Unified assessments of the past for mass political movements representing the extreme flanks of the political spectrum have become an integral part of party identity in modern society. The activity of political parties can have a significant impact on the memory of society, change collective memories of individual events and even entire historical periods. The author of the article analyzes the attitude of modern Russian communists to the key events of history, identifies the features of their party historical policy, compares approaches with other political parties and narratives of the Soviet era. The main sources were official documents of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the party "Communists of Russia", as well as speeches, interviews and publications of their leaders. The Communist parties turn mainly to the history of Russia, starting with the revolutionary events of 1917. Although Communists actively use formulations from Soviet narratives, their own attitude has been formed to a number of events and processes. The most important differences are related to the assessment of the February Revolution and its results, the perception of the policy of I. V. Stalin. Many historical events (de-Stalinization, the collapse of the USSR) of the party are explained by the presence of international conspiracies, not internal processes. The "Communists of Russia" and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation use their ideas about the past in different ways: the former actively propagandize them during election campaigns and build their election programs on them, the latter weakly use historical politics during electoral battles, making the programs as neutral as possible, but during the inter-election period they actively promote their vision of the past.