Conventional explanations of Russian electoral outcomes paint a very volatile picture. The conventional story is roughly the following. The popularity of the “democrats” – the catchall label assigned to those political leaders and parties loosely associated with Boris Yeltsin – grew rapidly from the first national elections in 1989 until Boris Yeltsin's first presidential victory in June 1991. After the introduction of shock therapy in January 1991, popular support for the democrats rapidly declined, as demonstrated by their abysmal showing in the 1993 parliamentary elections and their even worse performance in the 1995 parliamentary elections. As support for the “democrats” declined, a new force – nationalism – began to fill the vacuum, as demonstrated most dramatically by Vladimir Zhirinovsky's surprising electoral performance in 1993. Between 1993 and 1995, however, Zhirinovsky discredited himself with silly theatrics, thereby providing a political opportunity for a communist comeback in the 1995 parliamentary elections. The combination of nationalist and communist resurgence convinced many by the winter of 1996 that the “democrats,” and Boris Yeltsin in particular, had little chance of winning the summer presidential vote. Had Yeltsin lost, Russia would have followed a pattern similar to that of other post-communist countries in which those that started economic reforms after the collapse of communism were voted out of office in the second election.