[nilof]

I believe most people on this board are quite familiar with the fact that most russians would like to forget as much as possible of the 90s. Being able to pick and choose between being reduced from a superpower to a backwater local power, the crashing economy and the growing crime as the worst that had happened to russia/su did make the Communist party very popular at the time. If I am not mistaken, they had 48% of the votes in 96.

So I'm wondering, what would have happened if say, Jeltsin for some reason was not a candidate, allowing the commies to take over?

I believe it would be interesting to see a case where people in a former socialist republic, after having tried capitalism, reverted back to socialism after a democratic vote.

How would other countries react to that kind of event? Would it have caused a domino effect, causing other countries to swich to communism? Would the US have claimed the election to have been faked?

Discuss.