[43][44] An effectively multi-party system emerged in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s in wake of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms.

Former Politburo member Alexander Yakovlev described how KGB director Vladimir Kryuchkov proposed the creation of the party with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at a meeting.

[48] The outspoken leader of the party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an effective media performer,[2] gained 8% of votes during the 1991 presidential elections.

It is regarded that the popularity of Zhirinovsky and his party arose from the electorate's dissatisfaction with Yeltsin and their desire for a non-communist solution.

[51] Zhirinovsky is credited with having successfully identified the problems of ordinary Russians and offering simple remedies to solve them.

Many of Zhirinovsky's views are highly controversial and the LDPR's success in the early 1990s shocked observers both inside and outside Russia.

The party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky was hoping to take the post of Prime Minister of Russia in case of Malyshkin's victory on elections.

[54] Proshka, a donkey owned by Zhirinovsky, became prominent during the presidential campaign when he was filmed in an election advertisement video.

On the last episode of debates with Mikhail Prokhorov just before the elections, Zhirinovsky produced a scandal by calling those Russian celebrities which supported Prokhorov, including a pop-diva and a veteran of Russian pop scene Alla Pugacheva, "prostitutes" ("I thought you are an artful person, politician, cunning man, but you are just a clown and a psycho", replied Pugacheva.

During the diplomatic crisis following the 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown by Turkey, Zhirinovsky suggested to bomb the Bosporus with nuclear weapons.

[58] On 9 July 2020, the popular governor of the Khabarovsk Krai and member of the LDPR, Sergei Furgal, who defeated the candidate of Putin's United Russia party in elections two years previously, was arrested and flown to Moscow on charges of involvement in the murders of several businessmen in 2004 and 2005.

[64][65] In March, he was reportedly placed in a medically induced coma,[66] and underwent treatment for COVID-19 complications such as sepsis and respiratory failure.

Despite confirmation from several sources, including his own political party, the news was quickly denied by family members.

[71][72] After Zhirinovsky's death, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, was elected party leader.

It has supported the restoration of Russia with its "natural borders" (which the party believes include Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Belarus and Ukraine).

[14] Professor Henry E. Hale lists the party's main policy stands as nationalism and a focus in law and order.

[49] Political parties in Russia that had broken the 3% voting barrier and entered the parliament (State Duma) are officially financed by government, according to federal law.

[78][79] Zhirinovsky had stated that he wants to see a monarch titled "supreme ruler" lead Russia and had promised to shoot his political opponents if elected president.