Historical legacies and the size of the red-brown vote in post-communist politics John Ishiyama Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305340, Denton Texas, 76203-5017, USA Available online 24 October 2009 Abstract In this paper I examine the relatively under-investigated topic of how historical legacies shaped the emergence of the ‘‘Red-brown’’ political tendency in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union e which is sometimes referred to as ‘‘National Bolshevism’’ or ‘‘National Communism’’ or ‘‘Strasserism.’’ More specifically I ask the question, how do historical legacies help explain why extreme right wing voters support the successors to the formerly dominant communist parties (or what I refer to as the ‘‘red-brown’’ vote)? I find that the most important legacy variable that affects the red brown phenomenon is the legacy of the previous communist regime. Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California. Keywords: Communist successor parties; Extreme right; National communism; Post-communist politics This paper is not about the extreme right in post-communist Eastern Europe per se. Rather, in this paper I examine the relatively under-investigated topic of how historical legacies shaped the emergence of the ‘‘red-brown’’ political tendency in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union e which is sometimes referred to as ‘‘National Bolshevism’’ or ‘‘National Communism’’ or ‘‘Strasserism.’’ This tendency, has given rise to political movements that glorify a national past, are often irredentist or imperialist (particularly in Russia), are intolerant of ‘‘aliens’’ (both anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic), and oppose globalization and Europeanization. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 42 (2009) 485e504 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/postcomstud 0967-067X/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California. doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2009.10.004