I’m interested in a sci fi story set in futuristic Russia where Russia has stepped back into communism and formed a new USSR. If you have any tips for writing this sort of idea or want to tell me how ridiculous and implausible something is, please be my guest.
They have already went a long way to that direction. Tips? - Study todays Russia. Power dynamics. Mass media. The real position of oligarkia. Deep state. - Compere it to Imperial Russia. - Then compere both to Soviet Union. All those 3 have some similarities in the culture and structure of governing. Find them. "New communism" will not be similar as old. Find the difference's. Find why's. Find how's. Study China. Start with Chinauncensored. https://www.youtube.com/user/NTDChinaUncensored You get topics you need to study. Then do. Dig deep. Study what Dr. Phillip Karber tells about Russian military. Study what Yuri Bezmenov told about KGB methods. Read Solzenitzyn. Read The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. Read Animal Farm by Orwell.
A popular scenario but problematic for many reasons. The notion that Russia is about to build a new USSR (often propagated in the West) is far from the truth in my opinion. Why? Russia has mainly acted to preserve its sphere of influence following the disastrous economic collapse during the '90s and the loss of influence and status as a world power. The 90's have deeply traumatized Russian society due to the chaotic collapse of the USSR which left millions in poverty. No matter how flawed, the socialist system did function for decades and provided people with some stability, while the economic liberalization during the '90s brought down the whole system basically overnight. Moreover, Russians link the economic liberalization with criminality, instability, and plundering of state resources to benefit the very few at the expense of everyone else. It's certainly not without a good reason, as a very small group of oligarchs plundered Russia after 1991 and to make it worse, these people kept their money in Western banks with many of them representing themselves as 'liberal' and 'democratic', favoring closer ties with the West. It's what discredited the 'liberals' in Russia who are not trusted to this day. Russian military doctrine is predominantly a defensive one, not aimed at projecting power far outside of Russia's borders as was the case with SU which spent huge sums on money on the military to maintain the status of a global superpower and officially to spread socialism and rival capitalist powers. Modern Russia has renounced this approach, as it lacks both the resources and the will to play the superpower. Instead, Russia has focused mainly on what it perceives as its traditional sphere of influence. However, Russia has also moved to build a strategic partnership with China, as well as other developing countries (BRICS) and made some steps towards building an economic and political union 'Eurasian Union'. Internally, the state has regained many of its prerogatives (heavily backed by the Russian population), as putting strategic resources under state control. The oligarchs lost most of their political powers but were allowed to keep their wealth if they cooperate with the state. Will there be a new USSR? Hardly. On the other hand, Russia might establish some kind of a confederacy (politico-economic and maybe military) union with some states in Central Asia and Belarus. PS There is a communist party in Russia today, which ranks as the second or third most popular party after Putin's United Russia. As far as I know, the party is pretty weak and resembles the old Communist party only in name only. It will be interesting the power transfer after Putin withdraws at some point. Who will emerge and replace him? Putin might handpick a successor and try to gather enough support for him but there are many different scenarios which could occur. Perhaps you could try to write a story about a potentially turbulent era following the end of Putin's Presidential term. The setting could some fictional, post-Putin Russia, a kind of a hybrid of traditional Russian Imperial ideas and some form of socialism, though if I were you, I'd try to steer away from Communist revival scenarios, as I think this is a bit cliche. There are already loads of fiction novels on a similar topic, so you might try a new approach.
As we have seen in Chechnya before crushing it's will to indipendence, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, Moldova (Transnistria)... As we have seen in Baltic Sea with Russian false nuclear attacks against Denmark and Sweden. As we can read in Russian military doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_doctrine_of_Russia https://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029 As Putin, Lavrov and they friends tell all the time. As has been since Suvorov... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Suvorov ... laid the basic principle of Russian military thinking in... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13540316-the-art-of-victory As OECD tells. As Dr Phillip Karber tells. As... Sorry. You are wrong. Russian doctrine is about as offensive as a doctrine can be. And all Russian military exercises tell the same. Latest... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapad_2017_exercise
It would have to be sci-fi distant enough for nationalit identities to fade down. No county that has escaped the clutches of communism would willingly surrender itself back to it. Eastern Europe has been collectively traumatised, and its economy and global standing have been left scared. My parents are Polish, my best friend’s parents are Belorussian, another friend is Ukrainian, another one is Lithuanian. We’ve all been vaccinated against communism in abundance. Even several generations in the future may not be enough. Warnings against communism have been embedded the very daily language. Picture it as the Eighth Deadly Sin. No one needs to say it, everyone knows it’s bad, bad. Besides, in order to flip into the USSR, Russia would have to be the top dog economically and thus militariy. Currently it’s only playing catch up and that’s because of communism. During the revolution, the county was open to all sorts of foreign threats. Fortunately for it, the rest of the world was in no position to “capitalise” on these openings. That’s not to say it’s impossible and you shouldn’t write it. But you really have to consider these things, if you want your thing to be authentic.
