The Soviet Past Theme in the Electoral Campaigns in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the place of the Soviet past in the inter-party discussion and the influence of this theme on the choice of the Russian electorate in the electoral campaigns of 1993—2021. According to the author’s conclusion, despite the moderate number of issues related to this topic, and their rather modest share in the general agenda of the campaigns, they formed confrontations that strongly correlated with the divisions within the major political dimensions and issue domain divisions and resonated in the mass political consciousness. The 1993—2011 campaigns were about one confrontation — “communists vs. anti-communists (liberals)”. In 2016—2021 this confrontation was supplemented by a cleavage along the “conservatives — liberals” line, which manifested in the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, that adjoined the liberals on some aspects of the Soviet past theme, and communists — on other aspects. In 1993 and 1995 the confrontation between communists and anti-communists (liberals) on the issues of the Soviet past successfully competed with political dimensions and issue domain divisions for the role of the “political face” of the first, or the main, electoral cleavage. In 1999, this confrontation moved from the first electoral cleavage to the second, within which it continued to successfully contend with the cleavage between Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic issue domain. In 2003, it also withstood competition with the divisions between adherents of market and supporters of planned economy in the socio-economic issue domain and Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic one, but in 2007— 2016 it lost such ability, although it retained a background presence in the political space. In 2021, the theme of the Soviet past experienced some sort of renaissance, with not only communists and liberals, but also other political forces, including the “party of power”, starting to actively appeal to this topic. The influence of the confrontations around the theme of the Soviet past on electoral divisions also increased, however, only when regions with a voter turnout of more than 60% were excluded from the analysis. In this case, the confrontation between communists and liberals on the subject of the Soviet past determined “the face” of the second electoral cleavage, and the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party — of the third one.