ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the August 1991 coup, the communist-nationalist opposition went through several distinct stages. In the first stage, between 1991 and October 1993, the united opposition of left and right political forces mounted a consistent but unsuccessful effort to subvert the regime through a combination of parliamentary pressure and violent street activity. In the second stage, from October 1993 to the June 1996 presidential elections, Gennadiy Zyuganov's Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalists pursued the parliamentary path to power while remaining firmly committed to a change of regime. Together they demonstrated that the sympathies of a good half of the electorate lay outside a ruling regime that had deprived them of their incomes and basic security and threatened their Soviet and/or Russian identity as well. Yet the parliamentary road to power came at the price of institutionalization and the acceptance of the enemy's rules of play. This became evident in the third stage, which extended from 1996 through mid-1999.
