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Have there been cases where a sovereign Communist government ran in an open and fair multi-party election and conceded a loss?

The reason for the sovereign qualifier is simple. If, for example, the Indian state of Kerala has a Communist government, it stands to reason that, as part of India, it could not (assuming it even wanted to) cancel elections or manipulate them overmuch - the federal Indian government would not let it.

Also, the Communist government in my question need not have been elected into power, it just needs to have allowed free elections once it had power.

edit: The notion of agency, or free choice, in allowing elections is important too. Eastern Europe in 89-90 was imploding, people were fleeing through newly opened borders and Gorbachev refused military backing. People like Honecker deserve praise for not ordering their troops to shoot (with uncertain outcomes, cf Romania), but it's not so much that they believed in democracy, it's that they had run out of all other options.

edit #2: for the purposes of the question, a Communist party is one which calls itself Communist or whose party manifesto explicitly indicates its adherence to Marxist/Leninist principles.

Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
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  • I agree in principle, except that's open to too many interpretations. Let's just say calling themselves Communists and/or adhering to Marxist/Leninist principles. It makes no sense to drag in Socialists in the sense of say the French Socialist Party under Mitterand, they were not Communists in that sense. Doesn't mean I liked them, no, but they were well out of scope. The Italian Communist Party was never in power and neither was Japan's, so automatically fall out of scope. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 07 '19 at 05:41
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    This may be due to an educational lapse on my part, but I am hard pressed to think of a Communist regime that ran a fair election ever, let alone accepted a loss from one. The impression I've gotten is that the elections they have run were as rigged as pro wrestling. – EvilSnack Mar 07 '19 at 05:56
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    @EvilSnack I don't think it's any lapse in your education ;-) . Or else mine is just as lacking. But I am willing to hear otherwise. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 07 '19 at 06:13
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    @ItalianPhilosopher Let's remain polite and opt for the latter. Very few communist regimes have ever been elected - and lasting longer than a couple of days. Barcelona did during the Spanish Civil war, and lasted I think a week. Chile elected a communist government but it didn't last long there either. I don't think any 'true' communist government has ever stepped back voluntarily. – Jos Mar 07 '19 at 06:22
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    @Jos. why the reminder to be polite? I agree with EvilSnack. To qualify my question: the Communist government in my question need not be elected into power, it just needs to allow free elections once it has power. So, for example, the Soviets took over in 1917 by force. Had they held free election afterwards, then that would answer my question. Ditto Cuba, or China. These governments have been in power for decades now. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 07 '19 at 06:30
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    I think that all Eastern European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall would qualify? – Amedee Van Gasse Mar 07 '19 at 08:45
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    @Amedee: The end of Romania's communist regime was not peaceful – Dohn Joe Mar 07 '19 at 12:27
  • Was a democratic one ? – Overmind Mar 07 '19 at 13:33
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    @AmedeeVanGasse Technically speaking, they were not necessary communist parties (that is why I was asking myself). In Eastern Europe, many of the governing parties considered the system socialist and not communist (communism was a long term goal yet not achieved), neither called themselves communist parties , eg "Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party", "Polish United Workers' Party". related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state "The term "Communist state" is used by Western historians, ...However, contrary to Western usage, these states do not describe themselves as "communist" ..." – Greg Mar 07 '19 at 14:41
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    @Greg I am following the definition of "Communist State", as described on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state. Communist parties calling themselves "socialist" is a straw man argument, it's akin to a dictatorship calling itself "democratic" or "the people's republic". – Amedee Van Gasse Mar 07 '19 at 16:09
  • @AmedeeVanGasse Just to be the devil's advocate: 1) According to that definition the state is controlled by a single party, i.e. if there is a fair election, it is not a communist state/party anymore. 2) I would suggest that a lot of political agenda worked/works both in Western and Eastern countries when they used socialist/communist labels. – Greg Mar 07 '19 at 19:06
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    @Greg. I strongly disagree with blending Socialism and Communism. This seems to be an American concept, because, in Europe, there is no confusion whatsoever for a voter whether they are embracing a Communist or a Socialist party. For example, at least traditionally, up to the 80s, European Communist parties explicitly recognized the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party. Tidbit: when PCF(French Comm.) members objected to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, they got ejected, something the PCF hardly brags about. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 07 '19 at 20:23
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    "Government" means different things in AmE and BrE. What is in AmE is referred to as "the government" is in BrE often referred to as "the state", while what is in BrE often referred to as "the government" is in AmE referred to as "the administration". – Acccumulation Mar 07 '19 at 22:53
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    @ItalianPhilosopher To be pedantic, Eurocommunism got goint in the 70s rather than the 80s, under the pressure from Berlinguer (who was rightly skeptical of the long-term health of the USSR) but still your point is well taken. At least in Western Europe Socialists and Communists were clearly distinguished and not at all friendly with each other. – Denis Nardin Mar 08 '19 at 07:27
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    @ItalianPhilosopher I think you should edit your post and include the definition of "communist" you're after. From your comments I guess it's "parties that define themselves as communist, exclude all self-defined socialists" Is that correct? It would be easier to understand your question without needing to scroll through the comments – Arsak Mar 08 '19 at 09:54
  • A quick scan of the answers tells me this has never happened in Russia (that's all I wanna know) and really it needs a community answer with a list of every country that ever has. – Mazura Mar 08 '19 at 22:41
  • @AmedeeVanGasse not all Eastern European countries qualify - for USSR republics, the sequence generally was (1) meaningful elections were allowed; (2) communists lost the election; (3) sovereignty was declared; so at the time of losing the election that communist government wasn't sovereign. – Peteris Mar 09 '19 at 02:58
  • @MarkC.Wallace I beg to differ. First thing is that, regardless of the nastiness in implementations derived from Marx and Lenin, I don't believe that older forms of collective ownership utopias are inherently anti-democratic. Second, when you fill out a ballot for the Parti Communiste Francais, it doesn't (but probably should say) "If we win, we suspend elections". Third, the accepted answer surprised me by citing several bona fide cases where democracy was respected. Even if many of the other answers cited dubious examples (minority parties, microstates, post-Glasnost context). – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Apr 24 '19 at 21:32
  • @ItalianPhilosopher "communism" has actually two meanings: 1) the "communist state" as written by Marx 2) the rule of the communists. | The middle/east European countries on the XX. century were communist in the second sense. In my experience, "communism" is used in the first sense only by the defenders of the XX. century communist dictatorships. I think, you would your this view seriously change if you had to experience their rule directly. These were North Korea-like police states, you know? – Gray Sheep Jun 16 '19 at 10:48
  • @ItalianPhilosopher No, it was not a "failed experiment". It was not "state capitalism". It was not "socialism like light-weight communism". These were police states. You could have got prison for your views. You could lose your job for your views. You could get enforced "mental threatment" for "political delusions". If you had tried to flee the country, the border police was commanded to shot you, for the illegal crossing of the border. What you can see today from North Korea on the youtube, it was the everydays reality for a third of the Humanity in a large part of the XX. century. – Gray Sheep Jun 16 '19 at 10:54
  • @ItalianPhilosopher There were better times, and better regions like goulash communism and there were worser, but the essence of the "communism", as it existed in the practice, was what you can now see in North Korea. And we all thought until the late 80s, that it will surely last in our life, and that there is no hope to escape it. And your views are not a phylosophical theory, what you are in fact doing is the defense of crimes against the humanity. – Gray Sheep Jun 16 '19 at 11:01
  • @ItalianPhilosopher And yet another important thing to know: any type of collectivism is inherently dictatoric, do you label it with "utopia" or not. There is no "warm winter", because it is not winter. There is no "dry water", because it is not water. Similarly, there is no "socialism with a friendly face", because it is no socialism/communism any more. There is no "collectivist utopia", it would be an utopia at most for its ruling class, and a distopia for any other. – Gray Sheep Jun 16 '19 at 11:09
  • @GraySheep. I have no idea what got your skirts all fluffed up here. Although I tried to make my question as neutral as possible, it is obviously not a comfortable one for Communists. Stalinist-type Communism is about as reprehensible as Nazism, judging solely from the amounts of deaths in the Solzhenitsyn Gulags and during Mao's Great Leap Forward. But I will not condemn all Communists based on Stalinist implementations, even though those have been the majority in practice. There's no way you can be a well-intentioned Nazi, but a naive Communist can just want to fix "bad Capitalism". – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Jun 20 '19 at 17:13
  • @GraySheep None of this means that I support Communism. I have read a lot about both Russian/East European and NK strands of Communism. NK is a totally more rabid form, surpassing even Stalin's times. Reducing all Communism, even relatively bloodless ones like Yugoslavia or Hungary to being "just like NK" makes you look as if you are foaming at the mouth, rather than someone who, like me, sees nothing good in Communism. There's plenty of blame to go around, no need to discredit anti-Communism by over-the-top comparisons of everyone who sympathizes with collective ownership to NK. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Jun 20 '19 at 17:24
  • @ItalianPhilosopher The worst in this whole system was, that we all believed until the very last (around 1987) that it will exist forever, and there is no escape. Many had feared even years after the collapse of the CCCP, that it will come back. Since then, every day is a gift. These societies have a big, collective, cultural PTSD syndrome until today. This is why still the big gap in the behavior of the post-commie states and the western ones. And this is why you don't understand them. No one understands them on the West. – Gray Sheep Jul 03 '19 at 20:05
  • @ItalianPhilosopher NK does not surpasses Stalin's times. Stalin killed 3-10million peasants (there are various estimations) in Ukraine without any major problem, he simply wanted to exterminate a potentially dangerous social class. It is roughly the same what in the NK is. Also Kim does what Stalin did to preserve its power (regularly exterminates everybody being too powerful too long). But... for example, for an anti-system demonstration, the typical punishments were: 1) beating by police 2) firing from university/job 3) becoming a secondary citizen lifelong. | That was always the same. – Gray Sheep Jul 03 '19 at 20:11
  • Eh, kudos for being so condescending: you don't understand them, what you are in fact doing is the defense of crimes against the humanity. I spent 1987 in a French telecom regiment in Germany. It was rumored that our specific type of unit, about 20 people manning 4-5 trucks and several 10m high masts, would have a 30 minute life expectancy once we started broadcasting due to its value and visibility. I was OK with that. Yes, Stalin killed more than NK, though the proportions are even higher in NK. My point is however that these are visibly extremes even within Communist systems. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Jul 12 '19 at 17:06

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Moldova

The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova came to power in the 2001 Moldovan parliamentary election but went into opposition after the July 2009 Moldovan parliamentary election despite being by far the largest single party.

Although the Soviet-era Communist Party of Moldova was banned in 1991, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova was legally recognized in 1994. Its presidential candidate came third in the 1996 presidential elections.

In the March 1998 Parliamentary election, the party won 40 of the 101 seats and became the largest party in parliament. Despite this, it did not come to power as other parties allied to form the government.

In the February 2001 elections, Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova won almost 50% of the vote which gave it 71 seats, a clear parliamentary majority which enabled it to form a government. Although it lost 15 seats in the 2005 election, the communists remained the governing party.

Although the communists increased their vote and number of seats in the April 2009 election, it did not have enough seats in parliament to elect a new president. Consequently, parliamentary elections were held again in July 2009. The communists lost their majority, falling to 48 of the 101 seats, and went into opposition, with the other parties forming a coalition government.

Other source:

D. J. Sager, Political Parties of the World (2009)

Guyana

The People's Progressive Party in Guyana has held power several times and was last voted out of office in the 2015 general election after being in power for more than 20 years. It is currently the main opposition party in Guyana.

The party is described as Marxist-Leninist, Communist and left-wing nationalist. It is also listed on Solidnet.org, a communist and workers organization.

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Lars Bosteen
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    excellent answer, thank you. anyone know if Ortega's Nicaragua elections in the mid/late 80s would also qualify? did he leave voluntarily or was he pushed out? – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 07 '19 at 08:05
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    @ItalianPhilosopher That was 1990. I suppose you could say he left "voluntarily" despite the Contras and the embargo. But it's pretty debatable whether the FSLN were Communist at that point. A more explicitly Communist party was part of the opposition that won in 1990. – Brian Z Mar 07 '19 at 12:40
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    @ItalianPhilosopher, Ortega came to power by overthrowing Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. He lost an election in 1990 to Violeta Chamorro and left office peacefully in 1990. So that would count. I added my answer below. –  Mar 07 '19 at 23:33
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    +1. Notes. 1. Lots of prejudice against the communist word erodes most discussions. 2. Communist is not Socialism, many terms begs precise definition to give a more precise answer. 3. If we see communist as a political movement born in Victorian Europe to fight monarchy and realize the nations where there such a revolution occurred never has known democracy in the first place can uncloud some questions. – jean Mar 08 '19 at 12:04
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    @jean I agree that communism and socialism are different (socialism being much broader) but the definitions in many English dictionaries are practically identical. I consider this an example of Cold War propaganda. Socialists in America still struggle to be understood as anything other than Soviet-style Communists. – StackOverthrow Mar 08 '19 at 21:30
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I believe the Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia matches your criteria. It started with popular protests in November 1989. During December, the (Communist) president nominated a new government where the Communist party held 10 out of 21 seats. Then in June 1990, free elections were held and the Communist party was voted out of power, no longer being part of the government formed based on these elections.

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Angew is no longer proud of SO
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    I would not consider this a good example. The actual transfer of power began during the first half of 1990 already, so the Czechoslovak government at the time of the July 1990 election could probably not be considered communist anymore (communists did not have a majority). – Jan Šimbera Mar 09 '19 at 09:23
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If you consider it sovereign, East Germany did that.

Well, they had already lost almost all control anyways, but after the wall fell they simply ran for the first election with other parties, and - obviously - lost.

So you could say that they were knowingly giving up all their power in the form of an election, but it was an election nonetheless.

gerrit
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    I once heard a talk of the last prime minister of the GDR, and he noted, that from our modern perspective and with hindsight, it is astonishing that the transition in the GDR was peaceful. The only forces with clear orders to maintain peace were the Soviet troops in East Germany, they remained in their barracks and order to use force only when being attacked. All East German forces (military, state police, secret police) had no orders to that effect. – Dohn Joe Mar 07 '19 at 12:21
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In the Republic of San Marino, an elected Communist-Socialist coalition government ruled from 1983 to 1988. They lost their majority when the Socialists scored badly in the 1988 elections, and the government was peacefully replaced by an improbable alliance including communists and christians-democrats.

After 1992's elections, communists left the government, once again without violence.

Evargalo
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    How would it have gone about cancelling elections and imposing a dictatorship if it was just a coalition partner? And, to boot, San Marino is a microstate, surrounded by Italy, hardly bigger than a mid sized town. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 08 '19 at 06:24
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    The first coalition was Communists and Socialists dominated by Communists, so I think it quite qualify for this question. Many coalitions gvts around the world have a record of rigging elections. And yes, San Marino is a micro - state, but it is sovereign. So what? – Evargalo Mar 08 '19 at 08:14
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The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) won elections in 2008, and subsequently lost power to the Nepali Congress in the 2013 elections.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) has led four governments in Nepal, the last one losing power to the Nepali Congress in 2016.

The two communist parties merged in 2018, forming the Nepal Communist Party, which is currently in power.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated Nepal as a "hybrid regime", so elections may not be fully free and fair.

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I think the election to the upper chamber of Polish parliament (Senat) in 1989 can be considered such case.

According to the agreements of the Round Table (Okrągły Stół) the lower chamber (Sejm) had an established number of seats (65%) pre-assigned for the governing communist party (PZPR) and their satellites and the remaining MPs were selected in an entirely free election. All those freely elected MPs but 1 were captured by opposing Solidarity (Solidarność) party. Moreover the leading party decided to take only below 40% of MPs giving the rest of the "contingent" to its satellite parties (my guess is they wanted to show a divergence to cool down the anti-communist movement).

Yet all 100 seats in the upper chamber were selected freely.

As a result 99 of senators came from the main opposing party Solidarity with the remaining one place taken by a politician who was independent (but supporting opposition as well). It was a massive loss, unexpected by either of the sides.

The communists decided to accept those results. Annulling them would most probably lead back to massive unrest, strikes, you name it.

Interestingly the opposition managed to convince the satellite parties of PZPR to switch sides. As a result in August 1989 PZPR lost the majority in Polish parliament lower chamber as well effectively closing the communists rule over the Poland. All the upcoming elections (presidential in 1990 and parliamentary in 1991) were completely free and won by the recent opposition (now divergent, with a number of parties).

See this Wikipedia article as a lead in.

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Austria in 1945 had, like most of Eastern Europe, a provisional government which was approved by Stalin and had a large Communist contingent. Unlike other countries, however, the Austrian Communists did not freeze out and later ban all other parties; instead truly free elections were held, which resulted in the Communist Party ceasing to be a part of the governing coalition in 1947. This may have been because the party genuinely thought it would be more popular than the alternatives among voters who remembered Hitler, or it may have been because, Austria having been divided into four Occupation Zones, the Red Army was not the ultimate arbiter.

It's not clear how far this government could claim to be 'sovereign'; but if you are looking for a Communist government that neither seized power by military force nor used the army to retain power once gained (either of which mortgages sovereignty to the military commanders), you will have a long search

Tim Lymington
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  • (Correction required?) Perhaps you did preferably mean countries of Central Europe although what you wrote may also apply to parts of the Eastern Europe. – miroxlav Mar 08 '19 at 10:03
  • @miroxlav: No, I meant specifically Eastern Europe, as opposed (by the Iron Curtain) to Western. It was largely that election that saved Austria from becoming temporarily part of Eastern Europe. – Tim Lymington Mar 08 '19 at 10:29
  • OK, so from the map in the abovelinked article you meant region of current Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Thanks for the clarification. – miroxlav Mar 08 '19 at 10:38
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    @miroxlav During the cold war, "west" and "east" Europe was not defined by geography, but by the Iron Curtain and politics. Greece and Finland were "west", despite being further east than Czechoslovakia. TimLymington states "by the Iron Curtain" in his comment, and in this answer "east" is clearly meant in the cold war sense rather than the geographic sense. – gerrit Mar 08 '19 at 12:07
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The Sandinista National Liberation Front (SNLF) or Sandinistas in Nicaragua. They came to power when they overthrew Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979 and then ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990. Then lost the Presidency in an election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in 1990. The SNLF's President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006 through the electoral process and has since won re-election in 2011 and 2016.

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    It's not clear that Ortega's government, by that stage, was more Communist than Chamorro's. – Tim Lymington Mar 08 '19 at 09:17
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    @TimLymington The United States lifted sanction on Nicaragua after Chamorro won office, paid off Nicaragua's debt to private banks, and gave them hundreds of millions in aid. The charge that the Sandinistas were still in charge was really leveled a few years after she took office when the Nicaraguan Constitution was revised after 1993 diminishing the Presidency in favor of the Legislature. –  Mar 09 '19 at 01:11
  • Neither being anti-American nor pulling the strings while not formally in power makes you Communist. – Tim Lymington Mar 09 '19 at 10:14
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    @TimLyminton, Agreed, what made the Santanista's Communist were none of those things. It was the full political, economic, military and diplomatic alliance between themselves and the Soviet Union. Nicaragua's was a full fledged member of the Communist block along with Cuba. They were involved with destabilizing their neighbors and exporting their revolution (7 Nicaraguan Agents Captured in Honduras). When the US announced the trade embargo in 1985 they cited Soviets inside of Nicaragua, Nicaragua's efforts to destabalize neighbors, and advanced weapon transfers being given to Nic. –  Mar 09 '19 at 17:17
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The Sandinista government of Nicaragua considered themselves revolutionary Marxists, allied with Cuba and the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and were called Communists by the Reagan administration, which funded an insurgency against them. Their domestic policies were left-wing, but not very similar to the Soviet Union’s.

They lost an election in 1990, had a peaceful transition of power, and the party continued to run in and win elections afterwards.

Davislor
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    Am I the only one impressed by the fact that 19 hours after the question was asked, and within one minute, two people (Davislor and JMS) offered almost the same answer ? – Evargalo Apr 24 '19 at 12:00
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I think Cyprus qualifies here.

Demetris_Christofias was president of Cyprus from 2008 to 2013. He was the candidate of the communist / Marxist-Leninist Progressive Party of Working People and Cyprus is the only EU country which has had a communist head of state.

In Cyprus, the president is both head of state and heads the government. It is not a ceremonial position, the president (Greek) has real power. For example, in the constitution it says he appoints 7 out of the ten ministers. The vice-president (Turkish) appoints the other 3, but there is no Turkish VP in practice.

His party did not have a majority in parliament but it was the largest party at the time Christofias was elected president. Before becoming president of Cyprus he was president of the house of representative 2001-08 (the Cypriot parliament). He decided not run for reelection in 2013 and the president who was elected after him was not a communist.

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