- 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.
In common speech in the Western World, a Communist state is a
state governed by a single political party which declares its
allegiance to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The term
Communist state originated from the fact that most of the states in question were or are run by parties that called
themselves "Communist Party of [country]." Thus, they became known as Communist Party-run states, or simply Communist
states. However most of these states called themselves socialist, since in Marxist political
theory, socialism is the intermediate stage in reaching communism, which is a
condition with no state, so that Communist state is considered an oxymoron.
Alternative terms for a "Communist state" include "Communist Party-run state" and "Marxist-Leninist state."
What is or is not a "Communist state"
As noted in the introduction, a "Communist state" is a state where a Communist Party holds power within the context of a
single-party system of government. Thus, a country ruled by a Communist Party (or some other communist group) is not
automatically a "Communist state".
There have been (and are) a number of countries where Communist Parties came to power through democratic elections, and ruled
in the context of a multi-party democracy. For example, such situations are to be
found today in the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal, the East European country of Moldova, and the French
territory of Réunion. Communist Parties have also taken part in democratic
coalition governments in places like France and Italy. None of those countries fit the definition of "Communist states" (as it is used in this article), because they
have multi-party political systems.
Furthermore, the historical states of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Slovak Soviet Republic and Bavarian Soviet Republic were short-lived revolutionary entities that are difficult to define as
"Communist states", because the status of non-communist political parties and movements within them remained unclear. Also, the
Paris Commune is often cited as an example of a communist society
(in the proper sense of the word "communism"), but it was certainly not a communist state.
See also: socialist republic
Historical examples of Communist governments
Communist governments (in the sense of "governments that were - or claimed to be - in the process of moving towards a
communist society") typically arose during times of general international unrest. Also, they generally arose as a result of
revolutions led by communist parties. Such parties often operated illegally for a long period of time before the revolution,
and developed disciplined and effective structures, together with a cadre of committed leaders marked by both idealism and skill
at organizing successfully among the disaffected classes of the capitalist system. The support base of the communists usually
consisted of workers, intellectuals, and, especially in the case of China, peasants.
Following a successful revolution, the Communist Party takes on the goal of building a new society.
Early examples of communist societies
See Communism: Other forms of communism
Communist societies have existed throughout history, and many exist today, but it was not until the 20th century that highly
organized Communist Parties based on Marxist-Leninist ideology gave rise to Communist states. Information regarding early,
traditional and/or religious forms of communism (as well as
information on other communist societies in the Marxist meaning of the word, such as the Paris Commune) is to be found in the Communism article. Many
researhers prefer to use term communalism to distinguish various communal
societies from "communism", which has largely become associated with Marxism.
20th century
In the 20th century, a number of Communist Parties based on the
Stalinist development of Leninism
(which is a branch of Marxism) established governments in various countries. In those
countries, the aforementioned Communist Parties (and other parties allied with them) became the only legal political parties.
Such countries are the ones known as "Communist states".
The history of Communist states is often closely related to the history of noncommunist regimes, and to the history of the
communist movement in general. As such, the following historical account is not restricted to Communist states:
Following the Russian 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, outside Russia, only two of them were able to overthrow the government and take power. They
resulted in the Bavarian Soviet Republic (which
lasted from November 1918 until May 3, 1919) and the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. On the other side of the world,Mongolia had been a protectorate of the Russian
Empire from 1912 until 1919 (when the Chinese
took control during the Russian Civil War). The Russian
monarchist White Army took control in 1921, and then was driven out by the Red Army that same year. Mongolia
was not absorbed into the Soviet Union, but a Mongolian People's
Republic - which was a Communist state with a very close relationship with the Soviet Union - was established in 1924.
From 1924 until World War II, there were no further successful communist
revolutions (although there were a number of unsuccessful ones), 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 and subsequently occupied by Soviet troops,
or in countries where Communist-led partisans succeeded in driving out the Nazis and taking power themselves. The Red Army
supported the establishment of Communist governments in what became the Soviet Union's satellite states of Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. 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.
Independent of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Revolution led
to the establishment of the People's Republic of
China in 1949, and the First Indochina War led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam in 1954. Later, the Vietnam War resulted in the North Vietnamese
ultimately conquering the rest of the country and establishing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975 (both the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam were Communist states). The conflict also led to a Communist
state being established in Laos, and the related Cambodian Civil War resulted in the establishment of the quasi-communist state of Democratic Kampuchea in 1975.
In 1959, the Cuban
revolution resulted in the first Communist state being established in the Western Hemisphere - the Republic of Cuba.
A civil war led to the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of
Yemen in 1969.
For several years, communist regimes also existed in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique and in other developing countries, although these were short-lived.
By the early 1980s, nearly one third of the world's population was ruled by Communist
Party-led governments, and the tide of the Cold War seemed to turn decisively in
the Soviet Union's favor.
However, due to a complex combination of causes (which is still a matter of controversy to this day), the Soviet Union itself
was growing increasingly unstable. By the late 1980s, Eastern Europe was in chaos - and by the early 1990s, the Soviet Union itself had collapsed. None of the European communist governments survived these events.
As of 2004, there are 5 Communist Party-run states in the world: China, Cuba,
Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. However, they have gone their separate ways, and despite a few common elements, each
of them is now very different from the others.
Communist theories and ideologies of government
See also the articles on Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism and Maoism.
Most Communist states base themselves (at least in theory) on a form of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Historically speaking, all Communist states that existed for significant
periods of time during the 20th century had their roots in either Stalinism or
Maoism. The relationship of these ideologies with the original form of Marxism (as well
as their relationship with Leninism) is very disputed. In particular, Trotskyists are communist opponents of Stalinism and Maoism (and therefore they oppose most 20th century
"Communist states"), 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.
Also, in Marxist theory, communism is the final evolutionary phase of society (coming after socialism), at which time the
state would have withered away. Marx specified that the workers should rise up to destroy capitalism and replace it with
socialism, a transitional stage during which the state holds the property of the means of production (property over the objects
used in economic activities, not over items meant for personal use) on behalf of its citizens. According to Marx, socialism is,
in turn, destined to be replaced by a classless, stateless and propertyless stage of society, named communism. Communism is
supposed to be achieved by the "withering away" of the socialist state. This "withering away" consists of the transfer of power
from the state to the people themselves - to be more exact, the representative democracy of socialism is to be gradually replaced by the direct democracy of communism.
"Communist states" never actually claimed to have reached communism. They claimed to be in the process of building
communism, and they claimed to be socialist and democratic states. While most people would strongly disagree with the claim
that those states were actually democratic in any way, the same standard is usually not applied to their claims of being
socialist.
Leninist theory, developed by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, emphasises the role of a well-organized group of revolutionaries (usually called a
Communist party) in planning and carrying out the revolution.
According to Leninism, a Communist party must be organized along the principles of democratic centralism in order to maximize efficiency. Leninism departs from classical Marxism in
arguing that the revolution will not begin in the most advanced capitalist countries, but in those where the capitalist ruling
class is weakest - mostly poor, underdeveloped countries. From there, the revolution would need to spread quickly to the more
advanced capitalist countries, because it is only with the help of an advanced technological and industrial base that socialism
can be built.
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 all
his 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 a single underdeveloped country - as the Soviet Union was at
that time.
Stalin's policies went far beyond what had been anticipated, however. Throughout the 1930s, he created the State and Party
structure on which all subsequent "Communist states" were to be based. Power was centralized in his hands, and democracy was
gradually removed from the decision-making process of the Communist Party (a process which culminated in the Great Purge).
Later, the practices of Mao Zedong in the People's Republic of China (generally known as
Maoism) diverged from traditional Stalinism by putting the main emphasis on the
peasantry (rather than the urban proletariat) as the engine of the revolution and subsequent post-revolutionary development.
The history of Communist Party-run governments is varied and complex, but it is possible to make some valid generalizations
which apply to most examples: Communist Party-run governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of
productive resources in a centrally planned
economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry and land reform (often
focusing on collective farming or state farms). However,
although they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist
Party-run governments are also characterized by strong state apparatuses, and decidedly non-collective decision making processes
(power is often concentrated in the hands of a single individual). Many have characterized the old Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism. At various times they have had to allow or even encourage certain forms of private
property.
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, however, have developed the concept of Communist state to reflect claims made by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and
others that the revolutionary state must be a "dictatorship of the proletariat," and that 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 -- economic and cultural, as well as political.
In the Soviet Union for example, the General Secretary of the Communist Party did not necessarily
hold a state office like president or prime minister to effectively control the system of government. 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 most Communist states there are no restrictions in theory and few restrictions in practice on the power of the state,
resulting in state structures which are either totalitarian or authoritarian. The mainstream branch of Marxism-Leninism sees restrictions on
state power to be an unnecessary interference in the goal of pulling the society toward communism. Other Marxist-Leninists have
argued that a state with absolute power is incapable of moving society towards a democratic system such as communism.
In some communist party-run states, such as the Soviet Union, a large secret police apparatus closely monitors the population. Autocratic methods are often employed to crush
opposition. 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 example of the communist party run state differs widely both between countries and within each individual
state. Policies which 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 the examples of North Korea and Albania. Attempts to incorporate
democratic principles as in the case of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, socialist principles as in
Yugoslavia, or capitalistic techniques as in China result in some mitigation of
the negative features of the communist party run state but sometimes result in dynamic situations which may undermine the control
of the party over the state or even lead to its collapse.
The People's Republic of China and to a
lesser extent Vietnam and Laos have both moved
toward market economics.
Criticism and advocacy
Advocates of communism praise Communist parties for running countries that have sometimes leaped ahead of contempary
"capitalistic" countries, offering guaranteed employment. Critics of communism typically condemn Communist parties by the same
criteria, claiming that communist-run countries all lag far behind the industrialized West in terms of economic development and
living standards. They regard the Soviet practice of making it illegal to quit one's job, or to hire a dissident, or his relatives, tantamount to slavery.
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. They point out to the high levels of
literarcy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese. Western critics
charge that Communist compulsory education is replete with pro-Communist and atheistic propaganda and that it severely punishes
critical thinking. 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 Bucarest), 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. Critics similarly point
out to environmental disasters which, they 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.
Central economic planning has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, for example, rapid development of heavy
industry during the 1930s in the Soviet Union 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 point out, however, that these examples are anecdotical and 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.
On the other hand, many Marxists and some Marxist-Leninists argue that most Communist states do not actually adhere to Marxism-Leninism but rather
to a perversion heavily influenced by Stalinism, which sharply diverges in
practice from the humanistic philosophy of Marxist revolutionaries. This critique
is particularly strong among social democrats 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 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 where a new powerful class of party bureaucrats emerged, exercised complete
control over the means of production and exploited the
working class.
One controversial doctrine that was popular in the 1980s was the Kirkparick doctrine which
argued that Communist states were inherently "totalitarian" while right-wing dictatorships which the United States supported were
"authoritarian."
Communist Parties in Russia and later China came to power in the course of bloody civil wars fought between the Communists and
the remnants of collapsed imperial regimes. Because they were governed by monopolistic parties that consolidated power in the
context of these conflicts, whose leaders lacked the consent of all elements of society, Russia and China developed strong
security systems to protect Communist rule from internal and external threats, and witnessed periods of repressive rule resulting
in tens of millions of deaths. In particular, the Stalinist USSR consolidated a system of internal exile known as the Gulags and presided over crippling famine related to collectivization of agriculture. The Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao,
respectively, also maintained single-party rule and executions of opponents of the regime, though on a far smaller scale. Also in
the second half of the twentieth century, political movements that threatened Communist Parties' monopoly on power, such Czechoslovakia's Prague
Spring and China's Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989, continued to be suppressed. Given such incidents and their often-violent histories, Communist
Party-led regimes are often associated with human rights abuses, especially
in the West.
Some communists who reject Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism point out that these states were in fact not communistic. However, they
were Communist Party-led regimes that vowed to forge a communist society based on the common ownership of property.
List of 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 ex Soviet Union. Even so,
there is a wide degree of variation from the People's Republic of China, on one end, which many would consider to be market socialist or even capitalist to North Korea whose system is closest
to Stalinism and practices a rigid command economy.
Current one party Soviet style "Communist states" and their ruling parties are:
See also: List of Communist parties
Defunct Communist states
Defunct Communist states and their ruling parties (where applicable):
Sometimes the Paris Commune (1870-1871) is also classified as a
Communist state, since Karl Marx described it as a living example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
References and further reading
- Andrew G. Walder (ed.) Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of the Political Decline in China &
Hungary (University of California Press, 1995) hardback. (ISBN 0520088514)
- Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stephane Courtois, Black Book of
Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, September, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0674076087
- Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Broadway Books, 2003, hardcover, 720 pages, ISBN 0767900561
- Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, W. W. Norton (1992), hardcover, ISBN 0393030768; trade paperback, Harpercollins
(1993), ISBN 0060975407 Women of
communist Yugoslavia.
References on human rights violations by Communist states
- Becker, Jasper (1998) Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine'.' Owl Books. ISBN: 0805056688.
- Conquest, Robert (1991) The Great Terror: A Reassessment Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195071328.
- Conquest, Robert (1987) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press.
ISBN: 0195051807.
- Courtois,Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis &
Kramer, Mark (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN:
0674076087.
- Hamilton-Merritt, Jane (1999) Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992
Indiana University Press. ISBN: 0253207568.
- Jackson, Karl D. (1992) Cambodia, 1975-1978 Princeton University Press ISBN: 069102541X.
- Kakar, M. Hassan (1997)Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California
Press. ISBN: 0520208935.
- Khlevniuk, Oleg & Kozlov, Vladimir (2004) The History of the Gulag : From Collectivization to the Great Terror
(Annals of Communism Series) Yale University Pres. ISBN: 0300092849.
- Natsios, Andrew S. (2002) The Great North Korean Famine. Institute of Peace Press. ISBN: 1929223331.
- Nghia M. Vo (2004) The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam McFarland & Company ISBN:
0786417145.
- Pipes, Richard (1995) Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. Vintage. ISBN: 0679761845.
- Rummel, R.J. (1997). Death by Government. Transaction Publishers. ISBN: 1560009276.
- Rummel, R.J. (1996). Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers ISBN:
1560008873.
- Rummel, R.J. & Rummel, Rudolph J. (1999). Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. Lit Verlag
ISBN: 3825840107.
- Todorov, Tzvetan & Zaretsky, Robert (1999). Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria.
Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN: 0271019611
- Yakovlev, Alexander (2004). A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press. ISBN: 0300103220.
External links
Anticommunist websites
|
