WI: Post-Soviet States try to retain Communism

The fall of the USSR was a messy event, and despite the widespread accession to power by former Communist Party officials in the Post-Soviet Republics (Lukashenko in Belraus was a kolkhoz administrator, Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan was a Kazakh SSR apparatchik, Shevardnadze in Georgia was a komsomol leader and later on, a moderately successful practitioner of Goulash Communism in the Georgian SSR), there seemed to be little desire to maintain the trappings of the Soviet state, perhaps other than in Belarus and lately in the separatist breakaways in Eastern Ukraine, let alone its economic system.

How could this have changed?

Yes, I know that the system was a failure and the collapse happened for a reason. But it seems odd that all of these party officials who ran their own fiefdoms after the collapse of the Soviet Union had little desire to hold onto the aesthetics and system they played a part in perpetuating.

In Russia, a victory for Zyuganov in 1996 might have helped to bring this about. The efforts at freeing up the Russian economy were going disastrously, mostly because they completely devalued and undervalued the assets before selling them off, mostly also to former party officials. Perhaps this was just the nature of the nomenklatura perpetuating itself, but still, it presented a ripe chance for a return to the Soviet system of government. There is no reason, I think, for the siloviki that rose with Putin to have any ideological issue with the return of Communism. After all, they pretended to be liberals up until about 2005, and then to be non-ideological up until 2011, before donning the neo-Tsarist attire that they have worn since.

I think that there was a chance for this in Ukraine, for example, as the Communist Party in Ukraine in the late 90s was essentially the ethnic Russian party, and that party has been able to win elections under different forms since then.

I guess you could make an argument that Belarus today is close, with the state ownership of the economy at such a high level and the continued existence of the KGB, as well as the flag being basically the same, just without the hammer and sickle.

Any ideas on this?
 
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Belarus is pretty close, and it would have to be maybe Kazakhstan or something away from American power and unlikely to want to abandon communism.
 
Belarus is pretty close, and it would have to be maybe Kazakhstan or something away from American power and unlikely to want to abandon communism.
Well, I think the question has to be, why are they keeping Communism?

The Baltic States rightly regarded Communism and the USSR as essentially an extremely rapacious form of colonialism and theft at a national level. They put in far more than they got out, and this was done forcibly and under false pretenses (remember, it was partially the reveal of the Secret Protocols of Molotov-Ribbentrop that gave a kick to the political collapse of the USSR; up until then, it was debatable how much was known about the annexation of the Baltics).

This was not true, however, for the Central Asian Republics, which got more resources put into them then they could put back in. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in particular were major beneficiaries. These, I believe, could be the best candidates for keeping Communism long term, albeit it would be really just a matter of resource protection under a Red Flag rather than an attempt to further Communism. Also, remember that the Central Asian Republics were big on the idea of the Commonwealth of Independent States and were always pushing a unity line during 1990-1991, and were the most anti-Yeltsin of the Soviet Republics.

The Republics of the Caucasus had massive amounts of nationalism going on and are poor candidates, unless that nationalism takes on an ethnic character while holding up Soviet trappings. I could see this happening in, say, Azerbaijan, where a KGB General was the one who initially took power after the fall of the Communist Party. Aliyev was basically a Putin-esque figure, but there is no reason why he couldn't have tried to make Azerbaijan remain a Soviet Republic. Azerbaijani nationalism was always a weird thing that was really more about being anti-Armenian and being Muslim.

Georgia, perhaps, would be a good candidate here. It is true that they were one of the most nationalistic of the breakaway republics, but they had done a lot better economically in the Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras than the other regions, partially because they introduced a few market principles into agriculture and industry in the mid 1970s and increased productivity. Communism was less associated with privation than with Russian control, and Stalin was still a popular figure.
 
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I think, as a side note, you can really make the case that the DPR and LPR in Ukraine could count. They have nationalized basically all forms of industry (even the local McDonalds has been nationalized, and now sells "DonMac" burgers) and run them through the state, and the state is responsible for over 80-90% of employment in some form or another, while expropriating the property of Ukrainian landlords. Because there are basically no jobs outside of the military and security forces, as well as the remnants of the local industrial entities (which now have to export through Rostov rather than Mariupol, and are doing quite badly), a sizable part of the population are street cleaners who receive poverty pay from the state, leading to Donetsk having extremely clean streets by the standards of most cities, but no commerce happening on them.

The pension system is paid out by Russia and Ukraine for the most part, though. Still, the government is run by a legislature called the People's Soviet, and apparently, the state security forces have been known to torture dissidents in a room labeled "NKVD" above the door. That being said, the self-titled Communist Party of the DPR is basically a non-entity. Horseshoe theory may be a thing here; they seem to be close to the National Bolshevik model in practice, if only by necessity, and in their symbols, but the states are basically warlordist entities with tendencies best described as fascist on the national syndicalist model.
 
So we get... NORK lite or Yugoslavia lite.
Well, now that you mention Yugoslavia, it is true that Milosevic's wife was a pretty hardline Marxist (nicknamed "the Red Witch"). And really, she was a pretty nasty piece of work who was a major influence on some of his worst decisions. I don't see it as crazy that perhaps there could be a decision to push him towards retirement for "health reasons" while she takes over and merges her party with his.

His party claimed to be a Social Democratic one, but in reality, was stuffed to the gills with ex-League of Yugoslav Communist functionaries (this trend has laughably been repeated across Eastern Europe, and is a reason for the relative irrelevance of many of these parties; you see the same thing in Germany with Die Linke, which just so happens to have a lot of ex-Stasi informers in its ranks). It wouldn't be insane to see things happening in Serbia where a push for Yugoslav Unity (of course, under Serbian leadership) happens.
 
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Well, now that you mention Yugoslavia, it is true that Milosevic's wife was a pretty hardline Marxist (nicknamed "the Red Witch"). And really, she was a pretty nasty piece of work who was a major influence on some of his worst decisions. I don't see it as crazy that perhaps there could be a decision to push him towards retirement for "health reasons" while she takes over and merges her party with his.

His party claimed to be a Social Democratic one, but in reality, was stuffed to the gills with ex-League of Yugoslav Communist functionaries (this trend has laughably been repeated across Eastern Europe, and is a reason for the relative irrelevance of many of these parties; you see the same thing in Germany with Die Linke, which just so happens to have a lot of ex-Stasi informers in its ranks). It wouldn't be insane to see things happening in Serbia where a push for Yugoslav Unity (of course, under Serbian leadership) happens.

I meant more in the economic terms. As Yugoslavia was communist but unique in its efforts to work alongside capitalist economies.
 
I meant more in the economic terms. As Yugoslavia was communist but unique in its efforts to work alongside capitalist economies.
I think Yugoslavia did that in part because of the political circumstances of its existence and its unwillingness to act as a resource for the USSR to extract from. But yes, they were a bit more market tolerant.

Certainly, I would agree that if there was a Communist continuation country, they would try to use the Yugoslav model and not pretend autarky was possible (not that the USSR was ever an autarky; they were importing a lot of food from the US, after all).

I think the Hungary-Georgian SSR parallel makes sense, as Shevardnadze and Kadar both tried to get away from complete centralization of the economy in their respective countries, and so I suppose I could see that happening.
 
NorK is impossible for eastern Europe because they do not have China or a proxy promoting their continued existence.
 
Belarus is socialist .. Not communist
I suppose its all relative how the terms are used. Some online tankie types will say that real communism has never been tried, for example.

I would agree that they aren't like the USSR under Stalin with forced collectivized farming and massive state directed industrial development. I would say they are a lot more like modern Russia, with the state and state owned enterprises owning a huge portion of the economy and in practice, crowding out markets from developing in the money making sectors, but in law, private commerce at a lower level is encouraged. Also like Russia, the security services play a big role in the state and its interactions with the economy and as a result, a vetting process takes place to screen up and comers for loyalty.

Belarus does not have many characteristics of a social market or social democratic system, outside of the pension system inherited from the USSR, but a very large portion of the economy and land ownership is vested in the state, and in recent years, particularly after the 2011 currency crisis caused by classic dirigism in messing with the exchange rate while spending more on public sector employees, it has been integrated more and more into Russia's petrostate as a pipeline operation center.

One thing reminiscent of the USSR that has been brought back: Lukashenko's recent tax on "social parasites", with the unemployed having to pay a tax for not working a certain number of days. This was something that Brezhnev and Andropov touted while General Secretary of the CPSU. Gorbachev I believe attempted to do something similar in regards to alcholism, with social parasites being sanctioned.

This has driven unemployment officially below 1%, but that figure is of course suspect.
 
I suppose its all relative how the terms are used. Some online tankie types will say that real communism has never been tried, for example.

I would agree that they aren't like the USSR under Stalin with forced collectivized farming and massive state directed industrial development. I would say they are a lot more like modern Russia, with the state and state owned enterprises owning a huge portion of the economy and in practice, crowding out markets from developing in the money making sectors, but in law, private commerce at a lower level is encouraged. Also like Russia, the security services play a big role in the state and its interactions with the economy and as a result, a vetting process takes place to screen up and comers for loyalty.

Belarus does not have many characteristics of a social market or social democratic system, outside of the pension system inherited from the USSR, but a very large portion of the economy and land ownership is vested in the state, and in recent years, particularly after the 2011 currency crisis caused by classic dirigism in messing with the exchange rate while spending more on public sector employees, it has been integrated more and more into Russia's petrostate as a pipeline operation center.

One thing reminiscent of the USSR that has been brought back: Lukashenko's recent tax on "social parasites", with the unemployed having to pay a tax for not working a certain number of days. This was something that Brezhnev and Andropov touted while General Secretary of the CPSU. Gorbachev I believe attempted to do something similar in regards to alcholism, with social parasites being sanctioned.

This has driven unemployment officially below 1%, but that figure is of course suspect.
You should read a bit mkre . While tied to russia , be!arus is not russia and even argues and punches back against russia. WE do have both state owned ..and private enterprise here. cases in point wargaming, spam and lots of tech companies . You don't have to work for the state. Sure there are state owned items. There is everywhere.

On the currency part. Bun ruble trades 2 for 1 and is locked to the dollar.

The place isn't perfect, don't get me wrong .. But it's not a shithole, nor an oppressive backwater, not the user :). It's not perfect, but I do business here, my wife is Belarusian as are my kids. Good and bad in everyplace.

That said and I might seemed biased ..politically it is it's own thing and culturally similar to a lot of eastern Europe with all that is good and bad in that
 
Well, now that you mention Yugoslavia, it is true that Milosevic's wife was a pretty hardline Marxist (nicknamed "the Red Witch"). And really, she was a pretty nasty piece of work who was a major influence on some of his worst decisions. I don't see it as crazy that perhaps there could be a decision to push him towards retirement for "health reasons" while she takes over and merges her party with his.

His party claimed to be a Social Democratic one, but in reality, was stuffed to the gills with ex-League of Yugoslav Communist functionaries (this trend has laughably been repeated across Eastern Europe, and is a reason for the relative irrelevance of many of these parties; you see the same thing in Germany with Die Linke, which just so happens to have a lot of ex-Stasi informers in its ranks). It wouldn't be insane to see things happening in Serbia where a push for Yugoslav Unity (of course, under Serbian leadership) happens.

Die Linke has actually moved quite a bit from the Ostalgic kernel it initially largely was. Indeed, former DDR parts of Germany, and the older demographic in it in particular, seem to be fertile ground for the German radical right.
This actually reflects the broader sociopolitical trends in the former Soviet sphere, where former Communists and dissidents alike have been increasingly felt the attraction of right-wing ideologies, usually of an illiberal, ethnonationalistic and somewhat state-centric sort. Mostly not outright Fascism, but still far-right.
 
Die Linke has actually moved quite a bit from the Ostalgic kernel it initially largely was. Indeed, former DDR parts of Germany, and the older demographic in it in particular, seem to be fertile ground for the German radical right.
This actually reflects the broader sociopolitical trends in the former Soviet sphere, where former Communists and dissidents alike have been increasingly felt the attraction of right-wing ideologies, usually of an illiberal, ethnonationalistic and somewhat state-centric sort. Mostly not outright Fascism, but still far-right.
Yeah there is a reason Die Linke had such a small gain in 2017 when you consider the collapse of the SPD. A lot of its voters in the East switched to the AFD.

The Ostalgie elements of the party were clearly quite discrediting. Still, it seems that the trendy lefty vote in Germany is going to the Greens for now.
 
You should read a bit mkre . While tied to russia , be!arus is not russia and even argues and punches back against russia. WE do have both state owned ..and private enterprise here. cases in point wargaming, spam and lots of tech companies . You don't have to work for the state. Sure there are state owned items. There is everywhere.

On the currency part. Bun ruble trades 2 for 1 and is locked to the dollar.

The place isn't perfect, don't get me wrong .. But it's not a shithole, nor an oppressive backwater, not the user :). It's not perfect, but I do business here, my wife is Belarusian as are my kids. Good and bad in everyplace.

That said and I might seemed biased ..politically it is it's own thing and culturally similar to a lot of eastern Europe with all that is good and bad in that
I was more referring to large, state owned enterprises. Obviously, there are no kulak exproporiations or things of that nature. I am interested to hear though that Russian gas companies aren't a big player. I had read previously that with all the European pipeline expansion, they were becoming gradually a bigger deal in Belarus because of hostility from the Baltic states. Could be wrong on that, though.
 
Yeah there is a reason Die Linke had such a small gain in 2017 when you consider the collapse of the SPD. A lot of its voters in the East switched to the AFD.

The Ostalgie elements of the party were clearly quite discrediting. Still, it seems that the trendy lefty vote in Germany is going to the Greens for now.
Well, the Greens are indeed trendier, and I also get the sense that many Germans still regard Die Linke as a thinly repainted rebranding of the good ol' SED even if that's not actually very true anymore.
However, in Italy we still have a Communist Party, I mean, one that sorta still looks at the Soviet model in some respects, whose actual ideological discourse sounds... well, very conservative by this day's general standards (they oppose LGBT rights for instance). They are very marginal nowadays in Italian politics despite being the heir of a large and glorious tradition, but the way their current poltics resonate with some alt-right ideas on some subjects is worth noting.
Now, these guys would be shown the door quickly if they were to approach the likes of Die Linke now.
 
In general, Putin sees no contradiction between glorifying the memory of the Soviet Union (which was, after all, a comparative time of plenty relative to what came later for the PoV of very many Russians) and showing open support to groups abroad that can be aptly described as borderline Fascist (and one could also recall that this was, in different ways, occasional Soviet policy as well: Molotov-Ribbentrop anyone?).
 
Does it count if the same people stick around under a different label? I.E. Turkmenistan?
That is a pretty common state of affairs in the former republics (although Turkmenistan should get notice just for how utterly bizarre its Post-Soviet strongman was).

It just seems interesting how little interest there was on the part of the strongmen to keep the labels and symbols of Soviet rule afterwards considering that they owed their positions to the Communist Party.

And in the Turkmenistani case, it is particularly odd as the Turkmen Communist Party was about as hardline as any SSR Communist Party right up until the end, rigid in its dialectic materialist dogma and completely uncompromising in its opposition to the existence of markets at even the lowest level. Niyazov went from banal repetitions of party talking points and supporting the hardliner coup to being a bizarre Borat like caricature of a totalitarian tinpot dictator within a few years.
 
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