It Could Be a Red June : Russia: The West should be prepared for a regime that will be repressive at home and troublesome abroad.

Suppose that in Germany a revived Nazi Party had obtained the largest share of the vote in 1994’s parliamentary elections. Suppose that the Nazis had then formed a coalition with other extremist parties and taken charge of the German government. And suppose that a wave of nostalgia for the Nazi era was now sweeping over Germany, including demands for a monument to Hitler in downtown Berlin, television shows featuring Nazi propaganda and New Year’s Eve parties replete with swastikas and portraits of Nazi leaders.

No doubt these developments would be viewed with alarm in the West, and rightly so. Fortunately, nothing of the sort is happening. Germany was subject to a rigorous de-Nazification after World War II and today fascist groups are of negligible influence in Germany. The mere mention of Hitler’s name evokes shame among the large majority of Germans, most of whom were not even alive during the Nazi era.

But in Russia, something comparable to a Nazi revival has been occurring. The two Communist parties in Russia won a combined 27% of the vote in last month’s parliamentary elections, and the Communists stand a chance of winning the presidency in June. More important, a wave of nostalgia for the communist era has been spreading through Russia, accompanied by reverential images of Lenin and Stalin, the continued display of Lenin’s embalmed corpse in Red Square, the airing of communist propaganda films and the construction of a theme park devoted to the “achievements” of Soviet communism.

Most Western experts on Russia have downplayed the significance of the communist revival, arguing that there will be no return to the old times. They point out that the return of former communists in several East European countries has not led to disaster there and they claim that we should not fear the return of communists in Russia either.

Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right, but in this case it is not. The two Communist parties in Russia are not at all like the post-Communist parties in Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. The former Communists in Eastern Europe have accepted democracy and free markets, but the Communists in Russia are still orthodox Communists, and their Marxist-Leninist beliefs are tinged with strong anti-Western overtones.

Despite comforting rhetoric that Russian Communist leaders occasionally voice for the benefit of Western audiences, the true nature of their parties is evident from the policies they espouse: the reimposition of state economic controls, massive increases in government subsidies, the reestablishment of the Soviet Union, a return to censorship and criminal trials of officials in the current Russian government.

A Communist victory in the Russian presidential election in June may not mean the immediate end of Russia’s tentative steps toward democracy, but over the longer term, the outlook would be bleak. The onerous dilemma that confronted Algeria in 1992, when an avowedly anti-democratic party of Islamic fundamentalists won control of the government in a democratic vote, may soon be confronting Russia. In Algeria, the army intervened to prevent the Islamic Salvation Front from taking power, and the result has been a bloody and prolonged civil war.

If the Russian Communists win in June, an extralegal attempt to keep them from making good on their victory might have an equally tragic outcome. The Russian people would be profoundly mistaken if they voted for a Communist president, but if they make that mistake, so be it.

For the West, a Communist victory in June would be a great setback. This is not to say that a full-fledged Cold War would resume. For now, Russia is far too weak to pose the kind of global threat that the Soviet Union once did. Moreover, communism as an ideology has been thoroughly discredited almost everywhere on earth.

Nevertheless, a return to Communist rule in Russia would be politically and economically damaging in the world’s largest country and would endanger the security of other former Soviet republics. There is no use in pretending otherwise. The West should be prepared for a regime in Russia that will be repressive at home and troublesome abroad.