Chummy Commies

Note: This was before Dirty Communists was cool.

"I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

— Margaret Thatcher

The Communist bloc was locked in a Cold War with the Western world for much of the twentieth century. It's no surprise then that Western, and especially American, media tends to portray Communists as the baddies. Sometimes, however, fiction shows Communists in a more positive light — or at least, one more positive than that in which the Nazis will ever be portrayed (despite former Nazis similarly becoming American allies — and citizens! — during the Cold War). Maybe agents or soldiers from East and West have to team up to face a greater threat, collectively raising their Hammers and Sickles to defend their people rather than conquering others. Sometimes a non-Communist will find out that the Commies aren't so different once they get to know them. And sometimes, Western media will simply show Communists to be genuinely decent people who happen to favour a different social and economic system.

Though obviously virtually nonexistent in the Cold War, this was the default portrayal of the Soviet Union during World War II, during which the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union fought on the same side against Nazi Germany. American propaganda of the time heavily emphasized the "strong leadership" and "great industry" of the Soviet Union, while conveniently ignoring the atrocities committed by the Soviet leaders. As a result, many Americans and Brits who were critical of the Soviet Union — including George Orwell — found it impossible to get their work published because supporting the Soviet Union was seen as necessary for the war effort.

This trope is likely to manifest in works where Capitalism Is Bad. Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be, and as communism fell over 30 years ago, it is easy to contrast the "evil" capitalism with the proclaimed goals of communism (end of poverty, universal equality, better life conditions for the working class, etc), while conveniently ignoring the brutalities and fallacies committed by communist countries, and even their disastrous actual results in achieving such goals. Che Guevara is particularly benefited by this, treated akin to a rock star by many music bands.

Note that this trope applies only to non-Communist media, since it's a given for works actually produced in Communist countries. Also, when there's a political system involved and not just individual characters, the trope applies only if the system is portrayed positively. It can also apply to Communists who live in a non-Communist country.

Compare Heroic Russian Émigré, when the commies are actually bad, but the Russian White émigrés who escaped them are portrayed as good guys. Contrast Dirty Communists, Red Scare, Commie Nazis, Hollywood History. Interestingly, the Token Enemy Minority can overlap with this trope. The Working-Class Hero is a related trope.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• In a manner similar to the American-written Soviet superheroes below, Black Lagoon's own Balalaika, head of the Russian mob, may count, albeit an Affably Evil version of this: she is an ex-captain in the Soviet Airborne Troops, and almost certainly an ex-Communist Party member (the party itself may be illegal in her time), and is downright chummy and friendly with the Lagoon Company's employees on most occasions.
• Soviet pilot Jung Freud in Gunbuster is a uniformed officer and a patriotic communist (of either the Eurasian or East German variety), though her initial prickliness is owed more to her appointed role as the main character's competitor in romance and combat than anything ideological, and she very quickly becomes one Noriko's dear friend.
• Various characters in Monster who were formerly members of the rank and file in the Eastern bloc, and continue to maintain some loyalty to the old socialist system, are portrayed as well-intentioned and/or reasonable, if still generally flawed in their methods. For instance, General Wolf and his men aid and encourage Tenma in his quest to seek out and kill Johan Liebert (since Wolf was the one who saved Johan and his twin sister from death during his time as an East German border patrol officer and then left Johan in the care of 511 Kinderheim, thereby allowing Johan to continue and expand on his reign of terror), while the leader of the criminal remnants of the Czechoslovakian secret police, Karel Ranke, prefers negotiating with Tenma and Grimmer for access to the contents of a certain tape rather than torturing or killing them in pursuit of this information, and later willingly consents to providing Inspector Lunge with information about the Red Rose Mansion and what occurred there.

Comic Books

• Batman: In Batman: Zero Year, one of Bruce's mentors, Gadgeteer Genius Sergei, worked at the Kremlin during the Cold War and might be the most pleasant and amiable mentor to appear in any of the book's flashbacks, despite being a Sink or Swim Mentor at times.
• Blacksad: Alma Mayer is one of John Blacksad's love interests and is heavily implied to be a communist or communist sympathizer.
• The Boys: Vas, a former superhero for the Soviet Union who is an ardent communist and deplores what the Russia of the early 2000s has become. He's also the kindest, most genuine, and most affable character in the comic, with the only possible exception being main character Wee Hughie himself. Even Billy Butcher, whose plan is to kill every person with the super compound in their blood, even his closest friends, likes Vas.
• The DCU: The Rocket Red Brigade.
• The Flash: One late 80's storyline involved Wally West working with Fidel Castro to stop alien invaders. Castro then threw him a birthday party.
• Great Ten: Gu Lao, the Socialist Red Guardsman.
• Legion of Super-Heroes: The insectoid alien Gates is a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes and a communist. This was played up a lot more in his early appearances, where he would constantly complain about the United Planets' capitalist society; eventually, the writers seemed to decide this aspect of his personality was a little awkward and quietly phased it out.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Collective Man, a Marvel Comics superhero who is China's equivalent of Captain America.
  • The Soviet Super-Soldiers (a group of Red Army officers with superhuman powers) frequently teamed up with the Avengers and other mostly-American heroes against villains that threatened both the US and USSR. Eventually they turned against their government and were replaced by the Supreme Soviets, though after the USSR fell the two teams merged to form the Winter Guard.
• Persepolis: Marjane's Uncle Anoosh is a kind, friendly communist whom she adores. A number of other communists appear too, some noble, others hypocrites, but portrayed positively overall while friendly with Marjane. Because of her uncle, Marjane grows up with picturing God as Karl Marx, having her own kind of Islamic/Marxist hybrid philosophy. After losing faith in God, she still has a radical leftist point of view and hangs around with communists or anarchists.
• Thunderbolts: Once he joins the Thunderbolts, the Chinese Radioactive Man is this, being genuinely more altruistic than his teammates, who are all Boxed Crooks.
• X-Men: Colossus is a Gentle Giant and was usually depicted as something of a patriot for the Soviet Union, though the sliding timeline means this has largely since moved on to just pride for simply Russian heritage.

Fan Works

• On the Shoulders of Giants has the Soviet Union sticking around well into the 22nd century, with the aid of some Imported Alien Phlebotinum and a an accidentally-created AI who is running their economy more or less single-handed and doing it very well, but the Cold War kind of fizzled out after the horde of genocidal alien death-bots showed up.
• In Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls, there's the Soviet Destroyer Tashkent, who's depicted in a very positive light, as well as becoming the best of friends with Maury.
• In Earth's Alien History, the Soviet Union becomes a pretty fair and friendly place as the centuries go by, mostly thanks to the leadership of Superman.
• Real-Time Fandub's portrayal of Bismuth is one of these, given a Russian accent (though she's actually Ukrainian) and espousing Communist ideals whilst being a mostly friendly Large Ham. She does still attack Steven at the end of her first appearance, though.
• Tarkin's Fist: Downplayed. Loi Cas is one of the story's protagonists and serves the officially Communist People's Republic of China. Furthermore, he is briefly mentioned to be an actual member of the Communist Party of China. However, Loi Cas never makes any statement whatsoever that even hints to him being ideologically predisposed to Communism. Truth in Television, as many professionals hoping to get ahead in one party socialist states often joined the ruling party, not out of genuine belief in the party's ideology, but to simply make career advancement easier.

Films — Live-Action

• Despite activating the Doomsday Machine in Dr. Strangelove, the Soviets did this only because the original General Ripper ordered a nuclear attack, and the "trigger" for the machine was automated. Also, both the American and the Soviet president do their best to avoid a nuclear war.
• X-Men: First Class depicts the USSR and USA as being similar, since both are being fooled by Big Bad Sebastian Shaw and both believe they're being threatened by the other. Also, even if Azazel, the only (supposedly) Communist mutant, is an evil henchman, he's more about Pragmatic Villainy and is definitively better than former Nazi Shaw.
• Mission to Moscow, an American pro-Soviet wartime film, depicts an American diplomat's visit to the USSR in a very positive light.
• The English-language narration track of 1942 Soviet war documentary Moscow Strikes Back insists on classing Stalin's Russia as one of "the free peoples of the world."
• The North Star (later known as Armoured Attack) is an American film from 1943 that depicts heroic Soviet resistance to the Nazis. It was recut during the Cold War to remove the pro-Soviet message.
• Goodbye Lenin takes place during and immediately after the collapse of the communist countries in Europe. Most of the characters seem to be quite okay with the change in leadership and their new freedoms, but the protagonist's mother is a loyal member of the communist regime and after suffering a stroke at the beginning of the uprisings, spends the whole transition in a coma. To keep her from having another stroke after waking up, everyone tries to keep the changes secret from her and nobody seems to hold any grudges against her.
• In the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, and The Living Daylights, the Communist government of Russia is portrayed as a Worthy Opponent and a temporary ally against a greater threat. In For Your Eyes Only, they were antagonists, but Friendly Enemy antagonists and ultimately never come to blows with Bond. All of these films were made during the era of detente between the Soviets and the West. The novels which the films loosely adapt, however, avert this. Communists were, befitting a series written and set in the 1950s, the primary antagonist.
• The Don Camillo stories (but especially the movies with Fernandel and Gino Cervi) portrayed the conflict between the local parish priest and the Communist mayor in a small Italian town shortly after the end of World War 2. Despite being so different ideologically, the two men respect each other and both are shown to only want what is best for the town people. Subverted, however, in Don Camillo in Moscow. Justified by being an Italian series, thus coming from the Western country with the largest and most powerful left wing of the Cold War in which the Communists had gained a great deal of respect by being one of the main forces in the Resistance to both the Fascists and, later in the war, the Nazis (and in fact the mayor is a former partisan).
• In The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, the Soviets are clearly more victims of circumstance than villains.
• Greg from Sneakers was originally a spy from the Soviet Union, portrayed fairly sympathetically. However, since the film was completed only after the end of the Cold War, he was changed into a spy operating for the new Russian government.
• A glowing example is Red Heat, a late '80s action-comedy flick (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, no less) about a badass Soviet police officer sent to America to help capture a notorious Georgian drug baron. The film is mostly forgotten in the US but is something of a Cult Classic in Russia.
• Russian spy Kropotkin in The President's Analyst (1967)-he's best friends with his American counterpart as they're often working on the same job on opposite sides. He's determined to get the fugitive doctor to Russia by any means but would prefer to do it as friends, appealing to his sense of reason and self-preservation.
• The Soviet characters who show up in 2001: A Space Odyssey are friendly enough to Heywood Floyd (remember, nobody thought the USSR was going anywhere in 1968). 2010: The Year We Make Contact actually centers on a joint US-Soviet mission (to recover Discovery after the previous weirdness) although in the film version, it's fraught with tension (not so much the Clarke novel, though), reflecting the renewed frosty relations of the countries in the early 1980s.
• Enemy at the Gates has the Russians as an Anti-Hero nation opposing the far more evil Nazis. The main characters are heroic Russians who are fighting against monstrous odds to defend their homeland. However, the film portrays the Russian government as pitiless, poor, and corrupt. In one scene, half of the new Russian conscripts are only given a clip of ammo and told to take the rifle of their partner "when" (not "if") he is shot. In another scene, a group of conscripts flee battle and are shot in the back by their commanders, something you'd rarely see in an American film even though desertion is just as much a capital offense. Much is also made of the government's inflation of the main character's deeds as propaganda.
• In Pan's Labyrinth the badass heroes of La Résistance are explicitly communist. Which makes perfect sense since the film is set in Francoist Spain.
• In The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), Illya Kuryakin probably embodies more traits of the stereotypical Cold War Soviet agent than his counterpart in the original TV series, but he is still portrayed as a good-intentioned, honourable man who will even take the time to be polite to civilians while chasing an enemy agent through East Berlin. And while his superior in the KGB is portrayed as less altruistic and trustworthy than Kuryakin, he is not shown to be any more villainous than his CIA counterpart.
• The supporting cast of would-be commie caricatures in Spies Like Us are great examples. Americans Millbarge and Fitz-Hume end up working and playing with the Soviet squad they initially sought to infiltrate and dispatch.
• Wild Wind has Yugoslavian Partisans and a Russian soldier as allies of the American agents.
• In The Hunt for Red October there is Dr. Petrov, who is the only officer onboard Red October who is not in on the plan to defect and as such gets treated as an antagonist. He is also one of the most sympathetic characters in the film, consistently portrayed as a skilled, conscientious medical man who puts the welfare of the crew above anything, and whose only real flaws are his loyalty to his country and his blind belief in Communism.
• The Shape of Water features Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, who acts as The Mole in the United States government facility holding "the Asset". Despite being a spy for the Soviet Union, he defies his orders to eliminate the Asset and helps the protagonist smuggle the creature out of the government lab to save its life. His KGB superiors, on the other hand, are very much Dirty Communists.
• Matewan:
  • Although labor unions are traditionally associated with left-wing politics, the only character who is explicitly stated to be really a "Red" is Joe Kenehan, a kind, friendly, charismatic Actual Pacifist (though as a former Wobbly, he's probably a syndicalist, advocating a worker-run economy, rather than government control).
  • Although it's not explicitly stated, at least some of the Italian miners are definitely at least socialists; after they all declare themselves for the union, they all march off singing 'The Red Flag', an Italian socialist/communist anthem which includes the line "Long live socialism and liberty!"
  • Danny in the narration at the end says he advocated "One Big Union" as his new "religion" for the rest of his life after the events at Matewan.
• 13 Minutes: The film portrays German Communists positively (mostly because they're enemies of the Nazis). Elser's literally chummy with them, as though he isn't a Party member himself he joins the Red Front, an associated group they set up, to fight Nazism (before it's suppressed after they take power).
• Surprisingly, in the vehemently anti-Soviet Nazi Germany, there was at least a pro-Russian film released in 1940, "The Postmaster", an adaptation of a short Alexander Pushkin story. It is absolutely no coincidence that it was made during the brief period when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was in use, and once it was broken, the film was quickly censored.

Literature

• In the Phryne Fisher mysteries Bert and Cec are "red raggers" (communists) and members of the Industrial Workers of The World (a very radical, militant union) and are good friends with the heroine and overall very nice guys.
• Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage 2: Destination Brain (despite the name, it's not a sequel to his novelization of Fantastic Voyage — it's more of a remake) presents the image of a world where the Cold War has mellowed out to the point that the colours on maps are muted (the Soviet bloc is pink, the Western Allies are light blue). Despite the story starting off with the Soviets kidnapping the American protagonist, the Soviet characters are still presented in a sympathetic light (in fact, for most of the story they aren't antagonistic at all, it's just that the USSR and the USA are still rivals, so it wouldn't do to just ask a US scientist to help you with something that could bring you a significant technological advantage).
• In Harry Harrison's Invasion: Earth, the US and the USSR work together when the alien craft crash-lands in New York, the latter sending a female linguist (who, despite expectations, does not end up with the male American protagonist) to help translate the alien language. That turns out to be moot since the aliens have learned English and Russian by listening to transmissions from Earth. During the climax, an American/Soviet team is assembled to strike at the alien base in the Antarctic made up of soldiers born in Denver and Tomsk, two of the cities destroyed by Orbital Bombardment. It's not stated if French soldiers from the also destroyed Metz are included.
• In Carl Sagan's original novel Contact (unlike the film), the Soviet Union is a predictable rival to the United States to build the Machine, but Dr. Arroway's Soviet counterpart, "Vaygay" Lunacharsky, who helps keeps telescopes pointed at Vega is a close friend and often more help than the United States government. Surprisingly, he's established both as a fairly devout intellectual communist and reluctant to publicly criticize the United States.
• The Anderssons:
  • Elin is a Communist and mostly portrayed in a positive light. Notably, she is, despite her political leanings, devastated by how things turned out in Hungary in 1956.
  • Robert Karlsson, one of Elin's best friends, is a more complicated case. Often, he is portrayed as a fanatic in his Communist beliefs. But he's a genuinely good-hearted man most of the time, and not even he likes Stalin.
• The Spellsinger novels have Falameezar, a dragon who got bonked on the head by a copy of Das Kapital that fell through a gate between worlds. He's a bit of a Knight Templar and still willing to eat sentient beings, but as Jon-Tom is a liberal college student from the 70s he's very familiar with Marx's writings and thus is able to recruit him to their cause.
• In Lucifer's Hammer, a joint Apollo-Soyuz mission to study the comet means two of the four people involved are USSR kosmonauts, General Pieter Jakov and Dr. Leonilla Malik. They get along quite well with the Americans, and for the most part, the four of them are more loyal to each other than to anyone else. When the comet hits, the bond nearly breaks when Rick Delanty sees the Soviets have launched nuclear missiles while Dr. Malik points out there's already a mushroom cloud above Moscow, but Jakov is the one to notice that the Soviet missiles are headed to China, which actually launched first; the USSR requested, and received, an alliance with the US against this unprovoked attack, and dialogue indicates the alliance persists past the very short war. Even after returning to Earth, while there's some initial discomfort about having Soviets in the conservative area in which they land, Jakov remains a committed Communist (though Malik quietly renounces Communism), and "Comrade" is readily accepted into, and a valued member of, the post-impact community.

Live Action TV

• Soviet Storm: World War II in the East, being a Russian-made series, portrays the Soviets rather sympathetically.
• Head of the Class: In one episode the Class is up against a touring Soviet superteam in an academic trivia meet. They get to know each other a little and decide in the end to let the meet end in a draw rather than Sudden Death overtime.
• Illya Kuryakin from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a Soviet agent working for the international spy agency UNCLE. At least one episode indicates that he holds an official position in the Soviet military, so he's presumably a loyal Communist.
• A Soviet representative appears in an episode of Dad's Army. There is a discussion about whether the "Reds" can be trusted; Captain Mainwaring argues that they must be alright "otherwise they wouldn't be on our side".
• On the The Munsters episode "Herman the Master Spy", a scuba diving Herman gets caught by a Soviet fishing trawler. They're generally portrayed as pretty nice people, although the stereotype about Russians being drunkards is in full effect.
• Northern Exposure: Cicely gets its annual visit from Nikoli Applanov, a famous Soviet chess player. He likes to come to Cicely to relax and get away from his adoring fans back home. Everybody loves him except Maurice, who hates him because he's a Communist.
• Pavel Chekov of Star Trek. Of course, the Soviet Union would be gone long before the twenty-third century, but no one knew that at the time and, while Chekov only refers to his home country as "Russia", he does make some Soviet-era references, such as referring to St. Petersburg as "Leningrad". If you subscribe to the theory that The Federation is communist, then everyone in the series counts.
• Doctor Who:
  • The story "The Curse of Fenric" featured sympathetic Russian soldiers attempting to steal a British codebreaking machine in World War II. The actual plot featured a dark god from the dawn of time manifesting, and part of the story's subtext was the unity of the little people in the face of larger tyrannical and/or destructive forces.
  • This applies to most of the crew of the Soviet submarine in "Cold War", but especially Western music fan Professor Grisenko. It's really only Political Officer Stepashin who doesn't fit the trope.
• Lovecraft Country: Young-Ja, Ji-Ah's best friend, is a Communist spy and portrayed sympathetically. Her being shot for spying (without trial) is clearly shown as wrong, along with a supposed Communist man's lynching. The point is likely not sympathy for Communists per se, but to show up Anti-Communist hysteria, and that such acts were very similar to racist murders in the US (ironically, given Atticus—an African-American soldier—shot her).
• A French Village: The Communists are portrayed, if not wholly positively (they can be quite ruthless, and many rigidly follow the Party line even when it's misguided) at least somewhat sympathetically. However, many non-Communist characters dislike them greatly. This isn't entirely unjustified as, while they're on the "good" side, they still wish to take control over the entire Resistance and later France.
• Tipping the Velvet (2002): Florence and Ralph. Both are committed socialists and easily the nicest people aside from Nan in the story. Nan joins them later.
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: As with the novels, Cec and Bert are both socialists, though in the series only Bert is a card-carrying member. They are both deeply loyal to Phryne despite the giant class gap (viz. she's not only rich but a member of the British gentry) because her upbringing on the wrong side of the Yarra left her with a good sense of the real world (even as she reveled in the delights her inherited wealth allowed her to enjoy).
• Conversations with Friends: Frances is a shy, sweet-natured communist who isn't that outspoken and says she's not very committed to it. She's the protagonist as well.
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: While the show is far more likely to feature Dirty Commies when communist countries appear, there are exceptions. "Hot Line" features two Soviet scientists, Malinoff and Gronski, who are sent to help deactivate the nuclear reactor aboard a crashed Soviet rocket before it irradiates the nearby San Francisco. Both men act polite and helpful toward the crew, and while Gronski is an imposter and saboteur, the real Gronski behaves pleasantly before he's killed or drugged and then replaced. Malinoff undergoes a crash course in diving so that he can deactivate the device underwater without complaint and cordially drinks a toast with the Seaview's officers at the end of the episode.
• Zig-zagged in some Murder, She Wrote episodes, which portrays the Soviet state as an opressive place people naturally wish to escape from, but the Russian police officers Jessica works with as ordinary cops doing their best within the system.
• Equal: Harry Hay was a communist, and some of the other early gay rights activists were at least leftists, which is portrayed sympathetically. This was deemed a liability as the LGBT+ rights groups got more popular in the Cold War though, so they were voted out by a more conservative set.
• World on Fire: Luc, a French communist who's arrested for opposing the Nazis, is treated sympathetically because he's on the good side.

Tabletop Games

• Red Planet: a campaign setting for the Fate Core/Accelerated system posits 'What If? Communism not only worked as intended but was strong enough to colonize Mars?' The Union of Materialist Republics is a full-on Raygun Gothic Utopia where all are happy with their lot and are protected from the machinations of the decadent Americans and corrupt Soviets.
• The default setting for Champions was developed in the 1980s, amid high Red Scare levels, and so featured two official Soviet/Warsaw Pact superteams — "The Supreme Soviets", who were basically loyal to the state, if only because that suited their ambitious leader, Colonel Vasalov, and who thus tended to operate in the range from Worthy Opponents to Dirty Communists, and their auxiliary team, the "Comintern", who were created as something of a dumping ground for less reliable or more independent-minded supers, and who could thus be more likely to come across as Chummy Commies when not operating directly at cross-purposes to the PCs. However, the switch to 4th edition came around the time of the end of the Civil War, and by the time the characters were updated in Classic Enemies (1991), they needed major changes. One group, "Red Doom", had gone rogue, with Colonel Vasalov aiming to depose President Gorbachev and take over Russia, thus falling into the Renegade Russian category (though the team still had several non-Russian members); the other characters had become an independent hero team, the "New Guard", albeit still very loyal to their various homelands, making them basically Chummy Commies who weren't especially communist.
• In Eclipse Phase, which was devised and written by actual anarchists, the place of a faction on the morality scale can be measured by how close it is to anarcho-communism. Anarchists and scum (nomadic punk anarchists) are the best people around, the still socialist but organized Titanian state is good, but has its share of skeletons in the closet, market anarchist and ancap factions are a sort of Token Evil Teammate to the anarchists, and the others are worse. (Venus is an odd duck, as it is capitalist but presented relatively sympathetically.) That said, heroic canon characters come from about any of these. Interestingly, authoritarian socialism is almost nonexistent in the setting, at least in the ideological form; a single habitat described off-handedly in one of the setting books is about the only case to mention.

Video Games

• The weapon manufacturer Vladof from Borderlands 2. In the original, they produced firearms with a high rate of fire to offset their low accuracy, but they now manufacture them that way to let civilian rebels outshoot MegaCorp thugs with more complicated but harder-hitting weapons. Fittingly, their assault rifles look a lot like AK rifles. They're also a Workers Collective, according to their sales pitch. Granted, they are themselves a powerful MegaCorp in this setting, which goes against much of what they say.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops portrays the former Red Army soldier Viktor Reznov in a fairly sympathetic light.
  • Most of the early Call of Duty games zig-zag this. On one hand, they depict the Red Army's regular troops and army officers in a very sympathetic light, while depicting most of the commissars as Dirty Communists.
  • While the original Ultimis Nikolai of Call of Duty: Zombies is a Vodka Drunkenski Sociopathic Soldier, his Good Counterpart Primis Nikolai is shown in a much more positive light, making him this.
• Depending on your choices in Disco Elysium, you can elect to support communism, and also play as a decent person (or at any rate try to, as much as you can). You can also find sympathetic left-wing characters among the cast. And, while the murderer of all people ends up being revealed as a fervent communist, it's notable that his ideology actually has little to do with his crime; that he's portrayed less as "villainous" and more like alienated, pathetic and depressive, bordering on Death Seeker; and that the murdered man, on the other hand, was for the most part rather monstrous. Said murderer also gives up without a fight after an overall peaceful conversation.
• The Qunari in Dragon Age: Origins are a Buddhist-Communist empire in which obedience and duty are the most important aspects of all life and society. Their world-view is completely black and white, and they have no mercy for either criminals or those who oppose them, but many low-ranking people in the conquered territories are actively welcoming them and joining them voluntarily. Those born into the Qunari (or at least those who were picked to be assigned to the military) could hardly be called friendly in any way, but as long as you are getting straight to the point with them and don't show either indecision or boasting, they will treat you with respect and quite readily cooperate for the common good.
• In the Fallout series, the Russians are the good communists with a nice relationship with the United States, and one of the player presets in the first game is a descendant of a Soviet diplomat which were given a place in Vault 13. Some characters in the Fallout universe tend to lump Russians into "bad communists" along with the Chinese, but these are mostly the uninformed, the insane (No-Bark Noonan), and the non-sapient (Mr. Gutsy robots).
  • After the end, there are the descendants of the Chinese (the resident bad commies) submarine crews beached in San Francisco called the Shi after their vessel "Shi-huang-ti", their mission is to protect their town and its inhabitants and research useful technology, like an antidote for highly addictive drug "Jet" and radiation-scrubbing plants.
  • Another friendly ChiCom, the ghoulified submarine captain Zao, is a quest-giver from Fallout 4.
• The Legends of '67 in Far Cry 6 are a bunch of Retired Badass La Résistance leftover from the original communist revolution in the country of Yara. While they freely admit their revolution didn't end particularly well, they are all depicted as heroic and decent people.
• In The Fermi Paradox, a civilization becoming entirely communist has no negative effects on that civilization, and in one Random Event involving the working class attempting to overthrow their cruel capitalist overlords, the entire civilization becoming communists is treated as the best outcome, with the revolution only succeeding partially or failing entirely being treated as tradgedies and resulting in the population decreasing due to warfare among other negative effects.
• Played with in Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg. The popular Hearts of Iron mod takes place in an alternate 1936 where World War I didn't see American involvement and so Germany won the war. Because the Soviet Union failed by the game's present day led to syndicalism (a more democratic and less totalitarian line of political thought) becoming the dominant revolutionary left-wing movement instead of communism. By the game's present, the Internationale consists of Britain, France, Italy, Chile, Mexico, and Bengal, and they can be potentially joined by others including Spain, Russia, and the United States (depending on how events unfold). It is possible for Totalists (very much Dirty Communists) to seize power in any of these nations but they can be easily voted out and replaced by more moderate democratic socialist or even anarchist movements. Even then, some Totalist leaders like Karl Radek adhere more closely to traditional Leninism or Trotskyism than Stalinism or Maoism. The game tends to take a Grey-and-Gray Morality approach to presenting the conflict between the syndicalist nations and the imperialist powers (though places like Iron Guard Romania and Pelley's Christian Commonwealth get no such favourable treatment — it's clear they are the bad guys if anything).
• In Luck be a Landlord: The local mutual aid network contacts you via [e-mail], and the relevant e-mails address you as 'comrade'. They're your initial and non-random source of Removal and Reroll, which are vital to managing your deck.
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault's first expansion, Spearhead, depicts the Soviets as friendly and sympathetic. They also prove to be useful allies for Barnes, as they help defend an important bridge by calling in tank support for him.
• Dr. Cossack from Mega Man 4, a Soviet scientist who turns out to have been Good All Along.
• Metal Gear Solid:
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: One of your main allies is a socialist Sandinista freedom fighter, and the Sandinistas themselves are portrayed fairly sympathetically, even if they do cop to drug smuggling to fund their cause, which is toppling a brutal American-backed military dictatorship and political dynasty in their homeland of Nicaragua.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has a rather poignant Easter Egg accessible by throwing the Spetznaz guard of your cell food three times, where he has a friendly chat with Snake. He turns out to be a rather Nice Guy who laments that the Soviet Union and the USA are now bitter enemies and admits to having no hard feelings against Snake, and also admits that he's homesick and lonely. As thanks for listening to his troubles, he shows Snake a photo of his family^note which has an emergency codec number for opening the cell door written on the back and returns Snake's cigarettes^note which happen to be a spy gadget that sprays anaesthetic smoke. He also reveals in the conversation that he's Johnny Sasaki's grandfather.
• Vlad, the Big Good in Mother Russia Bleeds. While the government of the Soviet Union has, in the game's Alternate History, become a puppet of the Bratva, Vlad remains a sincere, dyed-in-the-wool Communist who ends up leading a revolution against the Bratva, albeit with the player characters doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
• Likewise in The New Order Last Days Of Europe, there are a fair few positive depictions of left-wing ideologies in this Alternate History Earth. For example one of the best unifying warlord states for Russia (the Soviet Union doesn't exist in this time because the Nazis defeated and tore it down) is Sablin of Buryatia, a genuine Leninist who can turn the nation into a free and democratic communist state, provided he can withstand the temptations of authoritarianism.
  • Another more interesting case is Rurik II/Nikolai Krylov of Kemerovo, which blends Soviet progressivism with monarchism and Slavic traditionalism - a highly unusual combination that works surprisingly well, as Rurik is, his eccentricities aside, a decent guy who listens to his advisors and develops his country in a rational manner, and his son Yuriy/Rurik III even makes steps towards constitutional democracy and a welfare state.
  • You can also get Chummy Anarchists in the Siberian Free Territory, a sensibly run anarchist "state" guarded by popular militia. Or Alexander Men's benevolent and peaceful Christian-Anarchist state where religious, ethnic and even sexual minorities are welcomed as equals.
• Phoenix Point: One of the three human factions you can align with, Synedrion is a scientific-minded consensus democracy formed out of the Marxist, left-wing anarchist and Bookchinist movements that emerged during World War III and the beginning of the Pandoravirus outbreak. Though strongly divided on how to go about it, Synedrion's nebulous end-goal is to study the Pandoravirus and learn to co-exist with it, learning from the past mistakes of humanity and trying to undo the ecological destruction of Earth. If Phoenix Point sides with them in the ending, it results in arguably the best outcome for humanity, where their plan to create an ecological Utopia succeeds with minimal loss of life.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
  • The Duty faction preserves/recreates a strong Soviet influence in their troops and strongholds. While not exactly pleasant people as a whole, they are among the most disciplined and orderly groups of the Zone, and their main bases in all three games are probably the safest in the whole Zone, and the individual soldiers tend to be pretty chill.
  • The Freedom faction are anarcho-communists inspired by Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary during the Russian Civil War that fought with the Bolsheviks and later against them. They are laidback, hard-partying, and drinking folks with a taste for the "herb".
• The Shared Burdens civic in Stellaris: Megacorp puts the civilization that takes it decidedly at odds with the game's eponymous megacorps. Represented by a sickle, it required Fanatic Egalitarian (i.e. a deep respect for the rights of its citizens) and does not allow Xenophobia (so those rights are extended to other species in their civilization). The civic gives the player access to the Shared Burdens living standards (which gives every citizen the same comfortably modest standard of living whether they're a ruler or a mine worker) and only allows the player to use Shared Burdens and Utopian Abundance living standards. In short, civilizations using the Shared Burdens civic are invariably good to their people and decent neighbors; at worst, they might take Militarist and become (ironically) Democratic Crusaders.
  • The Worker advisor is a Chummy Commie Played for Laughs, peppering otherwise normal reports on what is going on in your empire with communist sounding buzzwords.
• The Heavy from Team Fortress 2. Unless you're the Soldier. Fortunately, it's been confirmed that the Soldier is too stupid to realize that his teammates are anything other than proud, stars-and-stripes-saluting Americans.
  • It's later revealed in the supplementary comics that the Heavy is an Aversion: his family was labelled by the Soviet government to be "counter-revolutionary", and Heavy had to save his mother and sisters from a prison camp. They are later found to be effectively exiled in far eastern Siberia.
• Hopper of Tooth and Tail is, in a world of Black-and-Grey Morality, one of the few playable characters who can be deemed heroic. She's a proud communist who fights for a fair lottery deciding who will eat who, as opposed to the current system that heavily favors the rich. Better, she firmly practices what she preaches, having fed her own arm to her people to keep them alive and fighting for her. She gets along particularly well with the Longcoats, who regard her as an ally early on.
• Comrade Vasquez, the Communist representative in Tropico 4, is the most reasonable representative. He comes to you primarily to address issues regarding housing, food, and health care, though he has his weird moments (like asking you to demolish any banks in the country because he thinks they're symbols of capitalist aggression).
  • His close relative Evita in 5 continues this tradition. She represents the Revolutionaries in the Colonial era, the Communists in the World Wars and Cold War eras, and finally the Environmentalists in the Modern Times era. She's probably the most socially responsible advisor.
• In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, B.J Blazkowicz travels around the US looking for allies to kickstart a second American Revolution against the country's Nazi occupiers. One of these allies is Horton Boone, a cynical Badass Preacher leading a clique of anarchists and Marxists out of New Orleans.
• In Xenonauts, which starts in 1979, both the Soviet Union and China are among the nations that contribute to the eponymous organisation, some of your soldiers can be from Communist countries, and a few of your weapons and vehicles are based on Soviet designs. A more blatant example is the Manufacturing screen, depicting a Husky Russkie who addresses you as 'comrade'.

Web Comics

• In Pandora's Tale, resistance member Natalya is a Russian Communist who uses vintage Soviet weaponry, refers to everyone as "Comrade", and composes lengthy essays about class struggle. She also seems to have a much easier time accepting Pandora as an equal than many of the other characters.

Web Original

• Unshaved Mouse: Comrade Crow started as this, but he then became a Dirty Communist after Mouse went to long without using him in any of his reviews, driving Comrade Crow to attempt to take over the blog.
• Come on, why wouldn't want to join the Communist◊ Party?
• The UASR in the Alternate History thread Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline plays with this. The people are completely devoted to social, economic, sexual, and racial equality. But their early history was marked by political persecution, most of it against a fascist junta that tried to stifle American democracy. They also won World War II. Which in this timeline was even bloodier. Do the math.
• In The Falcon Cannot Hear, the Provisional Government (or "Blue") faction of the Second American Civil War is a strong alliance between normal liberals and Trotskyist communists unwelcome in the Stalinist American Soviet Republic. Also, the East Coast forces of the ASR get along remarkably well with the Blues (especially in New York City, which effectively runs under the two governments simultaneously). Eventually, they split from the ASR and form the anti-fascist Popular Front with the Blues.
• In one episode of Plumbing the Death Star, Zammit suggests the monsters of Monsters, Inc. would excellently take over for Santa because they could steal whatever presents they needed and give them to the children who need it most; Adam realizes this is basically redistribution of wealth and exclaims that he "knew this was a socialist podcast from the beginning."
  "Support my socialist Christmas, Adam."
• Although it generally took a Grey-and-Gray Morality line in its portrayal of the common soldiers, the socialist Ayvartans are definitely the "good guys" of The Solstice War, it being defending themselves from aggression and most of the story told from their viewpoint.
• Played for Laughs with Tord from Eddsworld, who is friendly to Edd and Matt at least and noted at least once to be a Communist (though he's Norwegian, not Russian). He's also extremely violent though. The chumminess is lost in the Series Fauxnale, wherein he becomes a full-on villain.
• Mostly played straight in The Fire Never Dies. The American Socialist Union is definitively democratic, even allowing non-socialists to run for office. However, they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, especially during the Second American Revolution.

Western Animation

• The Oktober Guard, the Soviet counterpart to G.I. Joe, were never portrayed as villains, even when their missions put them directly against each other. In the cartoon, they even joined forces a number of times against Cobra. Both teams saw each other as rivals at the very worst.
• Similarly, the Soviets in The Transformers, like most Earth governments, are allied to the Autobots. They are often portrayed doing stereotypically Russian things (see Glorious Mother Russia) but are always depicted in a positive light.
• East-West tensions are a major plot point in the Five-Episode Pilot for Challenge Of The Go Bots. The Communist character, Anya Turgonova, is one of the good guys, but there's a lot of initial distrust between her and the American good guys. After they team up against Cy-Kill, she remains a friend for the rest of the series.
• Linka, at the beginning of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, is explicitly Soviet, not Russian, but she's just as devoted to the environment as the Planeteers.
• The "Gremlins from the Kremlin" in Russian Rhapsody.
• Downplayed and zigzagged Histeria!. While they depict Soviet Russia, especially under Stalin, as a wretched place to live, in the song "Peace, Land, and Bread," they explore the well-intentioned goals of the Bolsheviks.

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