http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChummyCommies

Margaret Thatcher "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

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The Communist bloc was locked in a Cold War with the Western world for much of the twentieth century. It's no surprise then that Western, and especially American, media tends to portray Communists as the baddies. Sometimes, however, fiction shows Communists in a more positive light — or at least, one more positive than that in which the Nazis will ever be portrayed (despite former Nazis similarly becoming American allies — and citizens! — during the Cold War). Maybe agents or soldiers from East and West have to team up to face a greater threat, collectively raising their Hammers and Sickles to defend their people rather than conquering others. Sometimes a non-Communist will find out that the Commies are Not So Different once they get to know them. And sometimes, Western media will simply show Communists to be genuinely decent people who happen to favour a different social and economic system.

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Though obviously virtually nonexistent in the Cold War, this was the default portrayal of the Soviet Union during World War II, during which the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union fought on the same side against Nazi Germany. American propaganda of the time heavily emphasized the "strong leadership" and "great industry" of the Soviet Union, while conveniently ignoring the atrocities committed by the Soviet leaders. As a result, many Americans and Brits who were critical of the Soviet Union — including George Orwell — found it impossible to get their work published because supporting the Soviet Union was seen as necessary for the war effort.

Note that this trope applies only to non-Communist media, since it's a given for works actually produced in Communist countries. Also, when there's a political system involved and not just individual characters, the trope applies only if the system is portrayed positively. It can also apply to Communists who live in a non-Communist country.

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Compare Heroic Russian Émigré, when the commies are actually bad, but the Russian White émigrés who escaped them are portrayed as good guys. Contrast Dirty Communists, Red Scare, Commie Nazis, Hollywood History. Interestingly, the Token Enemy Minority can overlap with this trope. The Working-Class Hero is a related trope.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

Comic Books

The Rocket Red Brigade from the DC Universe.

Gu Lao, the Socialist Red Guardsman from DC's Great Ten.

One late-80s storyline in The Flash involved Wally West working with Fidel Castro to stop alien invaders. Castro then threw him a birthday party.

Collective Man, a Marvel Comics superhero who is China's equivalent of Captain America. Also, the Chinese Radioactive Man once he joins the Thunderbolts. He is genuinely more altruistic than his teammates, who are all Boxed Crooks.

Marvel's Soviet Super-Soldiers (a group of Red Army officers with superhuman powers) frequently teamed up with the Avengers and other mostly-American heroes against villains that threatened both the US and USSR. Eventually they turned against their government and were replaced by the Supreme Soviets, though after the USSR fell the two teams merged to form the Winter Guard.

The Boys has Vas, a former superhero for the Soviet Union who is an ardent communist and deplores what the Russia of the early 2000s has become. He's also the kindest, most genuine, and most affable character in the comic, with the only possible exception being main character Wee Hughie himself. Even Billy Butcher, whose plan is to kill every person with the super compound in their blood, even his closest friends , likes Vas.

, likes Vas. Persepolis: Marjane's Uncle Anoosh is a kind, friendly communist whom she adores. A number of other communists appear too, some noble, others hypocrites, but portrayed positively overall while friendly with Marjane. Because of her uncle, Marjane grows up with picturing God as Karl Marx, having her own kind of Islamic/Marxist hybrid philosophy. After losing faith in God, she still has a radical leftist point of view and hangs around with communists or anarchists.

Fan Works

Film

Literature

In the Phryne Fisher mysteries Bert and Cec are "red raggers" (communists) and members of the Industrial Workers of The World (a very radical, militant union) and are good friends with the heroine and overall very nice guys.

Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage 2: Destination Brain (despite the name, it's not a sequel to his novelization of Fantastic Voyage — it's more of a remake) presents the image of a world where the Cold War has mellowed out to the point that the colours on maps are muted (the Soviet bloc is pink, the Western Allies are light blue). Despite the story starting off with the Soviets kidnapping the American protagonist, the Soviet characters are still presented in a sympathetic light (in fact, for most of the story they aren't antagonistic at all, it's just that the USSR and the USA are still rivals, so it wouldn't do to just ask a US scientist to help you with something that could bring you a significant technological advantage).

In Harry Harrison's Invasion: Earth, the US and the USSR work together when the alien craft crash-lands in New York, the latter sending a female linguist (who, despite expectations, does not end up with the male American protagonist) to help translate the alien language. That turns out to be moot, since the aliens have learned English and Russian by listening to transmissions from Earth. During the climax, an American/Soviet team is assembled to strike at the alien base in the Antarctic made up of soldiers born in Denver and Tomsk, two of the cities destroyed by Orbital Bombardment . It's not stated if French soldiers from the also destroyed Metz are included

In Carl Sagan's original novel Contact (unlike the film), the Soviet Union is a predictable rival to the United States to build the Machine, but Dr. Arroway's Soviet counterpart, "Vaygay" Lunacharsky, who helps keeps telescopes pointed at Vega is a close friend and often more help than the United States government. Surprisingly, he's established both as a fairly devout intellectual communist and reluctant to publicly criticize the United States.

The Anderssons: Elin is a Communist and mostly portrayed in a positive light. Notably, she is, despite her political leanings, devastated by how things turned out in Hungary in 1956. Robert Karlsson, one of Elin's best friends, is a more complicated case. Often, he is portrayed as a fanatic in his Communist beliefs. But he's a genuinely good-hearted man most of the time, and not even he likes Stalin.

The Spellsinger novels have Falameezar, a dragon who got bonked on the head by a copy of Das Kapital that fell through a gate between worlds. He's a bit of a Knight Templar and still willing to eat sentient beings, but as Jon-Tom is a liberal college student from the 70s he's very familiar with Marx's writings and thus is able to recruit him to their cause.

Live Action TV

Tabletop Games

In the grimdark future of Warhammer 40,000, the relatively good guys are the Tau & Imperium of Man. The latter is inspired by Soviet authoritarianism, aesthetics, & bureaucracy while the former is closer to the communist ideal.

Red Planet : a campaign setting for the Fate Core/Accelerated system posits 'What If? Communism not only worked as intended but was strong enough to colonize Mars?' The Union of Materialist Republics is a full-on Raygun Gothic Utopia where all are happy with their lot and are protected from the machinations of the decadent Americans and corrupt Soviets.

: a campaign setting for the Fate Core/Accelerated system posits 'What If? Communism not only worked as intended but was strong enough to colonize Mars?' The Union of Materialist Republics is a full-on Raygun Gothic Utopia where all are happy with their lot and are protected from the machinations of the decadent Americans and corrupt Soviets. The default setting for Champions was developed in the 1980s, amid high Red Scare levels, and so featured two official Soviet/Warsaw Pact superteams — "The Supreme Soviets", who were basically loyal to the state, if only because that suited their ambitious leader, Colonel Vasalov, and who thus tended to operate in the range from Worthy Opponents to Dirty Communists, and their auxiliary team, the "Comintern", who were created as something of a dumping-ground for less reliable or more independent-minded supers, and who could thus be more likely to come across as Chummy Commies when not operating directly at cross-purposes to the PCs. However, the switch to 4th edition came around the time of The Great Politics Mess-Up, and by the time the characters were updated in Classic Enemies (1991), they needed major changes. One group, "Red Doom", had gone rogue, with Colonel Vasalov aiming to depose President Gorbachev and take over Russia, thus falling into the Renegade Russian category (though the team still had several non-Russian members); the other characters had become an independent hero team, the "New Guard", albeit still very loyal to their various homelands, making them basically Chummy Commies who weren't especially communist.

Video Games

Web Comics

In Pandora's Tale, resistance member Natalya is a Russian Communist who uses vintage Soviet weaponry, refers to everyone as "Comrade", and composes lengthy essays about class struggle. She also seems to have a much easier time accepting Pandora as an equal than many of the other characters.

Web Original

Western Animation