Crisis In The Kremlin is a 1992 Political Strategy Game by Spectrum HoloByte and a 2017 Spiritual Successor of the same name by Kremlingames (followed by a remake in 2025 called Crisis in The Kremlin: The Cold War), the three of them being set in the final years of the USSR. In Crisis, the player takes the role of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and is tasked with seeing the nation through the political and economic disruptions that lead to the dissolution of the USSR in reality. Nationalists, capitalists, generals, hardliners, reformers, and of course the KGB all have a target painted on your back, and missteps will likely result in you retiring early to your summer home, citing health concerns. With the weight of an empowered capitalist world bearing down on the Warsaw Pact, it will not be easy to retain socialist principles, if that's even what you want. Perhaps it's time to join the winning team?
Of course, the Cold War has not yet come to an end, and those nukes still sit in their silos, begging to be used. The outcome, and the consequences, await you at your desk.
Both games contain examples of:
- Alliance Meter: The 1992 version has three factions: hardliners, reformists and nationalists. While the hardliners start out with a clear majority, their massive numbers quickly give way to the reformists and nationalists as time goes on. It is very difficult to keep them happy in order to avoid getting ousted while maintaining your prestige.
- Expanded significantly with the 2017 version. On the left-wing, we have the Trotskyists, Stalinists, and Conservatives, while on the right-wing we have the Moderates, Reformists, and Liberals. There are also Technocrats and Maoists. It's possible to make them all happy through careful balancing, but if either are angry while they have the power to do something about it, you'll have a coup on your hands. Also relevant are the loyalties of your generals, your soldiers, and the KGB.
- Balkanize Me:
- A game over involves the Soviet Union fragmenting into its constituent republics.
- In the 2017 version China can end up with Tibet and Xinjiang splitting off from it if the Soviet Union survives without making any reforms which in turn results in the Chinese Communist Party bungling their own reforms and collapsing due to having no frame of reference.
- Nuke 'Em
- The 1992 version allows you to conduct targeted nuclear strikes against Chinese cities when they invade you in The '90s. It does not go well. NATO issues a protest against your actions and the military is quick to overthrow you.
- Applicable for the 2017 version too. Fortunately, even a Stalinist government will reject starting a nuclear war with the United States whenever tensions flare up. But a Trotskyist government will be all for it, though this will only result in your generals overthrowing you with no missiles launched unless you've completed hypersonic warhead technology. In which case communism is enacted from within the bunker-cities of what was once the USSR.
- Vodka Drunkenski
- The 1992 version provides you with a crisis titled 'Anti Alcohol Campaign'. You may either start an anti-alcohol campaign or increase alcohol prices.
- Expanded in the 2017 version. You are granted the extra option of either ignoring the alcohol problem or outright banning it, improving your science points and quality of life but destroying your coffers and angering the opposition.
- Muslim regions react better to hard stances against alcohol, so a fully Islamized USSR will let you pursue anti-alcoholic policies with near impunity.
Crisis In The Kremlin 1992 contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: No matter what happens to the Soviet Union, in 2017, a dinosaur killer-asteroid wipes out humanity.
- Assassination Attempt: It is entirely possible to attempt the assassination of Boris Yeltsin in order to win the elections. It has a very high chance of failing since it is a Conspicuously Public Assassination but investing in civil police and the KGB can improve your odds. A successful assassination helps lower the nationalist support drastically, helping any potential hardliner continue staying in power.
- Foregone Conclusion: As this game was made during the actual dissolution of the USSR, it contains no functional hardliner path. You must enact reforms to avoid being overthrown, and eventually embrace a market economy to avoid total economic collapse.
- Legally Ousted Leader: Angering either the conservatives or radicals can cause you to have to deal with a motion of no confidence, in which case, you better hope you have enough emergency funds, citizen satisfaction, or political strength to overturn it.
- Militaries Are Useless: Whenever a Soviet bloc country attempts to leave, the player can send in the military to crush the counter-revolutionary forces occupying it. However, it almost always backfires horribly.
- Shout-Out: If civil rights in the Soviet Union are at a critical stage, one option the player can choose for the crisis is to force Soviet citizens to watch The Candidate.
Crisis In The Kremlin 2017 contains examples of:
- Alternate History: In the hands of a talented player the Soviet Union can avert its real-life collapse in 1992 and continue chugging along indefinitely. However, unlike in the original game it is possible for the Warsaw Pact to survive intact as well.
- Antagonistic Governor: The leadership of the various SSRs can, if the situation deteriorates, become Nationalists. They will henceforth attempt to sabotage the loyalties of their nation and generally cause as much trouble for the Kremlin as possible until removed.
- Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: As a Trotskyist, once you manage to unite all the power to your person, it is possible to override the Supreme Council and pass one liberal law after another.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Though difficult, it is possible to transition to a market economy and western democracy, then continue the Cold War and win it anyway. This even includes a specific allowance that the groups who will sponsor leftist terrorism in the United States are the Trotskyists, Stalinists,...and Liberals.
- Boring, but Practical: The Moderate faction does not pursue as many liberal and democratic reforms as the Reformist faction and is a lot more restrained in its approach to combatting the capitalist countries' influence compared to the Stalinist faction but they are the best faction for a beginner player and are one of the easier factions to play as their gradual reforms allow to address the Union's most glaring issues (e.g. inability to provide the population with consumer goods, lack of popular participation in the government, bloated military, worsening relations with the West, excessive censorship, etc.) while not rocking the boat too much.
- Church Militant: Instead of state atheism or cult of your own personality, you can also promote traditional religions within the Soviet system which will also eventually uniformize the union republics' religious majority for greater unanimity. Initially you can sponsor the Orthodox Church, but if you carefully manage relations with Iran that option will be replaced with turning the USSR into an Islamic state based on this historic document
. - Chummy Commies: The Reformist faction in the Communist Party is this as they advocate for reforming the Soviet system into a democratic socialist one, a diplomatic approach towards the West and less interference in the internal affairs of the Warsaw Pact member states. Downplayed with the Moderate faction who also seek to reform the Soviet system but at a slower and more cautious pace.
- Colonized Solar System: Going down the civilian branch of the Soviet space research tree will result in the Soviet Union establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars. In the 2025 remake, the Moon colony is expanded on with multiple tiers of spending, with the latest tiers boosting the economy with lunar resources supplying the orbit.
- Commie Land: Likely if one's political backing comes from Stalinists or Trotskyists, who will allow you to return to the heights of Stalin's repression and even beyond.
- Commie-Nazis: The Trotskyists and their successors the National Bolsheviks. Both combine aggressive commitment to the world revolution with Soviet nationalism, allowing for an aggressive colonial policy in the Third World (that is, ironically, also supported by the liberals).
- Cult of Personality: Managing your own is a critical task. At start, the cult is only light and focused on past leaders, but can be eliminated entirely or restored to full power, eventually declaring you a living deity and transferring all political power to your will.
- The same policies allow you to remain incognito and even persecute those who ask too many question about who really is in charge of the Soviet government.
- Dirty Communists: The Stalinist faction qualifies as this as they tend to advocate for totalitarian policies and will be displeased with any attempt to liberalize the Soviet system.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: "Winning" (and causing) World War III is no easy task, as it requires researching advanced technology to beat Mutually Assured Destruction while maintaining the political solvency of the Trotskyists, but not allowing them enough influence to force a missile launch until you're ready. For this effort, you manage to destroy capitalism by wiping out all the countries that practice it, with only Soviet bunkers surviving and connected through teletext machines. The victory screen even mocks you for this questionable form of dedication.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- It is possible to play as an incredulously extreme hardliner, to the extent you may get events in which the Stalinists try to threaten you into reforms.
- Every single faction except the Trotskyists will not use nuclear weapons against the West unprovoked, even the staunchly authoritarian and anti-Western Stalinists.
- Fallen States of America: An essential step in defeating NATO is bringing the USA to the point of internal crisis, at which point emergency elections result in the rise of Ron Paul or Donald Trump. The former withdraws the US from all external bodies immediately, the latter after a short-lived comeback attempt.
- Golden Ending: The creation of the World Soviet Union, which only occurs once all countries are Soviet-aligned. If you've managed to build communism and enact political reforms, this results in a utopian society.
- Hegemonic Empire: The USA will begin to extract resources from third-world nations to support itself once you start pressuring them, and you can do the same with the right policies.
- Historical Domain Character: Depending on which year you start you can choose between 6 characters. The conservative-neostalinist Grigory Romanov, the conservative-brezhnevist Viktor Grishin, the moderate-neoleninist Yegor Ligachyov, the moderate Andrei Gromyko, the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev and for the GKChP scenario the apolitical Gennady Yanayev. Picking one makes everyone else your political rival. Except when you create a custom leader, then everyone else will be.
- Job-Stealing Robot: The intentional outcome of the OGAS project, which can result in the advent of early communism if fully implemented.
- Oppressive States of America: If the USA abandons the outside world, it either becomes Isolationist...or Authoritarian.
- Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: State advancement of atheism can eventually cause it to become the majority belief in the Soviet sphere. It comes with a large amount of unrest, but a successfully converted atheist USSR has the benefit of increased unanimity of beliefs and an increase in science points per turn.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Soviet Union begins as one in the process of de-tyrannizing. You can become an actual democracy if you want (either of the Western variety or a couple of Soviet types) or you can move toward a harder dictatorship.
- Permanent Elected Official: If the player reforms the Soviet Union to allow the people to elect the Soviet General Secretary, they can be re-elected repeatedly, provided the people are satisfied with their lives.
- Post-Final Boss: After the fall of the USA as a superpower and the collapse of NATO, the now-authoritarian USA, social democratic UK, and isolated France will form a second alliance to attempt to stand against the extremely powerful socialist bloc. Ultimately however, they are pretty weak compared to their predecessors and can be picked apart, solidifying the USSR's world conquest.
- Post-Scarcity Economy: A fully implemented OGAS will put you as close as you can hope to get in the 90's, and your economic solvency will eclipse that of the capitalist world, with 4-hour workdays churning out maximum productivity and public happiness. The 2025 version requires "Declaring Communism's Success", a multi-faceted combination of OGAS (which is no longer a single, difficult minigame of maximum opinion juggling but a "relatively" gentle set of reforms), very humane work and taxation policies, and of course extremely high quality of life combined. But declaring it will be a true triumph for many players.
- Regime Change: Overthrowing capitalist governments and replacing them with socialist ones is the primary step if one wishes to win the Cold War. Conversely, it is possible to enact an internal regime change and transition to capitalism.
- Russia in Ruins: Some of the game's bad endings are even more dire than real-life events surrounding the dissolution of the USSR and its aftermath. Particularly stands out the "Military Defeat" ending, in which the USSR, having previously carried out nuclear disarmament, becomes the target of a NATO military operation, with the winners ultimately breaking the USSR into several controlled democratic republics.
- Russia Takes Over the World: If NATO should collapse, there's nothing standing in your way.
- Secret Police: The KGB, of course. They make powerful allies and deadly enemies, so keeping them loyal is a premium concern. Plus they need to be well equipped and funded to do many changes and actions, even the most humane ones, so a crippled KGB(or its equivalent in other levels of federation) will kill the player's plans fast.
- Take That!: You get an oddly specific and personal game over text if you lose the game the historic way. It's not hard to guess who was really addressed here.
- The Man Behind the Man: You can run one alternatively to the Cult of Personality.
- The Starscream: Boris Yeltsin. Even when playing as a super duper liberal, this guy is out to get you and the USSR. Under certain circumstances when he acts up often enough and you are somehow still in charge, this game outright forces you to kill him by the merit of having used up all the other options already.
- Too Dumb to Live: Go ahead, disarm all your ICBMs in the name of international peace. NATO will be pleased to hear it. But also averted, since NATO can't invade you if NATO no longer exists, at which point pacifism becomes a lot more viable.
- One achievement is acquired by winning the Cold War and then mismanaging the USSR into collapse anyway.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The fight for influence in the third world takes this form, with the USA and USSR sponsoring governments of the appropriate stripe. Unless you spend resources building up these nations, which eventually renders them immune to destabilization attempts.
Crisis In The Kremlin: The Cold War contains examples of:
- Commie-Nazis: The inaccurately-named Trotskyists of the 2017 game are replaced by the Social Patriots, expressly inspired by and using the grenade icon of the National Bolsheviks. (The Trotskyists themselves don't have a party, though the Informal-Socialists take over the Trotskyist approach to world revolution - Social Patriots are internationally more moderate.)
- Divided States of America: Should the USSR win the Cold War and cause America to collapse, the latter will splinter into a variety of independent states including a free Texas, New England, an independent southern state, a Rust Belt republic, the West Coast, and a White supremacist ethnostate in the American Northwest.
- I Have Your Wife: Implied in optional "terror actions" method regarding proxy wars, targeting opposition families. The player spends a hefty sum of Special Operations points every month eating a lot of money, but the result greatly damages enemy morale and operations. Depending on theater, it will heavily damage international relations, or not as much.
- Oppressive States of America: Under Donald Trump, the US is a right-wing dictatorship with the Paternalistic Conservatism government type.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Neocolonial exploitation of other Third World countries can be made sustainable with food and medical aid in return.
- Predatory Business: USSR can, for extra irony, in its state economy can start conquering Europe without firing a shot. Once the USA retires to isolationism, rampant, cheap exports of certain goods into the EU markets start the coup de grace; at first, USSR loses lots of goods per month, yet once reaching a certain threshold, literally converts the country to the Soviet cause and damages the omnipresent debuff "Hegemony of the Dollar", which is once broken, generates insane levels of income that can be converted a world conquering force and utopian social spending within the USSR.
- Private Profit Prison: It will heavily boost a free market economy and services sector (and corruption), while obliterating civic engagement and any goodwill in the civil population.
- Proxy War: Unlike the earlier games, theaters for proxy wars will play out with two sides, with many erupting as decolonization and political crises and many others able to be started or intervened with, such as a future Chinese civil war if CCP collapses.
