Communist state

This article is about sovereign states governed by communist parties. For the hypothetical social stage proposed by Marxist theory, see Communist society. For a list of states designated as communist, see List of communist states.

The flags of the Communist Party of Vietnam that were flown beside the Vietnamese national flags in Hanoi, Vietnam
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A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comintern after its Bolshevisation, and the communist states within the Comecon, the Eastern Bloc, and the Warsaw Pact.[1] After the peak of Marxism–Leninism, when many communist states were established, the Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states; however, Communism remained the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam,[2] and to a lesser extent, North Korea.[3][4] During the later part of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states.[5]

Communist states are typically authoritarian and are typically administered through democratic centralism by a single centralised communist party apparatus. These parties are usually Marxist–Leninist or some national variation thereof such as Maoism or Titoism. There have been several instances of communist states with functioning political participation (i.e. Soviet democracy) processes involving several other non-party organisations such as direct democratic participation, factory committees, and trade unions, although the communist party remained the centre of power.[6][7][8][9][10]

As a term, communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, and media to refer to these countries. However, these states do not describe themselves as communist nor do they claim to have achieved communism — they refer to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing socialism and progressing toward a communist society.[11][12][13][14] Other terms used by communist states include national-democratic, people's democratic, socialist-oriented, and workers and peasants' states.[15] Academics, political commentators, and other scholars tend to distinguish between communist states and democratic socialist states, with the first representing the Eastern Bloc and the latter representing Western Bloc countries that have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as France, Sweden, and Western social-democracies in general, among others.[16][17][18][19]

  1. ^ Bottomore, T. B. (1991). A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 54.
  2. ^ Cooke, Chris, ed. (1998). Dictionary of Historical Terms (2nd ed.). pp. 221–222, 305.
  3. ^ Lee, Grace (Spring 2003)) "The Political Philosophy of Juche". v.3, n.1. Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs. Quote: "The DPRK claims that juche is Kim Il Sung's creative application of Marxist-Leninist principle to the modern political realities in North Korea."
  4. ^ Atsuhito, Isozaki (21 June 2021). "A Revival of North Korean Communism?: The rhetoric is there. But what does it mean?". The Diplomat. Retrieved 2 December 2022. In his closing address at the Conference of Cell Secretaries of the Workers' Party of Korea in late April, Kim mentioned the word "communism" six times. His recent claim that North Korea aims to become a "communist utopia" is a notable change in rhetoric.
  5. ^ Ball, Terence; Dagger, Richard, eds. (2019) [1999]. "Communism". Encyclopædia Britannica (revised ed.). Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  6. ^ Webb, Sidney; Webb, Beatrice (1935). Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?. London: Longmans.
  7. ^ Sloan, Pat (1937). Soviet Democracy. London: Left Book Club; Victor Gollancz Ltd.
  8. ^ Farber, Samuel (1992). "Before Stalinism: The Rise and Fall of Soviet Democracy". Studies in Soviet Thought. 44 (3): 229–230.
  9. ^ Getzler, Israel (2002) [1982]. Kronstadt 1917-1921: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521894425.
  10. ^ Busky, Donald F. (20 July 2000). Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Praeger. p. 9. ISBN 978-0275968861. In a modern sense of the word, communism refers to the ideology of Marxism–Leninism.
  11. ^ Wilczynski 2008, p. 21: "Contrary to Western usage, these countries describe themselves as 'Socialist' (not 'Communist'). The second stage (Marx's 'higher phase'), or 'Communism' is to be marked by an age of plenty, distribution according to needs (not work), the absence of money and the market mechanism, the disappearance of the last vestiges of capitalism and the ultimate 'whithering away' of the State."
  12. ^ Steele 1999, p. 45: "Among Western journalists the term 'Communist' came to refer exclusively to regimes and movements associated with the Communist International and its offspring: regimes which insisted that they were not communist but socialist, and movements which were barely communist in any sense at all."
  13. ^ Rosser & Rosser 2003, p. 14 "Ironically, the ideological father of communism, Karl Marx, claimed that communism entailed the withering away of the state. The dictatorship of the proletariat was to be a strictly temporary phenomenon. Well aware of this, the Soviet Communists never claimed to have achieved communism, always labeling their own system socialist rather than communist and viewing their system as in transition to communism".
  14. ^ Williams, Raymond (1983). "Socialism". Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, revised edition. Oxford University Press. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-19-520469-8. The decisive distinction between socialist and communist, as in one sense these terms are now ordinarily used, came with the renaming, in 1918, of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) as the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From that time on, a distinction of socialist from communist, often with supporting definitions such as social democrat or democratic socialist, became widely current, although it is significant that all communist parties, in line with earlier usage, continued to describe themselves as socialist and dedicated to socialism.
  15. ^ Nation, R. Craig (1992). Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991. Cornell University Press. pp. 85–6. ISBN 978-0801480072. Archived from the original on 1 August 2019. Retrieved 19 December 2014 – via Google Books.
  16. ^ Barrett, William (1 April 1978). "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: A Symposium". Commentary. Retrieved 14 June 2020. If we were to extend the definition of socialism to include Labor Britain or socialist Sweden, there would be no difficulty in refuting the connection between capitalism and democracy.
  17. ^ Heilbroner, Robert L. (Winter 1991). "From Sweden to Socialism: A Small Symposium on Big Questions". Dissident. Barkan, Joanne; Brand, Horst; Cohen, Mitchell; Coser, Lewis; Denitch, Bogdan; Fehèr, Ferenc; Heller, Agnès; Horvat, Branko; Tyler, Gus. pp. 96–110. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  18. ^ Kendall, Diana (2011). Sociology in Our Time: The Essentials. Cengage Learning. pp. 125–127. ISBN 9781111305505. "Sweden, Great Britain, and France have mixed economies, sometimes referred to as democratic socialism—an economic and political system that combines private ownership of some of the means of production, governmental distribution of some essential goods and services, and free elections. For example, government ownership in Sweden is limited primarily to railroads, mineral resources, a public bank, and liquor and tobacco operations."
  19. ^ Li, He (2015). Political Thought and China's Transformation: Ideas Shaping Reform in Post-Mao China. Springer. pp. 60–69. ISBN 9781137427816. "The scholars in camp of democratic socialism believe that China should draw on the Sweden experience, which is suitable not only for the West but also for China. In the post-Mao China, the Chinese intellectuals are confronted with a variety of models. The liberals favor the American model and share the view that the Soviet model has become archaic and should be totally abandoned. Meanwhile, democratic socialism in Sweden provided an alternative model. Its sustained economic development and extensive welfare programs fascinated many. Numerous scholars within the democratic socialist camp argue that China should model itself politically and economically on Sweden, which is viewed as more genuinely socialist than China. There is a growing consensus among them that in the Nordic countries the welfare state has been extraordinarily successful in eliminating poverty."