History Main / WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell

->''"In the old days, if an agent did something that embarrassing, he'd have the good sense to defect. ''Christ'', I miss the Cold War!"''

With the worsening of relations between Russia and the west in UsefulNotes/The2010s and UsefulNotes/The2020s, plus improved Russian ties with China (something that was a nightmare scenario for the west during the Cold War), this is increasingly becoming a DiscreditedTrope. The allegiances of the Cold War are still in function, there just isn't the same level of ideology involved that there was during the original run.

With the worsening of relations between Russia and the west in the 2020s and improved Russian ties with China (something that was a nightmare scenario for the west during the cold war) this is increasingly becoming a DiscreditedTrope. The cold war is essentially back, there just isn't the same level of ideology involved that there was during the original run.

* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is set in a NewWeird UrbanFantasy setting where a Communist revolution was quickly overwhelmed by an international coalition of governments bombing the city, putting all the Communists in front of a firing squad, and subjecting it to a form of 'gossamer state' economic liberalism that has left the ordinary people there extremely poor, without any democratic rights, and with Coalition airships circling overhead ready to bomb them again should any form of resistance arise. The game was made by Estonian developers and allegorises a lot of how this affected Estonia, from the burst of optimism as money and new technology flooded the country (for about eight years, followed by an absolutely gutting recession) to weird details such as the culture of [[FantasticDrug mass abuse of hallucinogenic anti-radiation drugs stockpiled by the Communists]].

** The series also features a criminal organization known as Hotel Moscow, which is composed of veterans of the Afghan War. It's leader, [[MagnificentBastard Balalaika]], is a disillusioned former Soviet Special Forces commander who turned to a life of crime after being screwed over by the government in the wake of the war. OTOH, the end of Fujiyama Gangsta's Paradise arc could be explained only by her being, you know,.. deep in the loop. Just undercover.

*** ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' gives us a case of "Why We're Bummed Communism is ABOUT to Fall" when Naked Snake [[spoiler: a.k.a. Big Boss]] meets Aleksandr Granin, the head of a Russian weapons lab. In between moaning about his glory days and how his recent projects have failed, Granin shows he sees the writing on the wall that the Soviet Union is not long for this world anymore, but he's too loyal to his country to leave.

May result in RussiaIsWestern.

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, PostSovietReunion, GermanicDepressives (for the East German variation), UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld (particularly 21st century onwards), TooGoodForExploiters. Contrast RedScare.

* Music/MolchatDoma: The miserable atmosphere of Post-Soviet Eastern Bloc states permeates all the imagery and themes of their music; however, based on their album covers' nightmarish presentation of old Soviet buildings, it's hard to argue they really present extant communist nations as utopian either.

* Music/PinkFloyd: According to David Gilmour, [[Music/TheDivisionBell "A Great Day for Freedom"]] is about the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, first focusing on the initial joy of liberation before veering into the chaos and disappointment that followed in the form of economic hardship throughout eastern Europe, the Yugoslav Wars, the Bosnian genocide, and the rise of new dictators to replace the old ones.

* UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest disaster of the 20th century.
* The book ''Revolution 1989'' describes Mikhail Gorbachev as a man who did "the right thing for the wrong reasons". Gorbachev did not relax the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe because he wanted to see the Soviet bloc go capitalist. He did it because the Eastern Bloc countries had become a serious economic drain on the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was, in fact, a committed Communist, and his program was quite similar to Alexander Dubcek's "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia a generation before. He thought that political repression was not necessary to maintain communism, genuinely believing that his own country and the USSR's satellites would choose communism of their own free will. To his credit, about 80 percent of Soviet citizens wanted to keep the Socialist state together; it's just that many members of the Communist Party thought there was no good way to turn back what had already been damaged, and decided to just end the state all together.

* An ad for [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain some company]] highlighted one of the hazards of the crumbling of the Soviet Bloc on a corporation with international business interests: it seemed that every second a new country was being formed (or unformed), necessitating new market update reports.

* [[http://i.imgur.com/PzfHR4n.png This subject is bit of a recurring theme in Polandball.]]

* Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest disaster of the 20th century.

* A common quote [[BeamMeUpScotty misattributed]] to UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin: "[[BeamMeUpScotty Whoever doesn't miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.]]" In the original context, he was actually ''criticizing'' that joke [[AvertedTrope for having such a romanticized view of politics]].

* Many people in the former Yugoslavia will, understandably, be nostalgic for the rule of UsefulNotes/JosipBrozTito after the [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars bloody religious wars]] [[CrapsackWorld and economic stagnation of the 90s]].
* Former citizens of East Germany have begun a trend of Ostalgie, a neologism combining Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). [[GermanicDepressives The rather sad economic state of what was once East Germany in the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall]] has led to many romanticizing the previous Soviet establishment. In Berlin, many people make a living by selling relics of the Soviet past such as Social Realist art, Soviet war medals, hats, and there is even a restaurant that specializes in selling East German food.
* When the USSR secured their hold on all the land previously owned by the Russian Empire, they decided to divide the country along ethnic lines, giving each major people group their own "Soviet Socialist Republic". Due to the fact that the areas inhabited by traditional [[ArchEnemy Arch Enemies]] the Azeris and Armenians overlapped somewhat, this resulted in an exclave of the Azerbaijan SSR being placed on the other side of the Armenian SSR, and the majority Armenian "Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast" being placed in the middle of Azeri territory. As long as everyone could move between the four areas and the Red Army and KGB were around to keep an eye on everyone, the ethnic tensions were kept quiet. When the central government collapsed, suddenly all those internal administrative boundaries became international borders, and war broke out over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence, Azerbaijan tried to assert control and Armenia tried to annex it. The conflict is still going on in some form to this day.
* Many citizens of old Soviet bloc countries miss Communism, because it's what they knew, [[GloryDays because they were important back then]], or, indeed — surprisingly enough for a Western reader — because they think they were more prosperous than they are now. [[note]]And the sad thing is that, at least in some of the former republics, these people have a point: while the Baltic republics did ''very'' well for themselves (jumpstarting their economies in TheNineties, rising to the status of Baltic Tigers and finally joining the EU, where they are in the comfortable mid-field, far ahead of the other members that were former Soviet satellite states) and Russia itself and Kazakhstan started to overcome their dramatic economic problems in the latter half of the TurnOfTheMillennium and definitely are doing way better than in Soviet times, other former republics have either stagnated economically (Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan) or taken a drastic turn for the worse (Ukraine, Moldova). And both Ukraine and Moldova got off comparatively lightly. Kyrgyzstan and ''especially'' Tajikistan basically turned from constituent members of a totalitarian, repressive, but economically ''somewhat'' viable and industrially developed superpower into barely functioning bottom-half-of-the-"Third-World" countries.[[/note]]

* In the Robert D. Kaplan book ''Eastward to Tartary'', he discusses what the fall of Communism meant to the former Eastern Bloc countries and he found that, not exactly surprisingly, the further West the country was, the easier they took the transition (this book dates to the late 1990s - ca. 2000, so things might be different today). In places such as Romania and Georgia, there's a huge struggle to cope with life in the post-Communist era; older Romanians are considered unemployable by Western firms, who find their secrecy and lack of teamwork antithetical to the capitalist way, and Georgians are regularly intimidated by ex-Olympic wrestlers who are employed by former members of the Soviet KGB to form corrupt corporations that exist as little more than gangs with offices. Georgia is also the home of Stalin's birthplace, a heart-breakingly poor town that lives off the Stalin legacy and with a high concentration of residents whom Kaplan found were exceptionally nostalgic for Communism and had nothing but good things to say about their native son. On the inverse, most of the ex-Soviet nations that border present-day Russia have come off rather well in the post-Soviet era.
* Academia in general suffered from this. There has now been a move away from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences--and towards engineering, business, and medical school--coinciding with the fall of the USSR. One of the most telling bits of information is that, for a while, 9 different engineering professions were in the top 10 for the most demand in the 2000s and are still up there in the 2010s. Ironically, arts, humanities and social sciences were discredited in the USSR because of their associations with intellectualism. Furthermore, the CIA actually used art as a weapon against the USSR. While Soviet artists stuck to "safe" realist art, the CIA promoted more abstract art as kind of a "this is why freedom is better" sort of tactic in the "Cultural Cold War". A senior CIA member, Thomas Braden, has gone on record saying, "The Boston Symphony Orchestra won more acclaim for the US in Paris than John Foster Dulles or Dwight D. Eisenhower could have brought with a hundred speeches". Indeed many Soviet artists started to sneak in more abstract themes in their art. Others outright defected to the West for greener pastures.
* Many engineers from the Soviet Union have faced difficulties adapting to the post-Soviet economy. Due to the organizational structure of Soviet engineering, with its concentration of most R&D in huge centralized Research Institutes, a lot of fresh engineers had found a cushy position where they could do essentially the same thing for all of their career, gradually losing any semblance of flexibility. Adapting to the more general nature of engineering outside of the Soviet Union was difficult.
* During the Cold War, competition between the United States-led West and the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc at the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames was incredibly intense, with heated patriotism on both sides of the Iron Curtain generating a great deal of the excitement. The Olympics ''literally'' became an ideological battlefield and a direct extension of the conflict. As a result, performances such as the Miracle On Ice at the 1980 Winter Games and the controversial finish in the Men’s Basketball Final at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich have a lasting impact on popular culture today. However, while in the immediate post-collapse era the lingering influence of the Soviets still intensified many of the competitions (such as the "Magnificent Seven" US women's gymnastics team winning Gold at the 1996 Games), the Olympics today have lost much of their relevance without the Cold War driving the rivalries.
* Many Americans miss the days when they had a clear enemy, versus the more nebulous, decentralized threat of modern terrorism. Some people honestly believe that a nation like the Soviet Union is necessary to fight terrorism because [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork they would be willing to go to extremes that democracies wouldn't]]. However, it must be said the Soviet Union had extreme trouble in Afghanistan, and indeed sponsored ''[[WesternTerrorists left-wing terrorism]]'' from TheSeventies to TheEighties, backing Carlos the Jackal, RZ and other groups as they conducted attacks and hijackings in the West.
** [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/07/the-top-10-reasons-american-politics-are-worse-than-ever/ This article]] best explains it; part of the reason [[WeAREStrugglingTogether the Republican and Democratic parties have become so polarized in the 21st century]] is because the collapse of the Soviet Union left the government without a common enemy to fight, so the two parties began to turn on each other.
* Even though the [=USSR=]/Eastern Europe and post-1990 China have stopped supporting pro-Communist rebel groups throughout the world, some of them still exist due to other factors such as government corruption or poor living standards.
* Despite the fact that even when the Union was around every rebel seemed to have an AKM rifle, it was nothing compared to today. The bunkers and storage facilities owned by Russia but outside of its territory that had to be abandoned with the collapse (and apparently no one bothering to lock the door on the way out) caused an explosive proliferation of small arms in the Third World.
* And the most telling result of the fall of Communism, for the West, has been a dramatic shift towards liberal capitalism and a narrowing of the political landscape; "socialist" and "labor" parties now stand for centrist free-market policy, and governments that think to institute policies of wealth redistribution or fund social welfare are branded as "radical". Such a lack of pluralism can be considered to have weakened post-cold war democracy.
** In an interesting variation, many Eastern Europeans are glad that communist rule ended but wish it haden't fallen like it did. These people would have understandably preferred if the USSR and its satellites had liberalized and eventually allowed for multi-party democracy rather than the whole system imploding. This would have avoided the economic troubles of the nineties and given communism a meaningful legacy as well a voice in modern Eastern Europe.
* In the years between the end of the cold war and UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations were as muddled as America's foreign policy. Where in previous years the FBI concentrated on rooting out Soviet spies and brutalizing Black Nationalists, TheNineties saw {{FBI agent}}s focusing on {{ecoterrorist}}s, {{Animal Wrongs Group}}s, and {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s. (The agency is also rumoured to have been behind the bombing that severely injured [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Bari Judi Bari]].) 9/11 gave the FBI a clear focus, though the fixation on Islamic extremism has allegedly let right-wing white domestic terrorists (despite then making up the vast majority of home-grown terrorism) slip through the cracks and continue to fixate on Black community organizers and activists, along with environmentalists.
* UsefulNotes/{{Nicaragua}} (a country many only dimly recall as the "Contra" half in "Iran Contra") had a leftist, Cuban/Soviet aligned government from 1979 (when it overthrew the [[HereditaryRepublic Somoza dynasty]]) to 1990 when - as part of a peace settlement brokered by UsefulNotes/CostaRica - free elections resulted in the loss of the Sandinista party under Daniel Ortega to a center-right led "anything but Ortega" coalition. Whatever the next sixteen years brought, apparently enough Nicaraguans were bummed enough by it that in 2006 they elected Ortega to the Presidency once more, when the center/right split the vote (Ortega won with just 34% of the vote, ironically his lowest percentage to date). Ortega's propaganda milks both the nostalgia and their - perceived or real - successes since 2006 for all they're worth and the old man (born 1946) shows no sign of letting go of power as of 2018.
* With the rise of far-right elements and domestic issues in Eastern Europe, in countries like Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and the Baltics many people have started to look back fondly on what the socialist state brought them even if they had issues with the way the socialist states ran things - they miss the sense of solidarity, comradeship and a feeling of safeness that existed back then and loathe the political unrest that has unfolded in today’s Europe.
* While Communism ended in Russia, most would hardly call what they got a free market. The Soviet Union organized its industries in bureaus, with each usually focused on an industry for its particular region if not the whole country[[note]]The one notable exception was in military matters, where there were multiple competing design bureaus for "redundancy."[[/note]] These were usually headed by extremely talented and loyal individuals (Kalashnikov), favored politicians (Mikoyan of Mig), high level bureaucrats or some combination there of. When the Soviet Union broke up, the new government decided to make these into [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime corporations and put the same sorts of people in charge.]] Suddenly the country was controlled by [[MegaCorp mega corps]] owned by politicians. Instant plutocracy. The worst part is that, as a lot of these companies own/are Soviet brands (yes, the Soviets had brands), a lot of modern Russian Communists ''don't actually want these companies to be broken up or regulated'' because they have major nostalgia factor. Everyone else though certainly has the right to be more than a little bummed about the whole thing.
** Ironically, though, this is one time where the Soviet Union's fixation on Russia was a good thing for all of the other constituent republics. Since most of these were headquartered in Russia, the other former Soviet states had the opportunity to divide their economies more sensibly.
** Interestingly, the state of much of the former Eastern Bloc resembles what UsefulNotes/AdamSmith derisively called "landlord capitalism," the term "landlord" here referring to former feudal lords. Much of Smith's writings were an attempt to prevent this situation, where the elites of a former economic system have a huge advantage in the new economy because they now have private ownership of things that were awarded to them to manage for societies' collective benefit. Just as the former nobles once used their estates to enrich themselves while no longer providing protection, food, or shelter to their peasants, the former members of the Communist Party and their family have used their industries to exploit the working class. Ironically, the failure to fully resolve such a situation, even if the nobility was keen on some of Smith's other ideas, also led to the writings of Marx.
* Several states in Northern Italy - most prominently Emilia-Romagna [[note]] and possibly Marche, although that state usually flip-flopped between the Communists and the Socialists [[/note]]- were governed by the Communists during most of the Cold War era - and very successfully so. [[https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/25/archives/bologna-the-communist-keynote-city.html?fbclid=IwAR1b8uwvU1OwN55kCYw_5rVyJJl1jKwYxtjlq9FNNIIKcNM_5CyQxhq-I9E This article]] from 1972 notes the Regions' status as a keynote for Eurocommunist parties. Since the Italian Communist Party dissolved in the nineties, however, corruption has increased again and the shift to the centre of its successor, the Democratic Party, has made many Italians disillusioned with left-wing politics.
* Many women's artistic gymnastics fans long for the days when, as they see it, artistry and grace dominated the sport. The Soviets won an unheard-of ''nine'' back-to-back team Olympic gold medals,[[note]]The Soviet women took home gold at every Olympics they competed in, not winning in 1984 (Romania won instead) only because of the boycott; their winning streak lasted from 1952 to ''1992''.[[/note]] and on any list of the greatest gymnasts of all time, a minimum of seventy percent are guaranteed to be Soviet.[[note]]The others will be Romanian or East German, with maybe ''one'' American (almost certainly Shannon Miller) on the list.[[/note]] The Soviets, with their national training center, massive government funding, thousands of aspiring athletes, and in-house choreographer, emphasized line, artistry, dance, and grace in their gymnastics, and no one will dispute that their routines, and floor exercises in particular, are of a standard that may never be reached again. There is a reason why the Golden Age of Women's Gymnastics is said to have ended with the 1992 Olympics. But because the government demanded success at any price, the system's TrainingFromHell means that dark brutality lurked in the shadows behind the blazing lights of the Soviet greats, and many of the stories hidden in that darkness would give any parent nightmares.
* The Soviet dominance of pairs figure skating and ice dancing. Although that actually lasted long after the fall of Communism, it's no longer a guarantee that a Russian pair will be standing on top of the podium. Meanwhile, their newfound dominance in ''singles'' skating has come under threat for the same reason of their brutal training regimen being exposed.
* The fall of old-style Communism has been hard for people on the seriously far, Stalinist, Left. In the old days, the sort of people who pined for an all-powerful Leader who would guide and steer Revolution in formerly decadent capitalist nations, those looking for an idol and whose only complaint about Joseph Stalin was that he could be too soft and forgiving, they had a lot of choices for a Leader to worship. Stalin himself, Mao Ze-dong, Enver Hoxha of Albania, Jaruzelski of Poland, Ceaucescu of Romania... as totalitarian Communism has ebbed and died and the Leaders have fallen, the choice of Great Leader has shrunk to one: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Friendship_Association Kim-Yong-Il]]. Leftists have largely moved on to more moderate social democratic and green politics, which place more emphasis on individual freedom and don't look to strongman leaders.
* Some right-wing commenters have lamented that younger generations, especially in America, are becoming more drawn towards left-wing politics because the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused the specter of the RedScare to fade away, and to not resonate with people who grew up or were born in the post-Cold War era.
* For the former Marxist-Leninist nations in Africa and in the Middle East like Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia and South Yemen, many of their citizens have also looked back on their former Socialist pasts with appreciation and because they feel life meant something back in those days and decry the current day governments and politicians for selling out and becoming rich while most of their population are living in squalor like Angola and Mozambique and Benin - and that’s not even getting into the wartorn nations like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.
* More than one American small town built itself up around military bases during the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of these bases either scaled back or shut down entirely, and the soldiers left, taking the local economy with it and leading to depopulation and high rates of unemployment and poverty.

* ''Film/{{Ronin}}''. In fact the title is based on the notion that former Cold War agents are now like the {{Ronin}} samurai.

* ''Film/{{Brother}}'' deals with it. It's in the background, but it's there.

* In the Robert D. Kaplan book ''Eastward to Tartary'', he discusses what the fall of Communism meant to the former Eastern Bloc countries and he found that, not exactly surprisingly, the further West the country was the easier they took the transition (this book dates to the late 1990s - ca. 2000 so things might be different today). In places such as Romania and Georgia, there's a huge struggle to cope with life in the post-Communist era; older Romanians are considered unemployable by Western firms who find their secrecy and lack of teamwork antithetical to the capitalist way, and Georgians are regularly intimidated by ex-Olympic wrestlers who are employed by former members of the Soviet KGB to form corrupt corporations that exist as little more than gangs with offices. Georgia is also the home of Stalin's birthplace, a heart-breakingly poor town that lives off the Stalin legacy and with a high concentration of residents whom Kaplan found were exceptionally nostalgic for Communism and had nothing but good things to say about their native son. On the inverse, most of the ex-Soviet nations that border present-day Russia have come off rather well in the post-Soviet era.

* During the Cold War, competition between the United States-led West and the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc at the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames was incredibly intense, with heated patriotism on both sides of the Iron Curtain generating a great deal of the excitement. The Olympics ''literally'' became an ideological battlefield and a direct extension of the conflict. As a result, performances such as the Miracle On Ice at the 1980 Winter Games and the controversial finish in the Men’s Basketball Final at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich have a lasting impact on popular culture today. However while in the immediate post-collapse era the lingering influence of the Soviets still intensified many of the competitions (such as the "Magnificent Seven" US women's gymnastics team winning Gold at the 1996 Games), the Olympics today have lost much of their relevance without the Cold War driving the rivalries.

* Even though the [=USSR=]/Eastern Europe and post-1990 China has stopped supporting pro-Communist rebel groups in Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, some of them still exist due to other factors such as government corruption or poor living standards.
* Despite the fact that even when the Union was around every rebel seemed to have an AKM rifle, it was nothing compared to today. The bunkers and storage facilities owned by Russia but outside of its territory that had to be abandoned with the collapse (and apparently no one bothering to lock the door on the way out) caused an explosive proliferation of small arms in the 3rd world.

* In the years between the end of the cold war and UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations were as muddled as America's foreign policy. Where in previous years the FBI concentrated on rooting out Soviet spies and brutalizing Black Nationalists, TheNineties saw {{FBI agent}}s focusing on {{ecoterrorist}}s, {{Animal Wrongs Group}}s, and {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s. (The agency is also rumoured to have been behind the bombing that severely injured [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Bari Judi Bari]].) 9/11 gave the FBI a clear focus, though the fixation on Islamic extremism has allegedly let right-wing white domestic terrorists (despite then making up the vast majority of home-grown terrorism) slip through the cracks and continues to fixate on Black community organizers and activists, along with environmentalists.

* With the rise of far-right elements and domestic issues in Eastern Europe, in countries like Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and the Baltics many people have started to look back fondly on what the socialist state brought them even if they had issues with the way the socialist states ran things, they miss the sense of solidarity, comradeship and a feel of safeness that existed back then and loathe the political unrest they has unfolded in today’s Europe.
* While communism ended in Russia, most would hardly call what they got a free market. The Soviet Union organized its industries in bureaus, with each usually focused on an industry for its particular region of not the whole country[[note]]The one notably exception was in military matters were there were multiple competing design bureaus for "redundancy."[[/note]] These were usually headed by extremely talented and loyal individuals (Kalashnikov), favored politicians (Mikoyan of Mig), high level bureaucrats or some combination there of. When the Soviet Union broke up, the new government decided to make these into [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime corporations and put the same sorts of people in charge.]] Suddenly the country was controlled by [[MegaCorp mega corps]] owned by politicians. Instant plutocracy. The worst part is that, as a lot of these companies own/are Soviet brands (yes, the Soviets had brands), a lot of modern Russian communists ''don't actually want these companies to be broken up or regulated'' because they have major nostalgia factor. Everyone else though certainly has the right to be more than a little bummed about the whole thing.

** Interestingly, the state of much of the former Eastern Bloc resembles what UsefulNotes/AdamSmith derisively called "landlord capitalism," the term "landlord" here referring to former feudal lords. Much of Smith's writings were an attempt to prevent this situation, where the elites of a former economic system have a huge advantage in the new economy because they now have private ownership of things that were awarded to them to manage for societies collective benefit. Just as the former nobles once used their estates to enrich themselves while no longer providing protection, food, or shelter to their peasants, the former members of the communist party and their family have used their industries to exploit the working class. Ironically, the failure to fully resolve such a situation, even if the nobility was keen on some of Smith's other ideas, also led to the writings of Marx.
* Several states in Northern Italy - most prominently Emilia-Romagna [[note]] and possibly Marche, although that state usually flip-flopped between the Communists and the socialists [[/note]]- were governed by the communists during most of the Cold War era - and very successfully so. [[https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/25/archives/bologna-the-communist-keynote-city.html?fbclid=IwAR1b8uwvU1OwN55kCYw_5rVyJJl1jKwYxtjlq9FNNIIKcNM_5CyQxhq-I9E This article]] from 1972 notes the Regions status as a keynote for Eurocommunist parties. Since the Italian Communist Party dissolved in the nineties, however, corruption has increased again and the shift to the centre of its successor, the Democratic Party, has made many Italians disillusioned with left-wing politics.

* The Soviet dominance of pairs figure skating and ice dancing. Although that actually lasted long after the fall of communism, it's no longer a guarantee that a Russian pair will be standing on top of the podium. Meanwhile, their newfound dominance in ''singles'' skating has come under threat for the same reason of their brutal training regimen being exposed.

* For the former Marxist-Leninist nations in Africa and in the Middle East like Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia and South Yemen many of its citizens have also looked back on their former Socialist pasts with appreciation and because they feel life meant something back in those days and decry the current day governments and politicians for selling out and becoming rich while most of their population is living in squalor like Angola and Mozambique and Benin and that’s not even getting into the wartorn nations like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

* Many women's artistic gymnastics fans long for the days when, as they see it, artistry and grace dominated the sport. The Soviets won an unheard-of ''nine'' back-to-back team Olympic gold medals,[[note]]The Soviet women took home gold at every Olympics they competed in, not winning in 1984 (Romania won instead) only because of the boycott; their winning streak lasted from 1952 to ''1992''.[[/note]] and on any list of the greatest gymnasts of all time, a minimum of seventy percent are guaranteed to be Soviet.[[note]]The others will be Romanian or East German, with maybe ''one'' American (almost certainly Shannon Miller) on the list.[[/note]] The Soviets, with their national training center, massive government funding, thousands of aspiring athletes, and in-house choreographer, emphasized line, artistry, dance, and grace in their gymnastics, and no one will dispute that their routines, and floor exercises in particular, are of a standard that may never be reached again. There is a reason why the Golden Age of Women's Gymnastics is said to have ended with the 1992 Olympics. But because the government demanded success at any price, the system's TrainingFromHell means that dark brutality lurked in the shadows behind the blazing lights of the Soviet greats, and many of the stories hidden in that darkness would give any parent nightmares. The same attitude applies to the Soviet dominance of pairs figure skating and ice dancing. Although that actually lasted long after the fall of communism, it's no longer a guarantee that a Russian pair will be standing on top of the podium. Meanwhile, their newfound dominance in ''singles'' skating has come under threat for the same reason of their brutal training regimen being exposed.

* Former citizens of East Germany have begun a trend of Ostalgie, a neologism combining Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). The rather sad economic state of what was once East Germany in the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall has led to many romanticizing the previous Soviet establishment. In Berlin, many people make a living by selling relics of the Soviet past such as Social Realist art, Soviet war medals, hats, and there is even a restaurant that specializes in selling East German food.

* Many women's artistic gymnastics fans long for the days when, as they see it, artistry and grace dominated the sport. The Soviets won an unheard-of ''nine'' back-to-back team Olympic gold medals,[[note]]The Soviet women took home gold at every Olympics they competed in, not winning in 1984 (Romania won instead) only because of the boycott; their winning streak lasted from 1952 to ''1992''.[[/note]] and on any list of the greatest gymnasts of all time, a minimum of seventy percent are guaranteed to be Soviet.[[note]]The others will be Romanian or East German, with maybe ''one'' American (almost certainly Shannon Miller) on the list.[[/note]] The Soviets, with their national training center, massive government funding, thousands of aspiring athletes, and in-house choreographer, emphasized line, artistry, dance, and grace in their gymnastics, and no one will dispute that their routines, and floor exercises in particular, are of a standard that may never be reached again. There is a reason why the Golden Age of Women's Gymnastics is said to have ended with the 1992 Olympics. But because the government demanded success at any price, the system's TrainingFromHell means that dark brutality lurked in the shadows behind the blazing lights of the Soviet greats, and many of the stories hidden in that darkness would give any parent nightmares.

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, GermanicDepressives (for the East German variation), UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld (particularly 21st century onwards), TooGoodForExploiters. Contrast RedScare.

* In a sketch on ''The Creator/BenStiller Show'', Stiller pretends to be Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff trying to keep his career going after the fall of communism. It doesn't go well. The real Smirnoff is actually doing pretty well, with a year-round show in Branson, Missouri and teaching gigs at various universities.

* ''Film/JamesBond'': The CentralTheme of films made after 1991 deal with the relevance of 007 in a post-Cold War era.

* In the years between the end of the cold war and UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations were as muddled as America's foreign policy. Where in previous years the FBI concentrated on rooting out Soviet spies and brutalizing Black Nationalists, TheNineties saw {{FBI agent}}s focusing on {{ecoterrorist}}s, {{Animal Wrongs Group}}s, and {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s. (The agency is also rumoured to have been behind the bombing that severely injured [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Bari Judi Bari]].) 9/11 gave the FBI a clear focus, though the fixation on Islamic extremism has allegedly let domestic terrorists slip through the cracks and the focus on Black Nationalists remains strong.

* This is a major point in ''Film/{{Severance}}'', as the [[{{Uberwald}} area]] the main characters are camping in happens to be an ex-compound where Soviet commandos were imprisoned when they couldn't be de-programmed after the Soviet fall. It's supposed there might be one left that escaped into the woods. [[spoiler: They're wrong. [[OhCrap There are several]].]]