Communist Parties in the former Eastern Bloc/Russia

[ComingUpForAir]

My question is simple -- as I notice that in many Eastern European countries (and elsewhere) that socialist and communist parties are always 2nd to the parties that win in elections, how likely is it that the Communists may be making a return to power? I know a lot of Russians are nostalgic for Stalin, for one thing.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I doubt that they'll be returning to power any time soon. I can't speak for the theoretical line of any modern Eastern Bloc party, but Communists don't tend to come to power through elections. The way it looks from where I am, unfortunately, is that they're playing bourgeois politics, although I suppose its possible that they're using whatever influence they have to empower the proletariat with theory and to push back against oppression in whatever way.

[Veovis]

The "Communist" party has been in power in Moldova for a long time now, and Cyprus has a "communist" president. I don't see any workers' states, though.

[Crux]

The CP of Moldova is slightly to the right of the Labour Party in the UK. The KPRF is essentially a conservative party. Most of the ex-CP's are essentially no different than the modern day ex-social democratic parties.

[Collectorgeneral]

The estonian communist party has been illegal since '91, the closest thing to a left-wing party here is our centre party(allegedly centrist) that's suffering from an avalanche of bad PR, courtesy of our thatcherist right-wing coalition.

[Sankara1983]

My question is simple -- as I notice that in many Eastern European countries (and elsewhere) that socialist and communist parties are always 2nd to the parties that win in elections, how likely is it that the Communists may be making a return to power? I know a lot of Russians are nostalgic for Stalin, for one thing.

This is an exaggeration. The only significant remaining CPs from the ex-USSR and Eastern bloc are in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Czech Republic. The Moldovan party is the only one that has a chance in hell of forming a government. In general, the parties are banned in the Baltic states, extremely marginal in the Caucasus, and satellites of much larger dictatorial parties in Central Asia. In the Eastern European countries that remained independent of the USSR there is also lots of nationalist red-baiting, particularly in Hungary and Poland.