Reds struggling with irrelevance

The spread of Communism throughout Eastern Europe after the end of Second World War left many footprints on the states that experienced more or less direct control coming from Moscow. States subject to the rule of the Communist Party were affected by a low growth rate and low levels of personal freedoms. Nevertheless, the communist parties have evolved in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and still survive in Eastern Europe. In the last few years many of them have also gotten some renewed electoral support – something that was unthinkable only a couple of years ago. What could this mean? First of all, it is necessary to make clear that the electoral support of these communist parties is still rather negligible. Only in the Czech Republic do they have about 15%, granting them seats in parliament. In other major cases, percentages are growing but these parties remain irrelevant in the wider political scene of their country. The case of Hungary is emblematic. The ruling government passed a law to ban communist parties in the country and forced the Hungarian Communists to change their name in order to keep participating in the political debate. So any Communist Renaissance to speak of is still a rather inchoate phenomenon. Nevertheless, what is now a statistical trend may, in the event of further disillusionment with capitalism, lead to a return to power of these parties. Stranger things have happened Eastern Europe.