How would the wider world react to a Communist victory in the 1996 Russian presidential election?

Stumbled across this post in another thread...

I wonder how much it would help Dole if Zyuganov won the Russian presidential election. Certainly the Republicans would try to make an issue of it--"thanks to the incompetence of the Clinton administration, the Communists are back in control of Russia!"--but I doubt it would resonate that much with American voters. It might eat into Clinton's victory margin a bit, but probably would not by itself elect Dole.

...which got me thinking: what would be the political and cultural ramifications of Zyuganov becoming Russia's president in 1996, only a few short years after the Soviet Union had collapsed? I'm especially curious as to how the United States and the broader Western world would react.
 
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