews.
The oligarchs would cry bloody murder if Yeltsin appointed a communist to any position of importance. The communists retaking power means nationalization of key industries that were under oligarch control after 1991. They stand to lose a lot.
The West would also be pretty upset, and while the West didn't have a massive amount of influence in post-Soviet Russia it had enough to make Yeltsin think twice before naming a Communist as PM.
 

samcster94

Banned
Givne that OTL Yeltsin mooted the idea of banning the Communists, this is ASB.
True, but my only requirement is for Yeltsin to be gone in some form(election,death etc ...),and for conditions to lead to Communists taking back over. I never said it would be pretty as this is Russia we are talking about.
 

orwelans II

Banned
Another possibility would be completing the Union State in the 90s. The proposed country was to be controlled by the two Presidents and two Speakers of Parliament, meaning that the Communist and Lukashenko would outvote Yeltsin on many issues. The oligarch close to the Kremlin realised what kind of a mistake Yeltsin did and used their media houses to fabricate a border incident with Belarus and stop the merger.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Zyuganov did win the 1996 election, the election was literally rigged against him to hand it to Yeltsin. Yeltsin had support that makes any of Putin's elections look 100% fair, free, and legitimate. Even with all that, there's still reason to believe Zyuganov was the legitimate winner. And Dmitri Medvedev once said, "There is hardly any doubt who won [that race]. It was not Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin."
The 1996 election was not "hard rigged": it was "soft rigged", which basically meant the margin of victory (iirc it was like 55-40) is something approximating the actual votes but Yeltsin had significant advantage because of control over all TV media (which covered up Yeltsin's health issues and fake newsed Zyuganov) and laundering state $$$ into campaign finance money (he had $100 million when officially he only used $3 million). They also ran a third party spoiler to Zyuganov (Alexander Lebed).

It was basically the equivalent of a really corrupt western election rather than a stalinist election. Zyuganov had a legit chance of winning but when it came down to it the Yeltsin portrayed it as a choice between democracy and going back to Brezhnev era communism and most voters chose the former. It was probably less fake an election than Putin today.
 
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RousseauX

Donor
also, Yeltsin was so afraid of losing the election despite massive amount of tipping the scales towards him that he seriously considered cancelling the election and calling in troops to arrest the Communist-led Duma. The troops actually got called in but he got persuaded by the oligarchs to back down at the last moment: Russia in 1996 was literally an hour or two from a civil war.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Electoral fraud has been alleged but, depending on the source, it isn't sure how much of an impact it made on the outcome of the election. I'm aware of what Medvedev said though. The required PoDs would then either be: a) Zyuganov winning despite the fraud or b) the fraud being exposed.
Everyone knew it was fraudalous, they voted for Yeltsin anyway. It was "better the crook than the Communist"

Pre-election polls showed that 65% of everyone wanted to vote against Yeltsin, but 65% also didn't want Zyuganov. It was pretty US-2016ish
 

samcster94

Banned
Everyone knew it was fraudalous, they voted for Yeltsin anyway. It was "better the crook than the Communist"

Pre-election polls showed that 65% of everyone wanted to vote against Yeltsin, but 65% also didn't want Zyuganov. It was pretty US-2016ish
Except MUCH worse, given Russia was in worse economic shape than India is today, and India also has a real tradition of democracy.
 
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