Communist state

This article is about one-party states governed by Communist parties. For information regarding communism as a form of society, as an ideology advocating that form of society, or as a popular movement, see the main Communism article.

A Communist state is a state governed by a single political party (or a single list, which includes formally several parties, as was the case in the GDR) which declares its allegiance to the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

The leaders of Communist Party states have generally referred to their states as socialist states, or practitioners of socialism in one country. In Marxist political theory "communism" is defined as a classless, egualitarian and stateless society (see Stateless communism), and socialism is a transitional phase consisting of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Disputes over definition of a "Communist state"

See also: Socialist republic

Some writers argue that the term "Communist state" isan oxymoron. These writers treat the term as synonymous with Communism's theoretical goal of stateless communism, a society that is propertyless, classless and stateless [1], where everyone works according to their ability and receive according to their need. Marx and Engels's theory does, however, include a transitional phase known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Communist state claims to be the practical enactment of this dictatorship of the proletariat.

Certain socialists have rejected the idea that historical Communist Party states represented genuine communism, claiming that their governments became corrupt and distorted communist ideals. Trotskyists, for example, were opposed to the Soviet government following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power, as well as the Communist Party states established by the USSR in Eastern Europe following World War II. Other leftists, such as anarcho-communists, have also opposed historical Communist Party state, similarly arguing that their governments were oppressive and corrupt.

There have been and still exist countries where Communist parties have come to power through democratic elections, and ruled in the context of a multi-party democracy. The East European country of Moldova has been governed since 2001 by an elected Communist party. It does not qualify as a Communist state in the context of this article, because the Communist party exists as one of multiple parties and does not have a monopoly on political power.

Historical examples

Global expansion of Communist states by date of establishment. Dark red: 1920s-1930s Bright red: 1940s-1950s Salmon: 1960s-1980s.

In the 20th century, a number of Communist Parties based on Marxist-Leninist ideology established governments in various countries. In those countries, the aforementioned Communist parties made themselves the only legal political parties. Generally they were, or continue to be, totalitarian with a rigid plan economy; embracing market reforms isn't necessarily coupled with as much socio-political liberalisation, they may remain authoritarian.

The history of Communist states is often closely related to the history of non-Communist governments, and to the history of the Communist movement in general. As such, the following historical account is not restricted to Communist states:

Following the October Revolution in 1917, which established what later became the Soviet Union, there was a revolutionary wave throughout Europe. Communist revolutions, uprisings or attempted uprisings took place in many European countries. However, Russian Communists, engaged in the Russian Civil War, were unable to provide any significant support to communist movements outside Russia. Eventually, in the first decades after the Russian revolution, only five revolutions outside Russia were able to take power, and these for short periods of time. They resulted in the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic in 1918, the Bavarian Soviet Republic from November 1918 until May 3 1919, the Slovak Soviet Republic in 1919, the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, and the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1920 to 1921. All of them were soon abolished, and with the defeat of the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, the Russian Communists were forced to abandon any plans of military aid to Communist movements in Europe. On the other side of the world, Mongolia had been a protectorate of the Russian Empire from its independence from China in 1912 until 1919, when the Chinese reasserted control during the chaos of the Russian Civil War. The Russian monarchist White Army regained control in 1921, but was driven out by the Red Army that same year. Mongolia was not absorbed into the Soviet Union, but was renamed the People's Republic of Mongolia and became the Soviet Union's first satellite state in 1924. Another example of Communist state was the Tuvinian People's Republic establlished in 1921 and absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1944.

From 1924 until World War II, there were no successful Communist revolutions, and no more Communist states were established.

Most of the Communist states in the world were established in the aftermath of World War II in Eastern Europe, either in countries which were liberated from the Nazis by the Soviet Red Army, or in countries where Communist-led partisans succeeded in driving out the Nazis and taking power themselves. The Red Army arranged for the establishment of Communist governments in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania, which became Soviet satellites. Communist partisans established Communist governments which were initially pro-Soviet in Albania and Yugoslavia. Furthermore, in East Asia, the Red Army joined the war against Japan and established a Communist state in North Korea.

With Soviet military aid, Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War and established the People's Republic of China in 1949. The First Indochina War led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in northern Vietnam in 1954. Later, the Vietnam War ended with the defeat of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese Army and the establishment of a unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The broader Indochina conflict also saw Communist states established in Laos and Cambodia in 1975, though the latter government (known as Democratic Kampuchea) was toppled in a Vietnamese invasion and denounced by Vietnam and its Communist allies. (see Khmer Rouge)

In 1959, the Cuban Revolution eventually led to the first Communist state being established in the Western Hemisphere, the Republic of Cuba. Some also call Nicaragua under the Sandinista National Liberation Front and Grenada under the New Jewel Movement "Communist States" as both nations came under Marxist military junta control in 1979.

A civil war led to the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in southern Yemen in 1969.

For several years, Communist states also existed in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, Somalia, and the Republic of the Congo.

By the early 1980s, nearly one third of the world's population in 25 nations was ruled by Communist governments (due largely to the size of Russia and China).

There have been several wars or military conflicts between Communist states: the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Prague spring, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the Ogaden War, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War and the Sino-Vietnamese War.

However, due to internal economic problems, foreign entanglements, and pressures for reform, the Soviet Union itself was growing increasingly unstable. In the late 1980s, Eastern Europe grew increasingly unstable as pro-westerners rose up against their governments, and in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. Only Yugoslavia survived the fall.

As of 2006, there are five Communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Despite a common Communist ideology, they possess certain distinct characteristics, both politically and economically.

Communist theories and ideologies of government

See also the articles on Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism and Juche.Communist states base themselves on a form of Marxist-Leninist ideology. All historical Communist states that existed for significant periods of time during the 20th century had their roots in either Soviet-inspired Marxism-Leninism or Maoism. Whether these states were faithful to Marxism is a matter of dispute. Trotskyists have been vocal communist opponents of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist Soviet Union, and Maoism on the grounds that they were perversions of Marxism-Leninism and communist ideals.

Marxism holds — among other things — that human history has had and will have a developmental structure, alternating between slow development of technology/economy (and the according philosophy/religion) and short periods of rapid change in technology and economy (as well as philosophy and, sometimes, religion.) The short periods of rapid change take place immediately after revolutions of one kind or another.

Marx envisioned communism as the final evolutionary phase of society at which time the state would have withered away. He specified that the workers should rise up to destroy capitalism and replace it with socialism, a transitional stage during which the state is to gain control over all means of production on behalf of the proletariat. Marx theorized that socialism would give way to communism, a classless society in which full collective ownership has been attained and the state no longer plays a role.

Communist states have never actually claimed to have reached communism. They described themselves as socialist states in which the working people's will was represented through the Communist Party and (affiliated) mass organizations. This is because Marxist theory says a society cannot advance from capitalism to communism overnight. A transitional stage is needed. (see dictatorship of the proletariat).

Leninist theory, developed by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, emphasises the role of a well-organized group of revolutionaries in planning and carrying out the transition to socialism. According to Leninism, a Communist party must be organized along the principles of democratic centralism in order to maximize efficiency. Leninism departs from original Marxist theory in arguing that the revolution will not begin in the most advanced capitalist countries, but in poor, underdeveloped countries where the capitalist ruling class is weakest. From there, the revolution would need to spread quickly to the advanced industrialized nations, who would provide the underdeveloped country with the resources necessary to build socialism.

With these principles in mind, right after the Russian Revolution, Lenin argued that the success of socialism in Russia depended on the victory of socialist revolutions in other countries (most notably the German Revolution.) However, all the socialist revolutions that flared up across Europe in the years 1918-1922 were crushed. Russia found itself alone in its attempt to build socialism.

Lenin did not live long enough to formulate a solution to this problem. Instead, the role fell on his successors, the most notable of whom were Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Trotsky proposed his thesis of the "permanent revolution," while Stalin proposed "socialism in one country." Over the following years, Stalin gradually succeeded in eliminating his ideological opponents (including Trotsky) and taking over the Soviet government. He upheld and implemented the idea of "socialism in one country," which argued that socialism could and should be built in the Soviet Union without the help of other nations.

Throughout the 1930s, Stalin created the State and Party structure on which all subsequent Communist states were to be based. Power was centralized in his hands, and democratic centralism was gradually removed from the decision-making process of the Communist Party (a process which culminated in the Great Purge.)

Later, the ideology of Mao Zedong in the People's Republic of China (Maoism) diverged from traditional Stalinism by emphasizing the peasantry over the urban proletariat in both the revolution and post-revolutionary development.

Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been characterized by a strong state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Dissident communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism.

Further, critics have often claimed that a Stalinist or Maoist system of government creates a new ruling class, usually called the nomenklatura.

Relationship between party and state

Political scientists have developed the concept of the Communist state to reflect claims made by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and others that the revolutionary state must be led by the dictatorship of the proletariat, in which the working class is represented by the Communist Party. In practice, according to this theory, state and the party are effectively identical, and govern all aspects of the society.

In the Soviet Union for example, the General Secretary of the Communist Party did not necessarily hold a state office. Instead party members answerable to or controlled by the party held these posts, often as honorific posts as a reward for their long years of service to the party. On other occasions, having governed as General Secretary, the party leader might assume a state office in addition. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev initially did not hold the presidency of the Soviet Union, that office being given as an honor to a former Soviet Foreign Minister.

Within Communist states there have rarely been restrictions on state power, resulting in state structures which are either totalitarian or authoritarian. Marxist-Leninist ideology views restrictions on state power to be an unnecessary interference in the goal of reaching communism. Dissident communists have argued that a state with absolute power naturally becomes corrupt and is thus incapable of moving society toward communism.

Communist states have maintained a large secret police apparatus to closely monitor the population and silence those deemed "enemies of the state." Arrest, torture, "reeducation," and summary execution are all methods that have been employed. Some political scientists have argued that there are deep similarities between Communist states and fascist ones and that both are examples of totalitarian states.

The nature of each individual Communist state differs widely both between countries and within each individual state. States that incorporate the policies and techniques of the orthodox Stalinist state of the 1930s are characteristically more totalitarian, impoverished, militaristic, and static, as can be seen in North Korea and Communist Albania. States such as China have benefitted from market reforms introduced by the Communist Party, but attempts to dramatically reform the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev contributed to its collapse as the Communist Party was unable to maintain its grip on power.

The People's Republic of China and to a lesser extent Vietnam and Laos have all moved toward market reforms after the command economy failed to produce necessary development.

Criticism and advocacy

See also: Criticisms of communismAdvocates of Communism praise Communist parties for running countries that have sometimes leapt ahead of contemporary "capitalist" countries, offering guaranteed employment, health care and housing to their citizens. Critics of communism typically condemn Communist states by the same criteria, claiming that all lag far behind the industrialized West in terms of economic development and living standards.

Central economic planning has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, including rapid development of heavy industry during the 1930s in the Soviet Union (a belated industrialisation) and later in their space program. Another example touted by Communists is the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. Early advances in the status of women were also notable, especially in Islamic areas of the Soviet Union. See Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919–1929, Princeton University Press, 1974, hardcover, 451 pages, ISBN 069107562X. Critics however cite counter-examples: the failure of the Soviet Union to achieve the same kind of development in agriculture (forcing the Soviet Union to become a net importer of cereals after the Second World War), as well as the continued poverty of other Communist states such as Laos, Vietnam or Maoist China. Indeed, they point out that China only achieved high rates of growth after introducing Capitalist economic reforms — a sign, claim the critics, of the superiority of Capitalism.

The rigid execution of economic plans has had negative results, such as the 5 year plans in the Soviet Union, the total focus on agrarian reform at the expense of industrialisation in China and the plans to achieve an enormous sugar production at all cost in Cuba in the 1960's, which left the rest of the economy in shambles.

Other claims include generous social and cultural programs, often administered by labor organizations. Universal education programs have been a strong point, as has the generous provision of universal health care. This is illustrated by the high levels of literacy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese. Critics charge that Communist compulsory education was replete with pro-Communist propaganda and censored opposing views. Critics also note that the Communist states do not compare favourable when comparing states with similar culture and economic development before the Communist takeover. Examples include North Korea vs. South Korea; China vs. Hong Kong and Taiwan; and East Germany (GDR) vs. West Germany (GFR).

Critics also point out that some Communist states have been involved in the destruction of cultural heritage: Romania (planned destruction of historical centres of most towns — partially achieved in Bucharest), China (repression of Tibetan culture, destructions during the Cultural Revolution) and the Soviet Union (destruction, abandon or reconversion of religious buildings) are the most cited examples.

Also pointed out are environmental disasters which, critics claim, were due to the Communist governments in place. The most cited example is the disappearance of the Aral Sea in today's Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which is believed to have been caused by the diversion of the waters of its two affluent rivers for cotton production. This is, however, at least partly due to the belated industrialisation in the Soviet Union.

The Soviet practice of making it illegal to quit one's job, to hire a dissident, or to hire relatives, is regarded by the critics as tantamount to slavery.

In the Soviet Union scientific research was at a high level, as illustrated by the space program and the fact that one third of the world's scientific literature was written in Russian. Critics, however, argue that the Communist states corrupted science. One example is censorship and revisionism of history. Others are Lysenkoism and Japhetic theory.

Many of the Communist states used an extensive network of civilian informants to spy on their own population. Critics argue that this created a society where no one could trust other citizens, who might report real or fabricated criticism of the Communist system to the secret police.

Another objection is the practice in some Communist states of classifying internal critics of the system as having a mental disease and incarcerating them in mental hospitals.

The personality cults of many of the leaders of Communist states and the fact that in some cases the leadership of the state has become inherited has also been criticized.

Critics argue that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Prague spring, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution were imperialistic wars where military force crushed popular uprisings against the Communist system.

Extensive historical research has documented large scale human rights violations that occurred in these states, particularly during the regimes of Stalin and Mao, but starting immediately after the October Revolution during the regime of Lenin and to have continued to occur in all communist states during their existence. Most prominent being deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, genocides of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is disputed, but extensive historical research shows at least tens of millions (see, e.g., the estimates reached in The Black Book of Communism and the references below). Other widespread criticism concern the documented lack of freedom of speech in Communist Party regimes, religious and ethnic persecutions, lack of democracy and systematic use of torture. And although the birth control program in China may have averted a demographic disaster, it was also a violation of human rights.

The restriction of emigration has also been criticized, the most prominent example being the Berlin Wall.

Others find this approach simplistic, noting that executions, forced labor camps, the repression of ethnic minorities, and mass starvation were patterns in both Russian and Chinese history before their respective Communist takeovers. Critics argue that past evils in an old regime cannot be used to justify new ones; otherwise supporters of Hitler could justify his deeds by pointing to past human rights crimes by the German Empire in Africa. Also, communists may argue that (Capitalist) western countries have gathered much of their wealth through exploitation of workers, slavery and imperialism.

Many Marxists and some Marxist-Leninists argue that most Communist states do not actually adhere to Marxism but rather to a version heavily influenced by Stalinism, which sharply diverges in practice from the humanistic philosophy of Marxist revolutionaries. This critique is common, for example, amongst democratic socialists and some critical theorists who hold that Marxism is correct as a social and historical theory, but that it can only be implemented within a multiparty democracy. Trotskyists similarly argue that the bureaucratic and repressive nature of Communist states differs from Lenin's vision of the socialist state. Some Marxists (for example Milovan Djilas, James Burnham) described Communist states as systems in which a new powerful class of party bureaucrats emerged, exercised complete control over the means of production, and exploited the working class. This new ruling class is usually called the nomenklatura.

List of current Communist states

A map showing the current Communist states.

The following countries are generally considered to be "Communist states" according to the way the term has been generally used since World War II as they are states in which a ruling Communist Party has a monopoly on political power. The degree to which these states are socialist is a matter of contention due to differing definitions of socialism but it is generally acknowledged that they are Soviet-style systems emulating the former Soviet Union. Even so, there is a wide degree of variation from the People's Republic of China, on one end, which follows market socialism, to North Korea, which follows a system similar to Stalinism and practices a rigid command economy.

Current Communist states and their ruling parties are:
*People's Republic of China (since 1949); Communist Party of China
*Republic of Cuba (Cuban Revolution in 1959, socialist state declared in 1961); Communist Party of Cuba
*Lao People's Democratic Republic (since 1975); Lao People's Revolutionary Party
*Democratic People's Republic of Korea (since 1948); Korean Workers' Party
*Socialist Republic of Vietnam (since 1976); Communist Party of Vietnam
*Turkmenistan and its own Democratic Party of Turkmenistan can be considered a sixth remaining Communist state by some, since the party is the direct successor to the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR that was part of the Soviet Union and maintains policies left over from it, including cult of personality, repression of human rights, and ambitious projects with disregard for people working on them.
*Belarus too can also be described as a Communist state, the largest party in Parliament being the Communist Party of Belarus, and its having a control economy as well as the same amount of state-owned industry and commerce as did the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in its time of existence.

Even though Hong Kong since 1 July 1997 and Macao since 20 December 1999 are Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China (Communist state), they are not Communist areas. The nearby island of Taiwan also declares itself to be the democratic Republic of China, so it is also not a Communist area.

See also: List of Communist parties

Defunct Communist states

Defunct Communist states and their ruling parties (where applicable) (see also Soviet Republic):

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