Memes

I'm curious about that as well. Good news here is that most people in Russia feel positively about USSR, and communism is largely seen as the more correct system. A fairly recent poll by Levada said that 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735

And another poll (in Russian) shows that most people think the Soviet economic system was more correct https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan

I imagine being closer to China geopolitically and economically will only make these views stronger. A lot of people have to be wondering if Russia could be like China today if different decisions were made in the 90s. It's also worth noting that economic structure in Russia isn't actually dramatically different from China either. Russia never fully embraced liberal policies and the state remains at the commanding heights of the economy. A 2023 World Bank study gives a pretty good overview of this. In particular, it distinguishes between businesses of the state (BOS), that are at least 10% government owned by some government, and state owned enterprises (SOE), which are majority owned or more, and controlled, by the government. And another study has a chart showing SOE in Russia compared with China.

If KPRF continues to gain traction, it's plausible they could take power at some point. It's not a terribly principled party right now, but at least they are genuinely socialist.