History Main / WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell

* In ''Series/BurnNotice'', Sam mentions that one of the reasons he got out of the spy game was because "Now it's all about religion and oil; it's no fun anymore."

* In the spy movie ''Film/CompanyBusiness'' (1991) Gene Hackman's character gushes about the luxurious house of an Arab ArmsDealer with its gold-plated doorknobs etc, only to find the place has been stripped bare; the owner has fallen on hard times as no-one wants to buy weapons anymore. Presumably the script was written [[HarsherInHindsight before Yugoslavia fell to pieces]].

* ''Music/{{The Puhdys}}'' , a former Ostrock (Eastern Rock) band, they reformed after losing their regime sponsorship... And kept plugging along with their music and its themes of peace, atheism, Gay rights (yes they were a government band and they supported Queer rights- it was a thing in the DDR), and proceeded to make two of their finest albums in the 1990s, "Free as the Vultures" and "Crazy Peace". These two works dealt heavily with the new challenges of living under a "free" market, ranging from drug trafficking, poverty, depression, the resurgence of Naziism, religious fundamentalism, racist violence against the DDR's population of international students who were stranded when the wall fell, and confusing tax paperwork.

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld (particularly 21st century onwards), TooGoodForExploiters. Contrast RedScare.

* ''Film/{{Sneakers}}'' has Greg, a Russian "[[CovertGroupWithMundaneFront cultural attaché]]", who makes several comments along these lines.
-->''(The) last few years have been very confusing for people in my line of work.''

* Many people in the former Yugoslavia will, understandably, be nostalgic for the rule of UsefulNotes/JosipBrozTito after the [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars bloody race wars]] [[CrapsackWorld and economic stagnation of the 90s]].

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld (particularly 21st century onwards), TooGoodForExploiters. Contrast RedScare, TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

* The plot of the second ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}'' (a series which previously suffered quite heavily from TheGreatPoliticsMessUp) movie revolves around a terrorist plot intended to show the world how vulnerable the military budget cuts brought about by the end of the Cold War have made people. [[spoiler:At least it was before Tsuge hijacked the plan for his own personal vendetta against the apathetic citizenry and the people who hung him out to dry when his attempts to develop a HumongousMecha school of combat fell apart]].

* In a 1991 ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' strip, a passerby is flabbergasted to see Opus the Penguin playing "cowboys and Indians" with his friends. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance "You're fighting Indians in 1991?" the stranger asks.]] Opus concedes the point and then declares "Let's fight Commie spies!" No way, declares the stranger; they're too busy [[BurgerFool slaving away at the fryer]] in the new [=McDonald's=] in Moscow. Opus tries again: [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror "Arab terrorists!"]] Sorry, comes the reply; [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp they're now our allies]]. "[[Franchise/StarTrek Klingons]]," begins Opus, getting desperate now -- but he's quickly informed that [[TheWorfEffect a Klingon warrior]] is now serving on the crew of the ''U.S.S. Enterprise''. Let's face it, the stranger concludes; it's the "end of history," and there are simply no more bad guys.

* Defied in ''WebOriginal/ZhirinovskysRussianEmpire'', a story on Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom in which, after TheGreatPoliticsMessUp, the infamous Russian far-right gadfly Vladimir Zhirinovsky (nowadays little more than Putin's court jester) becomes {{President|Evil}} of UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia and turns it into a fascist dictatorship. The Bear only gets ''angrier'' after the fall of the Soviet Union, meaning that communism is simply replaced by neo-fascism and the UsefulNotes/ColdWar still goes on up to at least 2003 (the year when he's finally overthrown). Whether there's a "Why We're Bummed Zhirinovsky Fell" moment afterwards remains to be seen.

* Many citizens of old Soviet bloc countries miss Communism, because it's what they knew, [[GloryDays because they were important back then]], or, indeed — surprisingly enough for a Western reader — because they think they were more prosperous than they are now.

* Several states in Northern Italy - most prominently Emilia-Romagna - were governed by the communists during most of the Cold War era - and very successfully so. [[https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/25/archives/bologna-the-communist-keynote-city.html?fbclid=IwAR1b8uwvU1OwN55kCYw_5rVyJJl1jKwYxtjlq9FNNIIKcNM_5CyQxhq-I9E This article]] from 1972 notes the Regions status as a keynote for Eurocommunist parties. Since the Italian Communist Party dissolved in the nineties, however, corruption has increased again and the shift to the centre of its successor, the Democratic Party, has made many Italians disillusioned with left-wing politics.

* As described in [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/07/the-top-10-reasons-american-politics-are-worse-than-ever/ this article]], part of the reason [[WeAREStrugglingTogether the Republican and Democratic parties have become so polarized in the 21st century]] is because the collapse of the Soviet Union left the government without a common enemy to fight, so the two parties began to turn on each other.

* For the former Marxist-Leninist nations in Africa and in the Middle East like Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia and South Yemen many of its citizens have also looked back on their former Socialist pasts with appreciation and because they feel life meant something back in those days and decry the current day governments and politicians for selling out to the west and becoming rich while most of their population is living in squalor like Angola and Mozambique and Benin and that’s not even getting into the wartorn nations like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

* Halbech, inc from ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' derived a major source of income from Cold War-related arms sales. [[spoiler:With the Cold War over, they decide to heat up global tensions in key areas to increase demand for their products. Unfortunately, they don’t realize they [[GoneHorriblyRight are doing a bit too well at this]] and aren’t driving the world towards a new Cold War, but to WorldWarIII instead.]]

* Halbech, inc from ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' derived a major source of income from Cold War-related arms sales. [[spoiler:With the Cold War now gone, they decide to heat up global tensions in key areas to increase demand for their products. Unfortunately, they don’t realize they [[GoneHorriblyRight are doing a bit too well at this]] and aren’t driving the world towards a new Cold War, but to WorldWarIII instead.]]

* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is set in a fantasy setting where a Communist revolution was quickly overwhelmed by an international coalition of governments bombing the city, putting all the Communists in front of a firing squad, and subjecting it to a form of 'gossamer state' economic liberalism that has left the ordinary people there extremely poor, without any democratic rights, and with Coalition airships circling overhead ready to bomb them again should any form of resistance arise. The game was made by Estonian developers and allegorises a lot of how this affected Estonia, from the burst of optimism as money and new technology flooded the country (for about eight years, followed by an absolutely gutting recession) to weird details such as the culture of [[FantasticDrug mass abuse of hallucinogenic anti-radiation drugs stockpiled by the Communists]].

* Halbech, inc from ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' derived a major source of income from Cold War-related arms sales. [[spoiler:With the Cold War now gone, they decide to heat up global tensions in key areas to increase demand for their products.]]

* Speaking of far right elements, in a weird way many of eastern Europe's far right parties are also bummed communism fell. They miss the the days of culturally homogenous ethnostates where society was moving toward a singular goal. Essentially they are the opposite of western democratic socialists who admire some aspects of the Eastern Block but would like to recreate it without the authoritarianism. Far right groups in eastern want the authoritarianism back without the communism, believing that Marxist economics are a dead end.

* General Eiling explains that his war with the Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}} in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' was because we didn't have a clear threat like the Commies for the military to fight. It should be pointed out that Eiling is [[GeneralRipper not a character to be liked]], and his former co-conspirator even says that the idea is stupid.

This is somewhat TruthInTelevision -- many people from the Eastern Bloc regret the fall of state-socialism. For more on this, see the Real Life section.

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld (particularly 21st century onwards). Contrast RedScare, TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

* The fall of old-style Communism has been hard for people on the seriously far, Stalinist, Left. In the old days, the sort of people who pined for an all-powerful Leader who would guide and steer Revolution in formerly decadent capitalist nations, those looking for an idol and whose only complaint about Joseph Stalin was that he could be too soft and forgiving, they had a lot of choices for a Leader to worship. Stalin himself, Mao Ze-dong, Enver Hoxha of Albania, Jaroslawski of Poland, Ceaucescu of Romania... as totalitarian Communism has ebbed and died and the Leaders have fallen, the choice of Great Leader has shrunk to one: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Friendship_Association Kim-Yong-Il]]. Leftists have largely moved on to more moderate social democratic and green politics, which place more emphasis on individual freedom and don't look to strongman leaders.

->''"Christ, I miss the Cold War."''

** '''#6''': "The fall of Communism will deal a major blow to the trade union movement. Labor relations will revert to industrial revolutionary social Darwinism." ''[beat]'' "Okay."

--->'''Wayne:''' Remember Live Aid, that band Autograph? I mean, ex-squeeze me, baking powder (Wayne-speak for "Excuse me, I beg your pardon")?\\

->''"The first half of The Nineties largely reflected this realization that the world was no longer what we thought it'd be, from the decline of the military industrial complex, to who should be the default bad guys in fiction."''
-->-- '''Website/SFDebris''' reviewing ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry''

* The fall of old-style Communism has been hard for people on the seriously far, Stalinist, Left. In the old days, the sort of people who pined for an all-powerful Leader who would guide and steer Revolution in formerly decadent capitalist nations, those looking for an idol and whose only complaint about Joseph Stalin was that he could be too soft and forgiving, they had a lot of choices for a Leader to worship. Stalin himself, Mao Tse-Tung, Enver Hoxha of Albania, Jaroslawski of Poland, Ceaucescu of Romania... as totalitarian Communism has ebbed and died and the Leaders have fallen, the choice of Great Leader has shrunk to one: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Friendship_Association Kim-Yong-Il]]. Leftists have largely moved on to more moderate social democratic and green politics, which place more emphasis on individual freedom and don't look to strongman leaders.

** Interestingly, the state of much of the former Eastern Bloc resembles what UsefulNotes/AdamSmith derisively called "landlord capitalism," the term "landlord" here referring to former feudal lords. Much of Smith's writings were an attempt to prevent this situation, where the elites of a former economic system have a huge advantage in the new economy because they now have private ownership of things that were awarded to them to manage for societies collective benefit. [[NotSoDifferent Just as the former nobles once used their estates to enrich themselves while no longer providing protection, food, or shelter to their peasants, the former members of the communist party and their family have used their industries to exploit the working class.]] Ironically, the failure to fully resolve such a situation, even if the nobility was keen on some of Smith's other ideas, also led to the writings of Marx.

Compare MakeTheBearAngryAgain, UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia. Contrast RedScare, TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

''Music/{{The Puhdys}}'' , a former Ostrock (Eastern Rock) band, they reformed after losing their regime sponsorship... And kept plugging along with their music and its themes of peace, atheism, Gay rights (yes they were a government band and they supported Queer rights- it was a thing in the DDR), and proceeded to make two of their finest albums in the 1990s, "Free as the Vultures" and "Crazy Peace". These two works dealt heavily with the new challenges of living under a "free" market, ranging from drug trafficking, poverty, depression, the resurgence of Naziism, religious fundamentalism, racist violence against the DDR's population of international students who were stranded when the wall fell, and confusing tax paperwork.

** '''#3''': ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' will no longer have "Girls of the Soviet Union" issues. Denied."