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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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