Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

and political system supporting some form of

socialist economics Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may ...

while rejecting

political liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

. As a term, it represents a set of economic-political systems describing themselves as socialist and rejecting the liberal-democratic concepts of multi-party politics,

freedom of assembly Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...

, ''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

'' and

freedom of expression Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...

, either due to fear of the

counter-revolution A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...

or as a means to

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

ends. Several countries, most notably the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, China and their allies, have been described by journalists and scholars as authoritarian socialist states.Huntington, Samuel P. (1970). ''Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-party Systems''. Basic Books. .Lowy, Michael (1986). "Mass organization, party, and state: Democracy in the transition to socialism". ''Transition and Development: Problems of Third World Socialism'' (94): 264.Amandae, Sonja (2003). ''Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism''. University of Chicago Press. . Contrasted to the

anti-authoritarian Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" an ...

anti-statist Anti-statism is any approach to social, economic or political philosophy that rejects statism. An anti-statist is one who opposes intervention by the state into personal, social and economic affairs. In anarchism, this is characterized by a com ...

and libertarian wing of the socialist movement, authoritarian socialism encompasses some forms of African,

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

and

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...

socialism. Although considered an authoritarian or

illiberal An illiberal democracy describes a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it does not c ...

form of

state socialism State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...

, often referred to and conflated as ''socialism'' by critics and argued as a form of

state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...

by left-wing critics, those states were ideologically

Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...

and declared themselves to be workers' and peasants' or

people's democracies People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Altenr ...

. Academics, political commentators and other scholars tend to distinguish between authoritarian socialist and

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...

states, with the first representing the Soviet Bloc and the latter representing

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...

countries which have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as Britain, France, Sweden and Western

social-democracies Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...

in general, among others. While originating with the

utopian socialism Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...

advocated by

Edward Bellamy Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...

and identified by

Hal Draper Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on t ...

as a socialism from above, it has been overwhelmingly associated with the Soviet model and contrasted or compared to authoritarian capitalism. Authoritarian socialism has been criticised by the left and right both theoretically and in practice.Archived PDF
Retrieved 17 July 2020.

Political roots

Socialism from above

Authoritarian socialism is derived from the concept of socialism from above.

defined socialism from above as the philosophy which employs an elite

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

to run the

socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term '' communist state'' is of ...

. The other side of socialism is a more democratic socialism from below. The idea of socialism from above is much more frequently discussed in elite circles than socialism from below—even if that is the Marxist ideal—because it is more practical. Draper viewed socialism from below as being the purer, more Marxist version of socialism. According to Draper,

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' and further identifies elitism as being one of the six major varieties of socialism from above, among them "Philanthropism", "Elitism", "Pannism", "Communism", "Permeationism" and "Socialism-from-Outside". According to Arthur Lipow, Marx and Engels were "the founders of modern revolutionary democratic socialism", described as a form of "socialism from below" that is "based on a mass working-class movement, fighting from below for the extension of democracy and human freedom". This

type of socialism Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic controlArnold, N. Scott (1998). ''The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study''. Oxford University Press. p ...

is contrasted to that of the "authoritarian, antidemocratic creed" and "the various totalitarian collectivist ideologies which claim the title of socialism" as well as "the many varieties of 'socialism from above' which have led in the twentieth century to movements and state forms in which a despotic '

new class New class is used as a polemic term by critics of countries that followed the Soviet-type Communism to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which arose in these states. Generally, the group known ...

' rules over a statified economy in the name of socialism", a division that "runs through the history of the socialist movement". Lipow identifies Bellamyism and Stalinism as two prominent authoritarian socialist currents within the history of the socialist movement.Lipow, Arthur (1991). ''Authoritarian Socialism in America: Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement''. University of California Press. p. 1. . The authoritarian– libertarian struggles and disputes within the

socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...

go back to the

First International The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...

and the expulsion in 1872 of the

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...

, who went on to lead the Anti-authoritarian International and then founded their own libertarian international, the

Anarchist St. Imier International The Anarchist International of St. Imier was an international workers' organization formed in 1872 after the split in the First International between the anarchists and the Marxists. This followed the 'expulsions' of Mikhail Bakunin and James Gu ...

. In 1888, the individualist anarchist

Benjamin Tucker Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (; April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was an American individualist anarchist and libertarian socialist.Martin, James J. (1953)''Men Against the State: The Expositers of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908''< ...

, who proclaimed himself to be an anarchistic socialist and

libertarian socialist Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (20 ...

in opposition to the authoritarian

and the compulsory communism, included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by Ernest Lesigne in his essay on "State Socialism and Anarchism". According to Lesigne, there are two types of socialism: "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian". Tucker's two socialisms were the authoritarian state socialism which he associated to the Marxist school and the libertarian anarchist socialism, or simply anarchism, that he advocated. Tucker noted that the fact that the authoritarian "State Socialism has overshadowed other forms of Socialism gives it no right to a monopoly of the Socialistic idea". According to Tucker, what those two schools of socialism had in common was the

labor theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...

and the ends, by which anarchism pursued different means. According to

George Woodcock George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...

, the

Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...

turned "into a battleground over the issue of libertarian versus authoritarian socialism. Not only did they effectively present themselves as champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in preventing the British labour movement from following the Marxist direction indicated by such leaders as H. M. Hyndman". According to anarchists such as the authors of ''

An Anarchist FAQ An, AN, aN, or an may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Airlinair (IATA airline code AN) * Alleanza Nazionale, a former political party in Italy * AnimeNEXT, an annual anime convention located in New Jersey * Anime North, a Canadian a ...

'', forms of socialism from above such as ''authoritarian socialism'' or ''state socialism'' are the real oxymorons and the ''libertarian'' socialism from below represents true socialism. For anarchists and other anti-authoritarian socialists, socialism "can only mean a classless and anti-authoritarian (i.e. libertarian) society in which people manage their own affairs, either as individuals or as part of a group (depending on the situation). In other words, it implies self-management in all aspects of life", including at the workplace. Historian Herbert L. Osgood described anarchism as "the extreme antithesis" of authoritarian communism and state socialism. Socialists in general and socialist writers, including

Dimitri Volkogonov Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (russian: Дми́трий Анто́нович Волкого́нов; 22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological war ...

, acknowledged that the actions of authoritarian socialist leaders have damaged "the enormous appeal of socialism generated by the October Revolution". While some right-wing authors have described

conservative socialism Bourgeois socialism or conservative socialism was a term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in various pieces, including in ''The Communist Manifesto''. ''Conservative socialism'' was used as a rebuke by Marx for certain strains of socialism, ...

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

and Prussian socialism, among other forms of paternalistic conservatism and

right-wing politics Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, author ...

, as authoritarian socialism, scholars have described their nature as decidedly

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

and

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

rather than socialist.

Utopian socialism

The economy of the 3rd century BCE Mauryan Empire of India was described as "a socialized monarchy" and "a sort of state socialism". Elements of authoritarian socialist thought were discerned in the politics of ancient Greek philosophers such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

and

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

. The first advocates of modern socialism favoured social levelling in order to create a

meritocratic Meritocracy (''merit'', from Latin , and ''-cracy'', from Ancient Greek 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achi ...

technocratic Technocracy is a form of government in which the decision-maker or makers are selected based on their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts wi ...

society based on individual talent.

Henri de Saint-Simon Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on p ...

is regarded as the first individual to coin the term ''

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

''. Saint-Simon was fascinated by the enormous potential of science and technology and advocated a socialist society that would eliminate the disorderly aspects of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

and would be based on

equal opportunities Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. The intent is that the important ...

. He advocated the creation of a society in which each person was ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work. The key focus of Saint-Simon's socialism was on administrative efficiency and industrialism and a belief that science was the key to progress. This was accompanied by a desire to implement a rationally organised economy based on planning and geared towards large-scale scientific progress and material progress. The first major fictional work that proposed an authoritarian socialist state was

's novel ''

Looking Backward ''Looking Backward: 2000–1887'' is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888. The book was translated into several languages, and in short o ...

'' which depicted a

bureaucratic The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...

socialist utopia. Bellamy distanced himself from radical socialist values and in many ways his ideal society still imitated many of the systems in late 19th century United States. However, his book served as the inspiration for a mass political movement called nationalism within the United States in the late 1800s. Those

Nationalist Clubs Nationalist Clubs were an organized network of socialist political groups which emerged at the end of the 1880s in the United States of America in an effort to make real the ideas advanced by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel ''Looking Backw ...

, so called because of their desire to nationalize

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

, were strong supporters of the

populists Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...

, who wanted the nationalisation of the railroad and telegraph systems. Despite their propaganda and involvement in politics, the nationalist movement began to decline in 1893 due to the financial difficulties of its main publications and Bellamy's failing health and essentially disappeared by the turn of the century. In the society depicted in the novel, private property has been abolished in favor of state ownership, social classes were eliminated and all work which was minimal and relatively easy was done voluntarily by all citizens between the ages of 21 and 45. Workers were rewarded and recognized via a ranking system based on the army. The government is the most powerful and respected institution, necessary for providing and maintaining this

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...

. Arthur Lipow identifies the bureaucratic ruling of this ideal society as a quasi-military organisation of both economic and social relations. Bellamy elevated the modern military as a catalyst for national interest. The biggest critique of Bellamy's society is that it is based on the idea of socialism from above. The regime is imposed on the people by an expert elite and there is no democratic control or individual liberty. Lipow argues that this inherently leads to

authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voti ...

, writing: "If the workers and the vast majority were a brutish mass, there could be no question of forming a political movement out of them nor of giving them the task of creating a socialist society. The new institutions would not be created and shaped from below but would, of necessity, correspond to the plan laid down in advance by the utopian planner". In his preface to Peter Kropotkin's book ''

The Conquest of Bread ''The Conquest of Bread'' (french: La Conquête du Pain; rus, Хлѣбъ и воля, Khleb i volja, "Bread and Freedom"; in contemporary spelling), also known colloquially as The Bread Book, is an 1892 book by the Russian anarcho-communist P ...

'', Kent Bromley considered the ideas of

utopian socialists Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...

such as the French

François-Noël Babeuf François-Noël Babeuf (; 23 November 1760 – 27 May 1797), also known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French proto-communist, revolutionary, and journalist of the French Revolutionary period. His newspaper ''Le tribun du peuple'' (''The Tribune of ...

and the Italian

Philippe Buonarroti :''See also Filippo Buonarroti (1661–1733).'' Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti, more usually referred to under the French version Philippe Buonarroti (11 November 1761 – 16 September 1837), was an Italian utopian socialist, wri ...

to be representative of authoritarian socialism as opposed to the French socialist

Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...

, described as the founder of the

libertarian socialism Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (2 ...

Austrian and Chicago schools of economics

While distinguishing between "voluntary and coercive strands", the

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

and

Chicagoan Chicago's demographics show that it is a large and ethnically diverse metropolis. It is the third largest city and metropolitan area in the United States by population, and the city was home to over 2.7 million people in 2020, accounting for ove ...

understanding and characterisation of socialism is one based on

and

statism In political science, statism is the doctrine that the political authority of the state is legitimate to some degree. This may include economic and social policy, especially in regard to taxation and the means of production. While in use s ...

. One Austrian definition of ''socialism'' is based on the state socialist notion of "state ownership of capital goods". Another is that socialism "must be conceptualized as an institutional interference with or aggression against private property and private property claims. Capitalism, on the other hand, is a social system based on the explicit recognition of private property and of nonaggressive, contractual exchanges between private property owners".

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

, an Austrian School economist, was one of the leading academic critics of

collectivism Collectivism may refer to: * Bureaucratic collectivism, a theory of class society whichto describe the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin * Collectivist anarchism, a socialist doctrine in which the workers own and manage the production * Collectivis ...

in the 20th century. He recognized and was acutely critical of the trends of socialism from above in collectivism, including theories that were based in voluntary cooperation. Unlike Bellamy, who praised the idea of elites implementing policies, Hayek made the argument that socialism inherently leads to tyranny, claiming that " order to achieve their ends, the planners must create power – power over men wielded by other men – of a magnitude never before known. Democracy is an obstacle to this suppression of freedom which the centralized direction of economic activity requires. Hence arises the clash between planning and democracy". Hayek argued that both

and

are based in central economic planning and value the state over the individual. According to Hayek, it is in this way that it becomes possible for

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...

leaders to rise to power as happened in the years following World War I. Austrian School economists such as Hayek and his mentor Ludwig Mises also used the word ''socialism'' as a synonym for authoritarian socialism, central planning and state socialism, falsely linking it to fascism,Mises, Ludwig (1936)

922 __NOTOC__ Year 922 ( CMXXII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Summer – Battle of Constantinople: Emperor Romanos I sends Byza ...

'' Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''. London: Jonathan Cape. . with Hayek writing that " though our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under 'communism' and 'fascism'". Chicago School economists such as

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

also equated socialism with centralized economic planning as well as authoritarian socialist states and command or state-directed economies, referring to capitalism as the free market. However, fascism and its variants such as

Falangism Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...

and

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

, among other fascist-inspired military regimes, are considered by scholars to be a far-right,

anti-socialist Criticism of socialism (also known as anti-socialism) is any critique of socialist models of economic organization and their feasibility as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not directed ...

ideologies that largely adopted

corporatist Corporatism is a Collectivism and individualism, collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by Corporate group (sociology), corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guil ...

, liberal market economic policies, with economic planning relegated to

war effort In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative si ...

s. Mises criticised

left-leaning Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

social liberal Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...

policies such as

progressive taxation A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases.Sommerfeld, Ray M., Silvia A. Madeo, Kenneth E. Anderson, Betty R. Jackson (1992), ''Concepts of Taxation'', Dryden Press: Fort Worth, TX The term ''progr ...

as socialism, getting up during a

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) is an international organization composed of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals and business leaders.Michael Novak, 'The Moral Imperative of a Free Economy', in '' The 4% Solution: Unleashing the E ...

meeting and referring to those "expressing the view that there could be a justification" for them as "a bunch of socialists". On the other hand, Hayek argued that the state can play a role in the economy, specifically in creating a

social safety net The social safety net (SSN) consists of non-contributory assistance existing to improve lives of vulnerable families and individuals experiencing poverty and destitution. Examples of SSNs are previously-contributory social pensions, in-kind and fo ...

, criticising the right and

conservatism Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

, even inspiring some towards a form of

market socialism Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owne ...

or Hayekian socialism. Hayek advocated "some provision for those threatened by the extremes of indigence or starvation due to circumstances beyond their control". Hayek argued that the "necessity of some such arrangement in an industrial society is unquestioned", be it "only in the interest of those who require protection against acts of desperation on the part of the needy", with some also noting that "he advocated mandatory universal health care and unemployment insurance, enforced, if not directly provided, by the state" and that "Hayek was adamant about this". Mises also equated

central banking A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

with socialism and central planning. According to Mises, central banks enable the

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with co ...

s to fund loans at artificially low interest rates, thereby inducing an unsustainable expansion of bank credit and impeding any subsequent contraction. However, Hayek disagreed and stated that the need for central banking control was inescapable. Similarly, Friedman concluded that the government does have a role in the monetary system and believed that the

Federal Reserve System The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

should ultimately be replaced with a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

. While critical of social welfare, especially

Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

, arguing that it had created

welfare dependency Welfare dependency is the state in which a person or household is reliant on government welfare benefits for their income for a prolonged period of time, and without which they would not be able to meet the expenses of daily living. The United St ...

,Friedman, Milton (2002)

962 Year 962 ( CMLXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * December – Arab–Byzantine wars – Sack of Aleppo: A Byzantine e ...

''Capitalism and Freedom'' (40th anniversary ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. . Friedman was supportive of the state provision of some

public goods In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485-535). Elsevier. is a good that is both non-excludable and non-riv ...

that private businesses are not considered as being able to provide, advocated a

negative income tax In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as ...

in place of most welfare and his views were grounded in a belief that while "market forces ..accomplish wonderful things", they "cannot ensure a distribution of income that enables all citizens to meet basic economic needs. Some Austrian School economists follows Mises in arguing that policies supported by Hayek and Friedman constituted a form of socialism.Block, Walter (15 January 2013). "Was Milton Friedman A Socialist? Yes". ''MEST Journal''. 1 (1): 11–26. . The Austrian and Marxian schools of economics agree in their criticism of the

mixed economy A mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of a market economy with elements of a planned economy, markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise. Common to all mixed economie ...

, but they reach different conclusions regarding authoritarian socialist states. In ''

Human Action ''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics'' is a work by the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises. Widely considered Mises' ''magnum opus'', it presents the case for laissez-faire capitalism based on praxeology, his method to under ...

'', Mises argued that there can be no mixture of capitalism and socialism—either market logic or economic planning must dominate an economy. Mises elaborated on this point by contending that even if a market economy contained numerous state-run or nationalized enterprises, this would not make the economy mixed because the existence of such organizations does not alter the fundamental characteristics of the market economy. These publicly owned enterprises would still be subject to market sovereignty as they would have to acquire

capital good The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...

s through markets, strive to maximize profits or at the least try to minimize costs and utilize monetary accounting for economic calculation. Similarly, classical and

orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Marxist theorists dispute the viability of a mixed economy as a middle ground between socialism and capitalism. Irrespective of enterprise ownership, either the capitalist law of value and

accumulation of capital Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form of ...

drives the economy or conscious planning and non-monetary forms of valuation such as calculation in kind ultimately drive the economy. From the Great Depression onward, extant mixed economies in the Western world are still functionally capitalist because they operate on the basis of capital accumulation. On this basis, some Marxists and non-Marxists alike, including academics, economists and intellectuals, argue that the Soviet Union ''et al.'' were state capitalist countries; and that rather than being socialist planned economies, they represented an

administrative-command system The administrative-command system (russian: Административно-командная система, Administrativno-komandnaya sistema), also known as the command-administrative system, is the system of management of an economy of a sta ...

. Already in 1985, John Howard argued that the common description of the

Soviet-type economic planning Soviet-type economic planning (STP) is the specific model of centralized planning employed by Marxist–Leninist socialist states modeled on the economy of the Soviet Union (USSR). The post-''perestroika'' analysis of the system of the Soviet ...

as planned economy was misleading because while central planning did play an important role, the Soviet economy was ''de facto'' characterized by the priority of highly centralized management over planning and therefore the correct term would be that of an economy that is ''centrally managed'' rather than ''centrally planned''. This has been attributed to both the

economy of the Soviet Union The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was ...

and that of its allies which closely followed the Soviet model. On the other hand, while describing wealthy mixed economies as still "capitalist", Austrian School economists routinely describe mixed-economy policies as "socialism". Similarly, they describe fascist regimes such as Fascist Italy and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

as "socialist", although scholars describe them as being capitalist regimes.

Response

The Austrian and Chicagoan concept of authoritarian socialism has been criticised. In particular, it has been criticised for conflating

social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...

and other forms of

reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can ...

and democratic socialism with authoritarian and

. In the United Kingdom, British

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

politicians such as

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

"loosely labelled socialism" and conflated what "others would call social democracy, corporatism, Keynesianism or the mixed economy" with authoritarian socialism, defined as " vernment support for inefficient industries, punitive taxation, regulation of the labour market, price controls – everything that interfered with the functioning of the free economy".Campbell, John (2012) 009 ''The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher: From Grocer's Daughter to Iron Lady''. Random House. p. 95. . This is particularly relevant in the United States, where the term ''socialization'' has been mistakenly used to refer to any state or government-operated industry or service (the proper term for such being either ''

municipalization Municipalization is the transfer of private entities, assets, service providers, or corporations to public ownership by a municipality, including (but not limited to) a city, county, or public utility district ownership. The transfer may be from pr ...

'' or '' nationalization''). It has also been incorrectly used to mean any tax-funded programs, whether privately run or government run.Reinhardt, Uwe E. (8 May 2009)
"What Is 'Socialized Medicine'?: A Taxonomy of Health Care Systems"
''Economix''. ''The New York Times''. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 15 July 2020. Similarly, ''socialism'' has become a pejorative used in the United States by

conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

and

libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...

to taint

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

and progressive policies, proposals and public figures.Truman, Harry S. (10 October 1952)
"Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in New York"
Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 15 July 2020. The directive was drafted by Senator Taft at that famous breakfast in New York City a few weeks ago. Senator Taft left that meeting and told the press what the General stands for. Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is, "Down with Progress—down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's Fair Deal." That is what he means."Jackson, Samuel (6 January 2012)
"The failure of American political speech"
''The Economist''. Retrieved 15 July 2020. "Socialism is not "the government should provide healthcare" or "the rich should be taxed more" nor any of the other watery social-democratic positions that the American right likes to demonise by calling them "socialist"—and granted, it is chiefly the right that does so, but the fact that rightists are so rarely confronted and ridiculed for it means that they have successfully muddied the political discourse to the point where an awful lot of Americans have only the flimsiest grasp of what socialism is."Astor, Maggie (12 June 2019)

''The New York Times''. Retrieved 15 July 2020. People such as Hayek, Mises and Friedman have also been criticised for hypocrisy due to claiming to oppose authoritarian socialism yet supporting

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

s such as that of the

military dictatorship of Chile A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

under

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

. Mises comments about fascism have been criticized, although others have defended him. Similarly, Hayek's involvement in dictatorships has been criticized.Farrant, Andrew; McPhail, Edward; Berger, Sebastian (2012). "Preventing the "Abuses" of Democracy: Hayek, the "Military Usurper" and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile?". ''American Journal of Economics and Sociology''. 71 (3): 513–538. . Hayek has stated: "As long term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. ..Personally I prefer a liberal dictatorship to democratic government devoid of liberalism. My personal impression – and this is valid for South America – is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government". Hayek defended himself arguing that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under alvadorAllende", the democratic socialist Chilean President democratically elected in 1970 as the first self-professed Marxist to be elected president in a country with

liberal democracy Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...

and ousted in a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

-backed

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. For Hayek, the distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism has much importance and he was at pains to emphasise his opposition to totalitarianism, noting that the concept of transitional dictatorship which he defended was characterised by authoritarianism, not totalitarianism. When he visited Venezuela in May 1981, Hayek was asked to comment on the prevalence of totalitarian regimes in Latin America. In reply, Hayek warned against confusing "totalitarianism with authoritarianism" and said that he was unaware of "any totalitarian governments in Latin America. The only one was Chile under Allende". For Hayek, ''totalitarian'' signifies something very specific, namely the intention to "organize the whole of society" to attain a "definite social goal" which is stark in contrast to "liberalism and individualism". Friedman's involvement in the Chilean military dictatorship has also been criticised as he served as economic advisor. Under Pinochet, Chile followed the economic policies of Friedmam and his Chicago Boys. While Friedman did not criticize Pinochet's dictatorship at the time, nor the assassinations, illegal imprisonments, torture, or other atrocities that were well known by then, he defended his unofficial adviser position, arguing: "I do not consider it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean Government, any more than I would regard it as evil for a physician to give technical medical advice to the Chilean Government to help end a medical plague". Although Friedman criticized Chile's political system, he argued that "free markets would undermine inochet'spolitical centralization and political control", that criticism over his role in Chile missed his main contention that freer markets resulted in freer people and that Chile's unfree economy had caused the military government. Friedman advocated for free markets which undermined "political centralization and political control". However, some economists have argued that the experience of Chile in this period indicated a failure of Friedman's policies, claiming that there was little net economic growth from 1975 to 1982 (during the so-called "pure Monetarist experiment"). After the

crisis of 1982 image:Economic growth of Chile.PNG, Growth rate of Chile's GDP (orange) and Latin America (blue) between 1971 and 2007 The Crisis of 1982 was a major economic crisis suffered in Chile during the military government of Chile (1973–1990). La tran ...

, the state controlled more of the economy than it had under the previous socialist regime and sustained economic growth only came after the later reforms that privatized the economy while social indicators remained poor. Pinochet's dictatorship made the unpopular economic reorientation possible by repressing opposition to it. Rather than a triumph of the free market, it has been described as "combining neo-liberal sutures and interventionist cures". By the time of sustained growth, the Chilean government had "cooled its neo-liberal ideological fever" and "controlled its exposure to world financial markets and maintained its efficient copper company in public hands". Another criticism is that proponents of the theory overstate the strength of their case by describing socialism as impossible rather than inefficient. In explaining why he is not an

Austrian School The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian schoo ...

economist,

Bryan Caplan Bryan Douglas Caplan (born April 8, 1971) is an American economist and author. Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and former contributor ...

argues that while the

economic calculation problem The economic calculation problem (sometimes abbreviated ECP) is a criticism of using economic planning as a substitute for market-based allocation of the factors of production. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in his 1920 article "Eco ...

is a problem for socialism, he denies that Mises has shown it to be fatal or that it is this particular problem that led to the collapse of authoritarian socialist states.

Kristen Ghodsee Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee (born April 26, 1970) is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is primarily known for her ethnographic work on post-Communist Bulgaria as well as ...

, ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, posits that the triumphalist attitudes of Western powers at the end of the Cold War, in particular the fixation with linking all socialist political ideals with the excesses of authoritarian socialism such as Stalinism had marginalized the left's response to the fusing of democracy with neoliberal ideology which helped undermine the former. This allowed the anger and resentment that came with the ravages of neoliberalism (i.e. economic misery, hopelessness, unemployment and rising inequality throughout the former Eastern Bloc and much of the West) to be channeled into right-wing nationalist movements in the decades that followed. David L. Hoffmann, Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio State University, raises the issue of whether authoritarian socialist practices of state violence derived from socialist ideology. Placing authoritarian socialist ideologies such as Stalinism in an international context, he argues that many forms of state interventionism used by the Stalinist government, including social cataloguing, surveillance and concentration camps, predated the Soviet regime and originated outside of Russia. He further argues that technologies of social intervention developed in conjunction with the work of 19th-century European reformers and were greatly expanded during World War I, when state actors in all the combatant countries dramatically increased efforts to mobilize and control their populations. As the Soviet state was born at this moment of total war, it institutionalized practices of state intervention as permanent features of governance. Writing two ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' articles in 2002 and 2006, British journalist

Seumas Milne Seumas Patrick Charles Milne (born 5 September 1958)Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 582 (Short Half 1971 list heading) ...

wrote that the impact of the post-Cold War narrative that Stalin and Hitler were twin evils and therefore communism is as monstrous as Nazism "has been to relativize the unique crimes of Nazism, bury those of colonialism and feed the idea that any attempt at radical social change will always lead to suffering, killing and failure".

Characteristics

Theory and rationale

Authoritarian socialism is a political-economic system that can be generally described as

, but one that rejects the liberal-democratic concepts of multi-party politics,

, ''

'' and

. Other features that are common to modern authoritarian

socialist states Several past and present states have declared themselves socialist states or in the process of building socialism. The majority of self-declared socialist countries have been Marxist–Leninist or inspired by it, following the model of the Sovi ...

starting in the 20th century include an emphasis on

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

for

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

, a

single-party system A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...

to propel the goals of the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

forward, the extensive use of propaganda to do the same and more. Soviet advocates and socialists responded to this type of criticism by highlighting the ideological differences in the concept of freedom and

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

. It was noted that "

norms disparaged ''

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups ...

individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...

(as when housing is determined by one's ability to pay)" and condemned "wide variations in personal wealth as the West has not" whilst emphasizing equality, by which they meant "free education and medical care, little disparity in housing or salaries, and so forth". When asked to comment on the claim that former citizens of

now enjoy increased freedoms,

Heinz Kessler Heinz Kessler or Heinz Keßler (26 January 1920 – 2 May 2017) was a German communist politician and military officer in East Germany. His career in the military started when he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Ger ...

, former East German Minister of National Defence, replied: "Millions of people in Eastern Europe are now free from employment, free from safe streets, free from health care, free from social security".

Formation of industry

As authoritarian powers enforce socialist economics, the process often goes hand in hand with supporting the growth of heavy industry as a means of reaching industrialization (as can be seen with

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's control of the

). Stalin's goals brought about a rapid industrialization of the Soviet economy that increased the urban population up by another 30 million people by 1930 and the production of automobiles to 200,000 per year by 1940. Outside of the Soviet Union, two rising global participants of the early 20th century were the young states of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Although many of the policies put in place by German fascist

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, who also formed these

cults of personality A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...

, were contradictory and poorly understood, there were a few centrally planned work projects under their states. The

Reichsautobahn The ''Reichsautobahn'' system was the beginning of the German autobahns under Nazi Germany. There had been previous plans for controlled-access highways in Germany under the Weimar Republic, and two had been constructed, but work had yet to st ...

was an example of this. The construction of the

Autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track' ...

and industries surrounding highway construction elevated the percentage of employed Germans throughout the construction. In Fascist Italy, projects such as the

Battle for Grain The Battle for Grain (), also known as the Battle for Wheat, was a propaganda campaign launched in 1925 during the fascist regime of Italy by Benito Mussolini, with the aim of gaining self-sufficiency in wheat production and freeing Italy from ...

or the

Battle for Land The Battle For Land, started in 1928 in Italy by Benito Mussolini, aimed to clear marshland and make it suitable for farming, as well as reclaiming land and reducing health risks. Aims The primary aims of the Battle for Land was to increase the ...

are public work projects that socialist would traditionally support. However, the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

, among other fascist regimes, favoured a

instead of socialism and were all radical

anti-communists Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

, anti-Marxists and anti-socialists. Rather, they have been described as an example of authoritarian and totalitarian capitalism, with Mussolini choosing to link private businesses and the state to organize economic policies. Another thing in common among authoritarian socialist regimes was

autarky Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems. Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especiall ...

. While this was also adopted by other authoritarian regimes, it was pursued for vastly different reasons. Authoritarian socialist states pursued autarky to reach a

post-scarcity economy Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...

to guarantee a

communist society In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of co ...

whereas fascist regimes pursued it for

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

and

imperialist Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

goals such as for Nazi Germany's

living space Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether ...

, with fascist and far-right movements claiming to strive for autarky in platforms or in propaganda, but in practice they crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency. They established extensive capital connections in efforts to ready for expansionist war and genocide while allying with traditional business and

commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

elites. Authoritarian socialist states and fascist regimes also differed in that the latter shifted a focus on class conflict to a focus on conflict between

nations A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by t ...

and races. A Marxist societal analysis puts forth that the process of industrialization in the 19th century placed the current

metropole A metropole (from the Greek ''metropolis'' for "mother city") is the homeland, central territory or the state exercising power over a colonial empire. From the 19th century, the English term ''metropole'' was mainly used in the scope of ...

s in their current positions of power. In theory, industrialization should allow the

regime In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...

of non-metropoles to raise the standard of living and competitiveness of their

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

s to be on economic par with these metropoles.Keefe, Jopshua R. (2009)
"Stalin and the Drive to Industrialize the Soviet Union"
''Inquires Journal''. 1 (1): 1. Retrieved 21 April 2020. However, aside from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and a number of former Eastern Bloc members, many

post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

and both former and current authoritarian socialist states are not categorized as industrialized countries.

Single-party system

Authoritarian socialist states often oppose the

multi-party system In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in ...

to instill power of the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

into a single party that could be led by a single head of state. The rationale behind this being that elites have the time and resources to enforce socialist theory because in this socialist state the interests of the people are represented by the party or head of the party.

referred to this as socialism from above.Draper, Hal (1966)
''The Two Souls of Socialism''
''New Politics''. 5 (1): 57–84. Retrieved 23 April 2020. According to Draper, socialism from above comes in six strains or forms that rationalize and require an elite group at the top of a socialist system. This differs from a Marxist perspective that would advocate for socialism from below, a more pure and democratically run form of socialism. Outside of Europe, Eritrea,

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

stand as examples of states that were socialist and ruled by a single-party at some point in the 20th century. In Eritrea, the ruling party emerging in 1970 was the

Eritrean People's Liberation Front The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), colloquially known as Shabia, was an armed Marxist–Leninist organization that fought for the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. It emerged in 1970 as a far-left to left-wing nationalist group ...

(EPLF) and with control of the state the EPLF began work on socialist ideals such as broadening women's rights and expanding education. In Mozambique, the single-state rule of

FRELIMO FRELIMO (; from the Portuguese , ) is a democratic socialist political party in Mozambique. It is the dominant party in Mozambique and has won a majority of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic in every election since the country's firs ...

occurred while the state was still ideologically socialist right after Portuguese rule was ending in 1975. In Vietnam, the Communist Party of Vietnam considers itself to be in transition to socialism and also the "vanguard of the working people and the whole nation".

Propaganda

Departments of propaganda are not at all rare in these

s. The extensive use of propaganda is spills into

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

, posters,

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

s. In the Soviet Union, a byproduct of strict

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

was the blossoming of

Russian science fiction and fantasy Science fiction and fantasy have been part of mainstream Russian literature since the 18th century. Russian fantasy developed from the centuries-old traditions of Slavic mythology and folklore. Russian science fiction emerged in the mid-19th c ...

as well as

socialist realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...

. In Latin America,

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quot ...

represented and acted on the idea that socialism was an international struggle by operating

Radio Rebelde Radio Rebelde (English: Rebel Radio) is a Cuban Spanish-language radio station. It broadcasts 24 hours a day with a varied program of national and international music hits of the moment, news reports and live sport events. The station was set up ...

and having his station transmitted from

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

to as far north as

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

Economics

There are several elemental characteristics of the authoritarian socialist economic system that distinguish it from the

market economy, namely the communist party has a concentration of power in representation of the working class and the party's decisions are so integrated into public life that its economic and non-economic decisions are part of their overall actions; state ownership of the means of production in which natural resources and capital belong to society; central economic planning, the main characteristic of an authoritarian-state socialist economy; the market is planned by a central government agency, generally a state planning commission; and socially equitable distribution of the national income in which goods and services are provided for free by the state that supplement private consumption. This economic model is greatly characterized by the government's central planning.Wilczynski, J. (1977). ''The Economics of Socialism: Principles Governing the Operation of the Centrally Planned Economies in the USSR and Eastern Europe Under the New System ''. London: Allen and Unwin. pp. 22–23; 33–34; 34–41. . Ideally, society would be the owner as in the social ownership of the means of production, but in practice the state is the owner of the means of production. If the state is the owner, the idea is that it would work for the benefit of the working class and society as a whole. In practice, society is the owner only in theory and the political institutions governing society are completely set up by the state. While Marxist–Leninists maintain that workers in the

and other

s had genuine control over the means of production through institutions such as trade unions, democratic and libertarian socialists argue that these states had only a limited number of socialist characteristics and in practice were state capitalists that followed the capitalist mode of production.Chomsky, Noam (1986)
"The Soviet Union Versus Socialism"
''Our Generation'' (Spring/Summer). Retrieved 29 January 2020.Howard, M. C.; King, J. E. (2001)
"'State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union"
''History of Economics Review''. 34 (1): 110–126. .Wolff, Richard D. (27 June 2015)
"Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees"
''Truthout''. Retrieved 29 January 2020. In '' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'',

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather it would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the

bourgeois state The capitalist state is the state, its functions and the form of organization it takes within capitalist socioeconomic systems.Jessop, Bob (January 1977). "Recent Theories of the Capitalist State". ''Soviet Studies''. 1: 4. pp. 353–373. This ...

.Engels, Friedrich (1970)

880 __NOTOC__ Year 880 (Roman numerals, DCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Battle of Cephalonia: A Byzantine Empire, Byzantine flee ...

'' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific''
"Historical Materialism"
''Marx/Engels Selected Works''. 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 95–151. In ''

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ''Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'' (russian: Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма, Imperializm kak vysshaja stadija kapitalizma, link=no), originally published as ''Imperialism, the Newest S ...

'' and ''Imperialism and World Economy'', both

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

and Nikolai Bukharin, respectively, had similarly "identified the growth of state capitalism as one of the main features of capitalism in its imperialist epoch". In ''

The State and Revolution ''The State and Revolution'' (1917) is a book by Vladimir Lenin describing the role of the state in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dicta ...

'', Lenin wrote that "the erroneous bourgeois reformist assertion that monopoly capitalism or state-monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can now be called 'state socialism' and so on, is very common". Several economists and scholars have argued that authoritarian socialist states did not follow a planned economy, but were rather described as following an

and called ''

command economies A planned economy is a type of economic system where Investment (macroeconomics), investment, Production (economics), production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A plan ...

'', a term that highlights the central role of hierarchical administration and public ownership of production in guiding the allocation of resources in these economic systems, where important allocation decisions are made by government authorities rather than by the workers themselves and are imposed by law. This goes against the Marxist understanding of conscious planning.

Central planning

In a

centrally planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, p ...

, there is a central planning authority usually named the State Planning Commission that is in charge of acting within the framework of social goals and the priorities designated by the party. The planning was done under the idea that leaving market indicators would allow for social advancement.Sirc, Lujbo (1969). ''Economic Devolution in Eastern Europe''. New York: Praeger. . The central planning authority is responsible for five specific tasks, namely determining the criteria for the economic calculations of the planning decisions; determining and quantifying targets to be achieved within the a specified period; "coordinating targets to ensure the plan is consistent and reliable; determining the methods to ensure the realization of the plan; and revising targets in accordance to changing economic calculations. The planning process involved the creation of one-year plans, five-year plans and long-term plans. The one-year plans contained schedules and details that addressed current production and market equilibrium issues. The five-year plans integrated the political, military and economic strategy that would be pursued in the next five years as well as changes in capacity and production rates. It was done by a team of around the fifty leading experts from all the departments, ministries, professional and scientific organizations. The long-term plans encompassed a global strategy development. This plan was about goals for the state and society, not about individual responsibilities. Structural changes were a main theme. Nevertheless, centrally planned economies provided a better quality of life than market economies at the same level of economic development in nearly all cases. Some economists have argued that the major reason for the economic shortcomings of authoritarian socialist states which adopted Soviet-type planning was due to their authoritarian and administrative,

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...

nature rather than

itself or planning as a whole and that both economic planning and government direction of the economy through non-coercive means such as dirigisme have been practiced with success during the

post-war consensus The post-war consensus, sometimes called the post-war compromise, was the economic order and social model of which the major political parties in post-war Britain shared a consensus supporting view, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the ...

. It has been argued that authoritarian socialist states failed because they did not create rules and operational criteria for the efficient operation of state enterprises in their administrative-command allocation of

resources Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their av ...

and commodities and the lack of

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...

in the political systems that the authoritarian socialist economies were combined with. A form of competitive socialism that rejects

and authoritarian allocation of resources in favour of

economic democracy Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate managers and corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbour ...

could work and prove superior to the capitalist market economy. Others have argued that a central deficiency of such economic planning was that it was not premised on final consumer demand, but that such a system would be increasingly feasible with advances in information technology.

Economy of the Soviet Union

The essence of Soviet economics is that the

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

is the sole authority of the national interest. The party makes all the decisions, but they should take into account the desires of the population and these desires were then to be weighted into the decision making. According to Article 11 of its 1977 constitution, the main goal of the

was to "raise the material and cultural standards of the working people". Marxist thought and its interpretation by the Soviet Union dictated that private ownership was to be banned and the nationalization of all aspects of production a necessity, yet some things were not nationalized for the sake of economic efficiency or production targets. There was an emphasis on rapid industrialization, the development of heavy industry, relegation of consumer production as non-essential and collectivization of agriculture.

Soviet-type economies Soviet-type economic planning (STP) is the specific model of centralized planning employed by Marxist–Leninist socialist states modeled on the economy of the Soviet Union (USSR). The post-''perestroika'' analysis of the system of the Soviet ...

also used a larger proportion of their resources on investment than do market economies. The issue with this was that current consumption was undercut because of the over-investment. All these actions supported the purposes of the state, not the people.Ader, Emile Bertrand (1970). ''Communism, Classic and Contemporary''. Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series. . During the 1940s–1970s, the

grew at a rate that outpaced that of Western European nations, but by the 1980s the Soviet economy was in shambles. This has been attributed to the

Era of Stagnation The "Era of Stagnation" (russian: Пери́од засто́я, Períod zastóya, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Uni ...

, a more tolerant central government and increasing military spending caused by the

nuclear arms race The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuc ...

with the United States, especially under Ronald Reagan, whose administration pursued more aggressive relations with the Soviet Union instead of

détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...

that was preferred in the 1970s. The end to the

and

Keynesianism Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output ...

in the 1970s and the rise of

neoliberalism Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...

and

economic globalization Economic globalization is one of the three main dimensions of globalization commonly found in academic literature, with the two others being political globalization and cultural globalization, as well as the general term of globalization. Econom ...

in the 1980s also caused problems as they forced the Soviet Union and other countries to adapt and reform themselves. Unlike China, the Soviet's failure to do so further contributed to its dissolution in December 1991. A main problem of the Soviet Union was that it pushed agriculture to the bottom of its priorities and that its central planning scheme inhibited technological innovation. Despite the attempts of the Soviet Union to guarantee employment to all of its labor force, it did not satisfy the human desires of its laborers because "people want land, not collectivization. Consumers want goods, not gigantic industrial enterprise. Workers want better wages and higher living standards, not citations and medals. ndan economy cannot be politically tailored to perfection".Wellisz, Stanislaw (1964). ''The Economies of the Soviet Bloc: A Study of Decision Making and Resource Allocation''. New York: McGraw. pp. 12–27; 26–27. . The Soviet Union had a poor overall performance. Although it had high growth rates in productions, many enterprises operated with losses.Lavigne, Marie (1974). ''The Socialist Economies of the Soviet Union and Europe''. White Plains: International Arts and Sciences Press. pp. 32–36; 80–98. . Nevertheless, the Soviet Union's growth in GDP per capita compared favorably with Western Europe. In 1913, prior to both

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the Russian Revolution of 1917, the former Soviet Union had a GDP per capita of $1,488 in 1990 international dollars which grew 461% to $6,871 by 1990. After its dissolution in December 1991, this figure fell to $3,893 by 1998. By comparison, Western Europe grew from a higher base of $3,688 international dollars by a comparable 457% to $16,872 in the same period and reached $17,921 by 1998.Maddison, Angus (2001)
"The World Economy Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective"
OECD Development Centre. p. 183. doi: 10.1787/9789264022621-en. . From the Stalin era to the early

Brezhnev era Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and 19 ...

, the

Soviet economy The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was ...

grew faster than the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and maintained itself as the second largest economy in both nominal and purchasing power parity values for much of the Cold War until 1988, when Japan took the second place. It is also claimed that the Soviet model provided a better

quality of life Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...

and

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution Human evoluti ...

than market economies at the same level of economic development in nearly all cases. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union"The Fall of the Soviet Union"
Levada-Center. 9 January 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2019. followed by a rapid decrease of the quality of life, there has been a growing

Soviet nostalgia The social phenomenon of nostalgia for the era of the Soviet Union (russian: links=no, Ностальгия по СССР, Nostal'giya po SSSR), can include its politics, its society, its culture, its superpower status, or simply its aest ...

Taylor, Adam (21 December 2016)
"Why do so many people miss the Soviet Union?"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. Retrieved 26 June 2019. that has been most prominent in Russia"Why Russia Backs The Eurasian Union"
''Business Insider''. 22 August 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2019.Nikitin, Vadim. (5 March 2014)

''The Independent]''. Retrieved 26 June 2019.Taylor, A. (9 June 2014)
"Calls for a return to 'Stalingrad' name test the limits of Putin's Soviet nostalgia"
''The Washington Post''. Retrieved 26 June 2019. and with older people.

Economy of the Eastern Bloc

The initial move for socialism was in 1963 after a Central Committee meeting, these countries became the

Comecon The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of s ...

countries. There were countries that chose to introduce the new economic system gradually (

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

) and countries that decided to first prepare theoretically, then experimentation at different levels and then in a large scale (

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

was set apart because the first stage of its transition consisted of economic recovery and then socialism was gradually implemented.

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

differed from other Eastern European countries in that after 1950 it modified its economic system by making self-management the base of enterprise activity. There were also a few differences between the economic model of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries such as East Germany and Poland. Czechoslovakia and East Germany were administered along regional lines. Poland retained a centralized system similar to the Stalinist centralization of the Soviet Union. The Eastern European countries differed from the Soviet Union in that they had greater flexibility in the management of subordinate firms, the market was assigned a greater importance, accessible foreign trade and liberalization of the exchange of capital goods. There was also less bureaucracy than in the Soviet Union involved in the planning of the countries. The Eastern Bloc countries achieved high rates of economic and technical progress, promoted industrialization and ensured steady growth rates of labor productivity and rises in the standard of living despite experiencing misdevelopment by central planners.Hardt, John Pearce; Kaufman, Richard F. (1995). ''East-Central European Economies in Transition''. M. E. Sharpe. . During the 1950s–1960s, growth rates were high,Turnock, David (1997). ''The East European Economy in Context: Communism and Transition''. Routledge. . progress was rapid by European standards and per capita growth within the Eastern European countries increased by 2.4 times the European average, accounting for 12.3 percent of European production in 1950 and 14.4 in 1970, but most of their economies were stagnant by the late 1970s and 1980s as the system was resistant to change and did not easily adapt to new conditions. For political reasons, old factories were rarely closed, even when new technologies became available. Growth rates within the Eastern Bloc experienced relative decline after the 1970s. This has also been attributed to the

1970s energy crisis The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period wer ...

, including the 1973 oil crisis, the

1979 energy crisis The 1979 oil crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four per ...

and the

1980s oil glut The 1980s oil glut was a serious surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s energy crisis. The world price of oil had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel (equivalent to $ per barrel in dollars, when adjusted for inf ...

, the post-war displacement of

and the rise of

and

. Countries such as China that did not isolate and instead reformed themselves thrived, but this did not happen in most Eastern Bloc countries as they depended upon the Soviet Union, especially for significant amounts of materials. From the end of the World War II to the mid-1970s, the economy of the Eastern Bloc steadily increased at the same rate as the economy in Western Europe, with the least none-reforming Stalinist nations of the Eastern Bloc having a stronger economy then the reformist-Stalinist states. While most Western European economies essentially began to approach the GDP per capita levels of the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Eastern Bloc countries did not, with per capita GDPs trailing significantly behind their comparable Western European counterparts. Following the fall of the Eastern Bloc with the

Revolutions of 1989 The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

, the economies of

quickly fell apart and took a long time to return to pre-1989 levels. Not only growth plummeted following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, but also living standards declined, drug use, homelessness and poverty skyrocketed and suicides increased dramatically. Growth did not begin to return to pre-reform-era levels for approximately fifteen years. Some scholars have claimed that the Soviet model's industrialization and modernization laid the groundwork for their later economic growth, without which their current market-oriented economy may have not thrived or growth as much, or that it provided a better quality of life than market economies. The 1991 Soviet Union referendum (77% on an 80% turnout voted to preserve the Soviet Union and all

Soviet republics The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics ( rus, Сою́зные Респу́блики, r=Soyúznye Respúbliki) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( ...

voters voted in favor, with the Turkmenia Republic showing the most support at 98% and the lowest in the

Russian Republic The Russian Republic,. referred to as the Russian Democratic Federal Republic. in the 1918 Constitution, was a short-lived state which controlled, ''de jure'', the territory of the former Russian Empire after its proclamation by the Rus ...

at 73%) has also been cited to argue that a vast majority of people did not want the Soviet Union dissolved, but rather more autonomy for the states within the union instead of a separation and the massive privatizations which had disastrous effects including giving rise to powerful

oligarchs Oligarch may refer to: Authority * Oligarch, a member of an oligarchy, a power structure where control resides in a small number of people * Oligarch (Kingdom of Hungary), late 13th–14th centuries * Business oligarch, wealthy and influential bu ...

, especially in

and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, supported Scandinavian

in the form of the Nordic model. In light of those results, post-Soviet states have seen a growing nostalgia and a constant high number of people have expressed a longing for the Soviet period and its values since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although the level of Soviet nostalgia varies across the former republics and certain groups of people may blend the Soviet and post-Soviet experience in their daily lives.Kaprans, Martins (25 October 2009). "Then and now: Comparing the Soviet and Post-Soviet experience in Latvian autobiographies". ''Atslegvardi/Keywords. Online Journal for New Research in Humanities and Social Sciences in the Baltic States''. 7 March 2010. 2. . Polls have also showed that a majority of post-Soviet states viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union negatively and felt that it could have been avoided. An even greater number would openly welcome a revival of the Soviet system.

Nostalgia for the Soviet Union The social phenomenon of nostalgia for the era of the Soviet Union (russian: links=no, Ностальгия по СССР, Nostal'giya po SSSR), can include its politics, its society, its culture, its superpower status, or simply its aest ...

has appeared in the former Eastern Bloc,Ekman, Joakim; Linde, Jonas (September 2005)
"Communist nostalgia and the consolidation of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe"
''Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics''. 21 (3): 354–374. .Todorova, Maria; Gille, Zsuzsa (2010). ''Post-communist Nostalgia''. Berghahn Books. .Bartmanski, Dominik (2011)
"Successful icons of failed time: rethinking post-communist nostalgia"
''Acta sociologica''. 54 (3): 213—231. .Prusik, Monika; Lewicka, Maria (October 2016)
"Nostalgia for Communist Times and Autobiographical Memory: Negative Present or Positive Past?"
''Political Psychology''. 37 (5). . See also Ghodsee'
"Dr. Kristen Ghodsee, Bowdoin College - Nostalgia for Communism"
at WAMC's ''The Academic Minute''. especially in eastern Germany,Boyer, Dominic (2006). ''Ostalgie and the Politics of the Future in Eastern Germany''. Duke University Press. Poland,Murawska, Renata (6 March 2005)
"Of the Polish People's Republic and its Memory in Polish Film"
''KinoKultura (2).Esche, Christine; Mossiah (formerly Timm), Rosa Katharina; Topalska, Sandra
"Lost and Found: Communism Nostalgia and Communist Chic Among Poland's Old and Young Generations"
(2009). Humanity in Action. Retrieved 26 June 2019.Golinowska, Karolina (Autumn 2016)
"Nostalgia for the PRL in contemporary Poland"
. ''Twentieth Century Communism'' (11). Romania and the former Yugoslavia.Lindstrom, Nicole (January 2005)
"Yugonostalgia: Restorative and reflective nostalgia in former Yugoslavia"
''East central Europe. L'Europe du centre-est''. 32 (1–2): 227–237.Luthar, Brenda; Puznik, Marusa (2010). ''Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia''. Washington, D.C.: New Academia Publishing. . The dissolution of the Soviet system was followed by a rapid increase in poverty,

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

,Gerber, Theodore P.; Hout, Michael Hout (1998). "More Shock than Therapy: Market Transition, Employment, and Income in Russia, 1991–1995". ''AJS''. 104 (1): 1–50. corruption,

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

, homelessness, rates of

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

, infant mortality, domestic violence and

income inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...

, along with decreases in calorie intake,

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

adult literacy Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

and

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. Fo ...

. Many people in post-Soviet states felt that their lives were worse off after 1989, when capitalist markets were made dominant. Subsequent polls and qualitative research across post-Soviet states "confirmed these sentiments as popular discontent with the failed promises of free-market prosperity has grown, especially among older people".

Economy of China

The Maoist economic model of China was designed after the Stalinist principles of a centrally administrated

command economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, p ...

based on the Soviet model.Marangos, John (2004). ''Alternative Economic Models of Transition''. Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate. . In the common program set up by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 1949, in effect the country's interim constitution,

meant an economic system of

corporatism Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...

. It provided the maxim "Whenever necessary and possible, private capital shall be encouraged to develop in the direction of state capitalism". After the

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

condemned Stalinism and the flaws in the

movement that peaked with the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. This gave Mao space in which to experiment with departure from the Soviet socialist economy. The Maoist economic model was reliant on ''High Tide of Socialism in the Chinese Countryside'', ''How to Handle Contradictions Among the People'' and ''Ten Great Relationships''. Mao modeled the Chinese socialist economy in such a way that it led to the Great Leap Forward and the Commune Movement. In ''High Tide of Socialism in the Chinese Countryside'', Mao focused on the industrialization and mechanization of the countryside. In ''How to Handle Contradictions Among the People'', Mao wrote about his thoughts on the problems of socialist states as well as the conflicts of interest in the Chinese socialist society. In ''Ten Great Relationships'', Mao wrote about his vision of China's economy. The Maoist model had a dual economic goal, namely the industrialization of the countryside and the socialization of its people. It differed from the Soviet Union's goals in that Mao emphasized the class struggle against the bourgeoisie while the Soviet Union started advocating

peaceful coexistence Peaceful coexistence (russian: Мирное сосуществование, translit=Mirnoye sosushchestvovaniye) was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist� ...

. China also allowed for more flexibility and experimentation than the Soviet Union and the countryside was at the center of its policies. Supporters argue that life expectancy greatly improved under Mao and that he rapidly industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the country's later rise to become an economic superpower while critics see many of Maoist economic policies as impediments to industrialization and modernization that delayed economic development and claim that China's economy underwent its rapid growth only after Maoist policies had been widely abandoned.

Economic challenges and legacy

The problem with the central planning of authoritarian socialist states is that as the state develops, it also grows in complexity and the possible errors grow and the possibilities of dis-allocations and waste of resources. As commented by

, capitalism works because it is a system of economic force, but in socialist economics this force is insufficient to provide enough incentive. Human needs should be taken into account to make a socialist society function, but there is no necessary connection between the accumulation of capital and human satisfaction. Some of the issues that emerged during the socialist phase of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Maoist China included inflation, lagged consumption, fixed prices, production structure and disproportionality. There was a lag between when products were fabricated and when they were accessed to by the population, goods tended to stockpile. Yugoslavia raised its industrial prices by 17% and its agricultural prices by 32% from 1964 to 1965 while Czechoslovakia raised the prices of foodstuffs and services by 20% in 1966 and by 1967 prices were up by 30%. The production of consumer products also diminished in Yugoslavia, where the share of consumer products fell from 70% before World War II to 31% in 1965. Prices were fixed under the premise that it would force producers to behave more efficiently and as such the price-controlled products were produced in lower quantities. In Yugoslavia, the market distortion caused by the price fixing was realized and led to the un-freezing of prices in 1967. Hungary also had frozen prices and slowly unfroze them over a period of ten to fifteen years because otherwise the structural disproportions of the Hungarian economy would spin prices out of control. Many factories were kept running through government subsidies and protection despite any economic losses of the factories. This decreased overall efficiency of the socialist economies, increased the financial losses of those economies and caused them to have a disproportionate amount of available jobs and manpower. As argued by Ljubo Sirc, the "Soviet Union and other communist countries have the worst of both worlds: some enterprises or operations are inefficient because they are too capital-intensive, other enterprises or operations because they are too labour-intensive". The Stalinist economic model in which the socialist economies were based did not allow for a decrease in growth rates. It did not allow for the flexibility needed to keep up with growing economies. According to Paul Roderick Gregory, the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

was due to the inherent drawbacks of the

, namely poor planning, low expertise of planners, unreliable supply lines, conflict between planners and producers and the dictatorial chain of command. According to Gregory, "the system was managed by thousands of 'Stalins' in a nested dictatorship". Once the enterprises gained some freedom during '' perestroika'', the rigid administrative-command system imploded. Despite these shortcomings, the Soviet Union's growth in GDP per capita compared favorably with Western Europe. It has also been noted that such states compared favorably with Western states in some health indicators such as infant mortality and

, making some significant gains and that "one thought ..bound to occur is that communism is good for poverty removal". A lasting legacy of the Soviet Union remains physical infrastructure created during decades of policies geared towards the construction of

and widespread

environmental destruction Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is defined ...

. Under the Soviet system, income, property and social equality was radically increased.

Income inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...

in Russia dropped, then rebounded after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Similarly, income inequality also dropped rapidly in the Eastern Bloc and after Eastern Europe went under the Soviet

sphere of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal a ...

at the end of World War II. After the collapse of the Soviet system, economic and

social inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...

went back up. The breakdown of economic ties that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a severe economic crisis and catastrophic fall in living standards in

and the former Eastern Bloc which was even worse than the Great Depression.Kaplan, Robert D. (8 October 2000)
"Who Lost Russia?"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved 5 June 2020. Poverty and

economic inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of ...

surged between 1988–1989 and 1993–1995, with the Gini ratio increasing by an average of 9 points for all former socialist states. Even before Russia's

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

in 1998, Russia's GDP was half of what it had been in the early 1990s. In the decades following the end of the Cold War, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over 50 years to catch up to where they were before the end of the Soviet system. In a 2001 study by economist

Steven Rosefielde Steven R. Rosefielde (born 1942) is professor of comparative economic systems at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. ''Red Holocaust'' In ''Red Holocaust'', Rosefield ...

, he calculated that there were 3.4 million premature deaths in Russia from 1990 to 1998, partly blaming on the "

shock therapy Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive the ...

" that came with the Washington Consensus. According to

Klas-Göran Karlsson Klas-Göran Karlsson (born 1955) is a professor of history at Lund University. Karlsson is an author of books on conflictology and Holocaust studies such as "The Holocaust as a Problem of Historical Culture". One of the focus areas of Karlsson' ...

, discussion of the number of victims of authoritarian socialist regimes has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased". Any attempt to estimate a total number of killings under authoritarian socialist regimes depends greatly on definitions, ranging from a low of 10–20 millions to as high as 110 millions. The criticism of some of the estimates are mostly focused on three aspects, namely that the estimates were based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable; that the figures were skewed to higher possible values; and that those dying at war and victims of civil wars, Holodomor and other famines under authoritarian socialist governments should not be counted. Critics also argue that neoliberal policies of

liberalization Liberalization or liberalisation (British English) is a broad term that refers to the practice of making laws, systems, or opinions less severe, usually in the sense of eliminating certain government regulations or restrictions. The term is used m ...

, deregulation and privatisation "had catastrophic effects on former Soviet Bloc countries" and that the imposition of Washington Consensus-inspired "shock therapy" had little to do with future economic growth. It has been argued that the establishment of

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

s in the West in the early 20th century could be partly a reaction by elites to the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

and its violence against the bourgeoisie which feared violent revolution in its own backyard. The welfare states gave rise to the

and the

post-war economic boom In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

, where the United States, the Soviet Union and Western European and East Asian countries in particular experienced unusually high and sustained economic growth, together with full employment. Contrary to early predictions, this high growth also included many countries that had been devastated by the war such as Japan ( Japanese post-war economic miracle), West Germany and Austria (

Wirtschaftswunder The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social ma ...

), South Korea (

Miracle of the Han River The Miracle on the Han River refers to the period of rapid economic growth in South Korea, following the Korean War (1950–1953), during which South Korea transformed from a least developed country to a developed country. The rapid reconst ...

), France (

Trente Glorieuses ''Les Trente Glorieuses'' (; 'The Glorious Thirty') was a thirty-year period of economic growth in France between 1945 and 1975, following the end of the Second World War. The name was first used by the French demographer Jean Fourastié, who ...

), Italy (

Italian economic miracle The Italian economic miracle or Italian economic boom ( it, il miracolo economico italiano) is the term used by historians, economists, and the mass media to designate the prolonged period of strong economic growth in Italy after the Second Worl ...

) and Greece (

Greek economic miracle The Greek economic miracle describes a period of rapid and sustained economic growth in Greece from 1950 to 1973. At its height, the Greek economy grew by an average of 7.7 percent, second in the world only to Japan.Angus Maddison"Monitoring the Wo ...

). Similarly,

Michael Parenti Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti i ...

holds that the Soviet model played a role in "tempering the worst impulses of Western capitalism and imperialism" and that Western business interests are "no longer restrained by a competing system" in the post-Cold War era and are now "rolling back the many gains that working people in the West have won over the years". For Parenti, there were clear differences between fascist and socialist regimes as the latter "made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care and women's rights" and in general "created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers and Western capitalists". Other have criticized the linking of all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of StalinismEhms, Jule (2014)
"The Communist Horizon"
''Marx & Philosophy Review of Books''. Marx & Philosophy Society. Retrieved 22 April 2020. by the elites in the West in hope to discredit and marginalize all political ideologies that could "threaten the primacy of private property and free markets", emphasising Stalin and other socialist leaders' crimes and neglecting legitimate achievements such as education, literacy, the modernisation of the economy, social security, the rise in the standard of living and women's rights. Similarly, it has been argued that there is a double standard in emphasising famines, labour camps, mass killings and purges under socialist regimes in a death toll body count, but not applying the same standard to

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

- imperial regimes. The collapse of the Soviet system, the Soviet Union in particular, is seen as the proof that communism and socialism can not work, allowing for all left-wing criticism of the excesses of neoliberal capitalism to be silenced, for the alternatives will supposedly inevitably result in economic inefficiency and violent authoritarianism. Some Western academics argue that anti-communist narratives have exaggerated the extent of political repression and censorship in states under authoritarian socialist rule, or that those states provided

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

such as

economic, social and cultural rights Economic, social and cultural rights, (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Eco ...

not found under

capitalist state The capitalist state is the state, its functions and the form of organization it takes within capitalist socioeconomic systems.Jessop, Bob (January 1977). "Recent Theories of the Capitalist State". ''Soviet Studies''. 1: 4. pp. 353–373. This ...

Development

Authoritarian socialism is best understood through an examination of its developmental history, allowing for the analysis and comparison of its various global examples. Although authoritarian socialism was by no means restricted to the Soviet Union, its ideological development occurred in tandem with the Stalinist

s. As the Soviet Union was a developmental model for many socialist states in the post-World War II era, Soviet authoritarian socialism was adopted by a diverse range of states and continued to develop well into the 20th century in the Middle East and North African regions. Those regions, characterized by authoritarian traits such as uncontested party leadership, restricted civil liberties and strong unelected officials with non-democratic influence on policy, share many commonalities with the Soviet Union. Authoritarian socialist states were ideologically

(the state ideology of the Soviet Union that arose in Imperial Russia within the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) or one of its variants such as

Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

, among other national variants and updating, following the Soviet developmental model. While those socialist states saw themselves as a form of democracy opposed to that of Western states and claimed to be workers and peasants' states or people's democratic republics, they are considered to be authoritarian because they featured external controls such as violent repression and forms of artificial socialization. The implementation of authoritarian forms of socialism was accomplished with a dogmatized ideology reinforced by terror and violence. The combination of those external controls served to implement a normality within an authoritarian country that seemed like illusion or madness to someone removed from its political atmosphere. For many authoritarian socialist countries, their regimes were a mix of this form of external control-based

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regu ...

(for intellectually and ideologically active members of society) and traditional or cultural authoritarianism (for the majority of the population). With the

fall of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

and that of the Eastern Bloc, most former authoritarian socialist regimes reformed themselves. Some of those in Eastern Europe underwent " shock doctrine" and moved into a

free-market capitalist A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ...

and liberal-democratic direction, although some of them such as Hungary or Russia are described as " illiberal democracies" and others as "

hybrid regimes A hybrid regime is a mixed type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as combine autocratic features with de ...

". In Africa, many ruling parties retained power and moved into a

or social-democratic direction while others moved into liberal-democratic multi-party politics. Other countries such as Cuba and Vietnam followed the Chinese development in applying economic reforms while maintaining centralised political control. They also include Chinese allies such as the Philippines and Thailand, who were not authoritarian socialist regimes, but are now favouring the "

Beijing Consensus The Beijing Consensus ( zh, 北京共识) or China Model ( zh, 中国模式), also known as the Chinese Economic Model, is the political and economic policies of the People's Republic of China (PRC)Zhang Weiwei,"The allure of the Chinese model", ...

" over the " Washington Consensus" followed by Eastern European countries.Kurlantzick, Joshua (21 March 2013)
"Why the 'China Model' Isn't Going Away"
''The Atlantic''. Retrieved 29 July 2020. Rather than moving in the direction of democratic capitalism followed by the majority of Eastern European countries, China and its allies, including Hungary, Nicaragua, Russia, Singapore, Turkey and Venezuela, are described as authoritarian capitalist regimes.

Soviet Union

Despite the Marxian basis of

's socialism, the realities of his system were in direct opposition to

's belief in the emancipation and autonomy of the working class. Those contradictions stemmed primarily from Lenin's implementation of a vanguard or regimented party of committed revolutionaries "who knew exactly what history's mandate was and who were prepared to be its self-ordained custodians". The function of this party was meant to be primarily transitional, given that Lenin believed that the working class was politically unprepared for rule and Russia was not yet industrially poised for socialism. Lenin adopted state-capitalist policies.Lenin, Vladimir (1964) 917br>"Chapter 5"''The State and Revolution''
''Lenin Collected Works''. 25. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 381–492. Retrieved 23 April 2020.Lenin, Vladimir (1965) 918br>''Lenin Collected Works''
27. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 293. Quoted b

. Retrieved 23 April 2020.Lenin, Vladimir (1965) 921br>"The Tax in Kind"
''Lenin Collected Works'' (1st English ed.). 32. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 329–365. Retrieved 23 April 2020.Pena, David S. (21 September 2007)
"Tasks of Working-Class Governments under the Socialist-oriented Market Economy"
''Political Affairs''. . Retrieved 5 September 2008. On seeing the

's growing coercive power in 1923, a dying Lenin said Russia had reverted to "a bourgeois tsarist machine ..barely varnished with socialism".Serge, Victor (1937). ''From Lenin to Stalin''. New York: Pioneer Publishers. p. 55. OCLC 256449. Marx coined the term '' barracks communism'' (german: Kasernenkommunismus) to refer to a form of authoritarian socialism in which all aspects of life are bureaucratically regimented and communal.Lenin, Vladimir (2001). ''Marxism versus Anarchism'' (2001). Resistance Books. p. 88. . Originally, Marx used the expression to criticize the vision of

Sergey Nechayev Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechayev (russian: Серге́й Генна́диевич Неча́ев) ( – ) was a Russian communist revolutionary and prominent figure of the Russian nihilist movement, known for his single-minded pursuit of revolution ...

outlined in ''The Fundamentals of the Future Social System'' which had a major influence on other Russian revolutionaries like Lenin and others such as

Pyotr Tkachev Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev (Russian: Пётр Ники́тич Ткачёв) (29 June 1844 – 4 January 1886) was a Russian writer, critic and revolutionary theorist who formulated many of the revolutionary principles that were later developed and pu ...

. The term itself did not refer to

military barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

, but rather to the workers' barracks-type primitive dormitories in which industrial workers lived in many places in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

of the time.Busgalin, Alexander; Mayer, Günter (2008)
"Kasernenkommunismus"
''Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus''. Spalten. 7 (I): 407–411
PDF text
Political theorists of the Soviet Union later applied the term to China under

. During the later perestroika period, it was applied to the

history of the Soviet Union The history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (USSR) reflects a period of change for both Russia and the world. Though the terms "Soviet Russia" and "Soviet Union" often are synonymous in everyday speech (either acknowledging the dominance ...

. Unlike Stalin, who first claimed to have achieved socialism with the Soviet Constitution of 1936 and then confirmed it in the '' Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR'', Lenin did not call the Soviet Union a socialist state, nor did he claim that it had achieved socialism. While Stalin's colleagues described him as Asiatic and Stalin himself told a Japanese journalist that "I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian", Lenin identified ethnically as Russian, believed that other European countries, especially Germany, were culturally superior to RussiaService, Robert (2000). ''Lenin: A Biography''. London: Macmillan. . which he described as "one of the most benighted, medieval and shamefully backward of Asian countries". From his youth, Lenin had wanted Russia to become more culturally European and Western. In his testament, Lenin grow concerned about the rise of the bureaucracy and proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies. He also made criticism of several Bolshevik leaders, including Stalin and

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

, warning of the possibility of a split developing in the party leadership between Trotsky and Stalin if proper measures were not taken to prevent it. In a post-script, Lenin suggested Stalin be removed from his position as General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee.

Isaac Deutscher Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...

, a biographer of both Trotsky and Stalin, argued that " e whole testament breathed uncertainty". Leninist socialists remain divided in their views on Stalin. Some view him as Lenin's authentic successor while others believe he betrayed Lenin's ideas by deviating from them. The socio-economic nature of Stalin's Soviet Union has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of

bureaucratic collectivism Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere (such as North Korea). Th ...

or a totally unique

mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...

Vladimir Lenin

Marx chronicled a history of development through a capitalist age of industrialization that resulted in the manipulation of the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

. This development culminated in the empowerment of a proletariat which could benefit from the fruits of industrialization without being exploited. Although he meant his ideology to appeal to the disenfranchised working class of an industrialized society, it was widely accepted by developing countries that had yet to successfully industrialize. This resulted in stagnant economies and socialist states without the necessary organization and structure to industrialize. Seeing the failure of those models, Lenin concluded that socialism in Russia had to be constructed from above through party dictatorship that appealed to both the working class and peasants. Because the working class accounted for only 15% of the population, Lenin was forced to appeal to the much greater peasant class (accounting for nearly 80%) to propel the

faction of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that under Lenin eventually became the

Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

due to a split within

. The Bolsheviks promised "Bread, Peace, and Land" to the peasants and delivered, redistributing land from the landlords and increasing the number of farms in Russia from 427,000 in 1917 to 463,000 in 1919. For some, Lenin's legacy was one of violent terror and concentration of power in the hands of few. Lenin intentionally employed violence as a means to manipulate the population and tolerated absolutely no opposition, arguing that it was "a great deal better to 'discuss with rifles' than with the theses of the opposition". He worked for the ideological destruction of society as a whole so that it could easily adopt the rhetoric and political ideals of the ruling party. Lenin's use of terror (instilled by a secret police apparatus) to exact social obedience, mass murder and disappearance, censoring of communications and absence of justice was only reinforced by his successor

. In contrast to those who support this thesis, others have disputed this characterization and separated Lenin from Stalin and Leninism from Stalinism. A controversial figure, Lenin remains both reviled and revered, a figure who has been both idolised and demonised. This has extended into academic studies of Lenin and Leninism which have often been polarised along political lines. While there have been both sympathetic and expressly hostile Lenin's biographies, some sought to avoid making either hostile or positive comments about Lenin, thereby evading politicized stereotypes.Lee, Stephen J. (2003). ''Lenin and Revolutionary Russia''. London: Routledge. . Some Marxist activists, who defend both the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

and

soviet democracy Soviet democracy, or council democracy, is a political system in which the rule of the population is exercised by directly elected '' soviets'' (Russian for "council"). The councils are directly responsible to their electors and bound by thei ...

, emphasise how the Bolsheviks wanted to avoid terror and argue that the Red Terror was born in response to the

White Terror White Terror is the name of several episodes of mass violence in history, carried out against anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, revolutionaries, or other opponents by conservative or nationalist groups. It is sometimes contrasted wit ...

which has been downplayed. Lenin has been variously described as "the century's most significant political leader", "one of the undeniably outstanding figures of modern history" and one of the 20th century's "principal actors" as well as "one of the most widespread, universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century" and "one of the most significant and influential figures of modern history". Some historians have characterized Lenin's administration as

Fischer, Louis (1964). ''The Life of Lenin''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. .Shub, David (1966). ''Lenin: A Biography'' (revised ed.). London: Pelican. .Leggett, George (1981). ''The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994). ''Lenin: Life and Legacy''. Translated by Shukman, Harold. London: HarperCollins. . or a

police state A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the ...

; or they have described it as a

one-party A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

,Ryan, James (2012). ''Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence''. London: Routledge. . with Lenin as its dictator,Read, Christopher (2005). ''Lenin: A Revolutionary Life''. Routledge Historical Biographies. London: Routledge. .Pipes, Richard (1996). ''The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive''. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. . although noting differences between Lenin and Stalin in that under the first there was a dictatorship of the party and under the latter that of one man. Others have argued against the view that Lenin's government was a dictatorship, viewing it as an imperfect way of preserving elements of

without some of the processes found in

liberal democratic Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into di ...

states. According to the latter view, "the personal qualities that led Lenin to brutal policies were not necessarily any stronger than in some of the major Western leaders of the twentieth century". Among sympathisers, Lenin was portrayed as having made a genuine adjustment of Marxist theory that enabled it to suit Russia's particular socio-economic conditions. The Soviet view characterised him as a man who recognised the historically inevitable and accordingly helped to make the inevitable happen. Conversely, the majority of Western historians have perceived him as a person who manipulated events in order to attain and then retain political power, moreover considering his ideas as attempts to ideologically justify his pragmatic policies. More recently, revisionists in both Russia and the West have highlighted the impact that pre-existing ideas and popular pressures exerted on Lenin and his policies.

Joseph Stalin

Stalin sought to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union, but perhaps in a way that was unrealistic, given the aggregate skill level and capital of the population and Stalin's argument that the Soviet Union had to accomplish in a decade what England had taken centuries to do in terms of economic development in order to be prepared for an invasion from the West. Acknowledging this inadequacy, Stalin ordered that resources slotted for consumption be redirected to production or exported as a temporary sacrifice on the part of the population for the sake of rapid growth. The model was successful initially, with ideology and nationalism promoting morale despite shortages in resources such as food and construction materials for housing. Presumably, the exploited classes believed that once the rapid and successful industrialization of Russia had taken place, power would be relinquished by the

vanguard party Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organ ...

and

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

would ensue. However, Stalin continued to demand even more far-reaching sacrifices. Because of his control over both political and economic arenas which historians argue gave his vanguard party an amount of control surpassing that of Russia's tzars or emperors, citizens were unwilling to challenge his decrees, given that aspects of their lives such as medical care, housing and social freedoms could be restricted according to the discretion of the party. Despite failures, Stalin's expectations remained uncontested by the working class and the model was adopted by a multitude of emerging socialist states during that era. The Soviet attempt to collectivize agriculture, transforming the Soviet Union from one of the world's largest exporters of grain to the world's largest importer of grain, was widely replicated despite its failure. Many historians claim that extermination was the fate of a wide variety of people during Stalin's regime such as political opponents, ideological rivals, suspect party members, accused military officers, kulaks, lower-class families, former members of the societal elites, ethnic groups, religious groups and the relatives and sympathizers of these offenders. Those deaths occurred as a result of collectivization, famine, terror campaigns, disease, war and mortality rates in the Gulag. As the majority of excess deaths under Stalin were not direct killings, the exact number of victims of Stalinism is difficult to calculate due to lack of consensus among scholars on which deaths can be attributed to Stalin.Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (1996)
"The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45"
(PDF). ''Europe-Asia Studies''. 48 (8): 1319–1353. . .Ellman, Michael (November 2002)
"Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments"
''Europe-Asia Studies''. Taylor & Francis. 54 (7): 1152–1172. . .Davies, Robert; Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (2004). ''The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931-1933''. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. . However, it is far lower than the estimates of 20 million or above which were made before access to the archives. Regarding the Holodomor, part of the greater

Soviet famine of 1932–1933 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, the consensus argues that while Stalin's policies contributed significantly to the high mortality rate, it rejects the view that Stalin or the Soviet government consciously engineered the famine. It has been argued that Stalin's "purposive killings" fit more closely into the category of "execution" rather than "murder", given he thought the accused were indeed guilty of crimes against the state and insisted on documentation. Among the anti-Stalinist left and anti-communist Russians and Westerners, Stalin's legacy is largely negative,McDermott, Kevin (2006). ''Stalin: Revolutionary in an Era of War''. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. . with the Soviet Union under him characterised as a totalitarian state and Stalin as its authoritarian leader. Various biographers have described Stalin as a

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in tim ...

,Service, Robert (2004). ''Stalin: A Biography''. London: Macmillan. .Khlevniuk, Oleg V. (2015). ''Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator''. Translated by Favorov, Nora Seligman. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. .Kotkin, Stephen (2014). ''Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928''. London: Allen Lane. .Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2007). ''Young Stalin''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. . an autocrat,Volkogonov, Dimitri (1991). ''Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy''. Translated by Shukman, Harold. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. . an Oriental despot, or accused him of practicing

Caesarism Caesarism is an authoritarian or autocratic political philosophy inspired by Julius Caesar. It has been used in various ways by both proponents and opponents as a pejorative. Historical use of the term The first documented use of the word is ...

. A man who "perhaps ..determined the course of the twentieth century" more than any other individual,Conquest, Robert (1991). ''Stalin: Breaker of Nations''. New York and London: Penguin. . described as "one of the most notorious figures in history" and possessing "that rare combination: both 'intellectual' and killer", the "ultimate politician" and the "most elusive and fascinating of the twentieth-century titans" as well as "one of the most powerful figures in human history", Stalin initially ruled as part of the party oligarchy which he turned into a personal dictatorship in 1934 and became absolute dictator between March and June 1937. Stalin later built a "personal dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship", concentrated an "unprecedented political authority in his hands" and has been described as "closer to personal despotism than almost any monarch in history". However, contemporary archival research shows that the motivation behind the purges was not Stalin attempting to establish his own personal dictatorship. Rather, evidence suggests he was committed to building the socialist state envisioned by Lenin. The real motivation for the terror was an exaggerated fear of counter-revolution. Other historians and scholars cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes" that portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent

tyrant A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to re ...

who controlled every aspect of Soviet life through repression and

, noting that "powerful though he was, his powers were not limitless" and that Stalin's rule depended on his willingness to conserve the Soviet structure he had inherited. It has been observed that Stalin's ability to remain in power relied on him having a majority in the Politburo at all times. It was noted that at various points, especially in his later years, there were "periodic manifestations" in which the party oligarchy threatened his autocratic control. Stalin denied to foreign visitors that he was a dictator, stating that those who labelled him as such did not understand the Soviet governance structure. Several historians have criticized the

totalitarian twins Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...

concept and comparisons between

and

or Stalinism and

as Cold War concepts that focus upon the upper levels of society and which use have obscured the reality of the system. Others further noted how the concept became prominent in Western anti-communist political discourse during the Cold War era as a tool to convert pre-war anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the release of the archives, some of the heat has gone out of the debate and politicization has been reduced. It has been argued that the Soviet political system was not completely controlled from the center and that both Lenin and Stalin only responded to political events as they arose. Some also questioned the previously published findings that Stalin organized himself the murder of

Sergey Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov ( né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and mem ...

to justify his campaign of Great Terror. Others stated that mass deaths from famines are not a "uniquely Stalinist evil" and compared the behavior of the Stalinist regime vis-à-vis the Holodomor to that of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

(towards Ireland and India) and even the G8 in contemporary times, arguing that the latter "are guilty of mass manslaughter or mass deaths from criminal negligence because of their not taking obvious measures to reduce mass deaths" and that a possible defense of Stalin and his associates is that "their behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries". Despite the criticism, Stalin has been considered an outstanding and exceptional politician as well as a great statesman and state-builder, with some suggesting that without Stalin the Soviet Union might have collapsed long before 1991 as he strengthened and stabilized the country. In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power, one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride. Under his rule, the average Soviet life expectancy grew due to improved living conditions, nutrition and medical care as mortality rates also declined. Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. Citing those achievements and highlighting crimes committed by the Western world and its leaders during the colonization and imperialist period as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century whilst arguing that Stalin's hatred came mainly from General Secretary

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

's "Secret Speech" read during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, some have attempted to rehabilitate Stalin and its legacy, or otherwise gave a more neutral and nuanced view. However, those attempts have been criticized and most of its authors labelled as ''neo-Stalinists''. In the 21st century, more than half of Russians view Stalin positively and many support restoration of his monuments either dismantled by leaders or destroyed by rioting Russians during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Stalin's popularity has tripled among Russians in the last twenty years and the trend accelerated since Vladimir Putin, who has been described as holding Neo-Sovietism, neo-Soviet views, has come to power.

China

Following the fall of the elite, Landlord, land-owning class of the early 20th century, China began its Chinese Communist Revolution, Communist Revolution through the countryside. As relationships between agrarian masses and state-controlled programs splintered, the Chinese Communist Party led by

began seizing power. In his 1949 essay ''On People's Democratic Dictatorship'', Mao committed himself and the Chinese state to the creation of a strong state power with increased economic control. He stressed the importance of an authoritarian state, where political order and unity could be established and maintained. Mao committed himself to unification in the vein of complete system overthrow. As Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, party chairman, Mao allowed himself complete control over the structure and execution of the party with his own cult of personality, an almost mythical position as a guardian of wisdom and charisma. With such power, Mao was able to influence popular opinions, allowing his agenda support without going through state-controlled measures. During the Great Leap Forward, an initiative to develop China from an agrarian sector a major industrial powerhouse, Mao relied greatly on his prestige to influence the people. However, the Great Leap Forward proved a failure as widespread crop and irrigation failures led to the 1959–1961 Great Chinese Famine. There was no suggested end to the revolution—it was meant to be a continuing process of empowerment of the peasant class. With the aggressive failure of his Cultural Revolution, Chinese support for the party and for Mao waned. Continuing struggles after his death would undermine his socialist system, allowing a more democratic yet still one-party ruled system to continue into today. As there is little agreement over his legacy both in China and abroad, Mao is a controversial figure who has been regarded as one of the most important and influential individuals in modern world history. Supporters credit Mao with driving imperialism out of China, modernizing the nation and building it into a world power, promoting the status of women and improving education and health care as well as increasing life expectancy as China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million under his leadership,O'Brien, Patrick Karl (2002). ''Atlas of World History''. Oxford University Press
p. 254
.Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (2010). ''The Cambridge Illustrated History of China''. Cambridge University Press
p. 327
. among other achievements.Gao, Mobo (2008). ''The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution''. London: Pluto Press. .Galtung, Marte Kjær; Stenslie, Stig (2014). ''49 Myths About China''. Rowman & Littlefield. . Conversely, his regime has been called autocratic and

and condemned for bringing about mass repression and destroying religious and cultural artifacts and sites. It was additionally responsible for vast numbers of deaths, with estimates ranging from 30 to 70 million victims through starvation, prison labour and mass executions.Short, Philip (2001). ''Mao: A Life''. Owl Books. .Fenby, J (2008). ''Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present''. Ecco Press. p. 351. "Mao's responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking". . While some critics argue that Mao was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies, or that he was well aware that his policies would be responsible for the deaths of millions, others have disputed this. Praised as a political intellect, theorist, military strategist, poet and visionary, Mao has been variously described as a "great historical criminal", "both monster and a genius", who was also "a great force for good","Mao Tse Tung: China's Peasant Emperor" (2005). ''Biography (TV series), Biography''. A&E Network. ASIN B000AABKXG. a "great leader in history" and a "great criminal"Duncan, Maxim (28 September 2009)
"Granddaughter Keeps Mao's Memory Alive in Bookshop"
Reuters. 10 June 2019. as well as "one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century", comparable to

and

,Lynch, Michael (2004). ''Mao (Routledge Historical Biographies)''. Routledge. p. 230. with a death toll surpassing both. However, others reject those comparisons, arguing that whereas the deaths caused by

and the

were largely systematic and deliberate, the overwhelming majority of the deaths under Mao were unintended consequences of famine, noting that the Mass killings of landlords under Mao Zedong, landlord class was not exterminated as a people due to his belief in redemption through thought reform. Mao has been compared to 19th-century Chinese reformers who challenged China's traditional beliefs in the era of China's clashes with Western colonialism, Western colonial powers as well as to United States President Andrew Jackson. Similarly, Maoist economics policies are controversial. Supporters argue that

greatly improved under Mao and that such policies rapidly industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the country's later rise to become an economic superpower. Critics argue that policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were impediments to industrialization and modernization that delayed economic development and claim that Economy of China, China's economy underwent its rapid growth only after Maoist policies had been widely abandoned. All in all, both supporters and critics alike generally agree that the human cost has been staggering.

Maoism

is an adapted Sino-centric version of Marxism–Leninism. While believing in democratic centralism, where party decisions are brought about by scrutiny and debate and then are binding upon all members of the party once implemented, Mao did not accept dissenters to the party's decisions. Through the Cultural Revolution and the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Mao attempted to purge any subversive idea—especially capitalist or Western threat—with heavy force, justifying his actions as the necessary way for the central authority to keep power. At the same time, Mao emphasized the importance of cultural heritage and individual choice as a way of creating this national unity. He described his ideal system as "a political situation in which there is both centralism and democracy, both discipline and freedom, both unity of purpose and personal ease of mind and liveliness to facilitate the socialist revolution". While the system advocates contradiction, Mao believed the state above all could provide the masses with the tools for their own expression, but his own brand of self-expression was wholly manufactured, built largely on replacing traditional practices and artifacts of Chinese culture with his own. Through this, transformation of the people towards an internal party collectiveness was possible. Notably, Mao's authoritarianism was rooted in a collective bottom-up style of empowerment. In his system, the proletariat and peasantry were responsible for rising up against the bureaucracy and capital of the state. Joining the peasant class with the bourgeoisie of the countryside (the land-holding, local farmers), the group was able to stifle the claims to power by the wealthier, urban landowners through the banner of

. Only when this collection of peasants and petty bourgeoisie existed could Mao grow his own, custom bureaucracy. Once this unity was established, Mao argued that the people were the ones who could control the state, but his government's intense control over the citizenry emphasizes the contradiction in his theory—a contradiction, he maintained, was a necessary reality of their specialized system.

Post-Maoism

Following the Chinese economic reforms in the 1980s by Deng Xiaoping, most then current and former authoritarian socialist regimes have followed the Chinese model while only leaders such as Kim Jong-il and Mobutu Sese Seko maintained their orthodox views. Countries such as Vietnam (socialist-oriented market economy) and more recently Cuba have followed the Chinese socialist market economy. With the Great Recession, the " Washington Consensus" has been losing favour to the "Beijing Consensus". According to Joshua Kurlantzick, the Chinese model "offer a viable alternative to the leading democracies. In many ways, their systems pose the most serious challenge to democratic capitalism since the rise of communism and fascism in the 1920s and early 1930s". While arguing that "the 'China model' has become shorthand for economic liberalization without political liberalization", Kurlantzick cautiones that "China's model of development is actually more complex. It builds on earlier, state-centered Asian models of development such as in South Korea and Taiwan, while taking uniquely Chinese steps designed to ensure that the Communist Party remains central to economic and political policy-making". Kurlantzick argues that "the Beijing government maintains a high degree of control over the economy, but it is hardly returning to socialism". China developed "a hybrid form of capitalism in which it has opened its economy to some extent, but it also ensures the government controls strategic industries, picks corporate winners, determines investments by state funds, and pushes the banking sector to support national champion firms". Although noting that "China privatized many state firms" in the 1980s and 1990s, he states that "the central government still controls roughly 120 companies. ..Working through these networks, the Beijing leadership sets state priorities, gives signals to companies, and determines corporate agendas, but does so without the direct hand of the state appearing in public". According to Kurlantzick, "government intervention in business is utilized, in a way not possible in a free-market democracy, to strengthen the power of the ruling regime and China's position internationally. ..In short, the China model sees commerce as a means to promote national interests, and not just to empower (and potentially to make wealthy) individuals. And for over three decades, China's model of development has delivered staggering successes". Along with India, China is providing "virtually the only growth in the whole global economy" and in about thirty years the country has gone from a poor, mostly agrarian nation to the second-largest economy in the world.

Arab world

Socialism was introduced into the Middle East in the form of populist policies designed to galvanize the

into overthrowing colonial powers and their domestic allies. These policies were held by authoritarian states interested in the rapid industrialisation and social equalisation of Arab nations and often were characterised by redistributive or protectionist economic policies, lower class mobilization, charismatic leaders and promises to improve national living standards. Those states were progressive in terms of the colonial development that had occurred thus far. They allowed important political and economic gains to be made by workers, encouraged land redistribution, unseated oligarchical political powers and implemented Import substitution industrialization, import-substituting industrialisation development strategies. With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc following the

and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 as well as the push for democratization, many Arab states have moved toward a model of fiscal discipline proposed by the Washington Consensus. Although authoritarian leaders of those states implemented democratic institutions during the 1980s and 1990s, their multi-party elections created an arena in which business elites could lobby for personal interests while largely silencing the lower class. Economic liberalisation in these regions yielded economies that led to regimes built on the support of rent-seeking urban elites, with political opposition inviting the prospect of political marginalisation and even retaliation. While some Trotskyists such as the Committee for a Workers' International have included countries such as Syria at times when they have had a nationalized economy as deformed workers' states, other socialists argued that the neo-Ba'athists promoted capitalists from within the party and outside their countries.

Resistance to democratisation

A great deal of debate has been paid by the field of comparative politics to how the Arab region was able to avoid the third wave of democratisation. A number of arguments have been offered by professionals in the field, ranging from a discussion of prerequisites for democratisation not supported by the Arab culture to a lack of democratic actors initiating the necessary democratic transition. Marsha Pripstein Posusney argues that the "patriarchal and tribal mentality of the culture is an impediment to the development of pluralist values", rendering Arab citizens prone to accept patriarchal leaders and lacking the national unity that many argue is necessary for democratization to be successful. Eva Bellin concedes that the prevalence of Islam is a distinguishing factor of the region and therefore must contribute to the region's exceptionalism, "given Islam's presumed inhospitality to democracy". Posusney argues that this "intrinsic incompatibility between democracy and Islam" remains unproven given that efforts to test this association quantitatively have failed to produce conclusive results. Ethnic divisions in the area have also been cited as a factor as well as a weak civil society, a state-controlled economy, poverty, low literacy rates and inequality. In his book ''Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes'', Oliver Schlumberger has argued that there is in fact an international ambivalence toward authoritarianism in the Middle East given that stability is preferred over the uncertainty of democratisation due to the region's oil and gas supplies and the strategic importance of its geopolitical location.

Africa

During the Pan-African Congress, 1945 Pan-African Conference, calls for increased organization, development and self-determination in the poverty stricken African continent put the impetus on colonial powers to negotiate national sovereignty. While there were few Marxist movements into the continent, Soviet Union activity spurred anti-imperialist and globalization movements from African countries. The congress established African independence movements, national liberation as the main topic of their sessions, emphasizing the elimination and exploitation by the imperialist powers over authentic national sovereignty. However, they did not establish clear social or political parameters for this new liberation. African leaders consistently viewed socialism as a direct rejection of the Colonisation of Africa, colonial system and in turn dismissed the notion of creating independent capitalist systems throughout the continent. They attempted to infuse various forms of socialism—some Marxist–Leninist, others democratic—into tailored ideologies specific to each country. Once these systems were in place, countries developed towards a "focal institutional" society. According to sociologist William Friedland, societies adopted a totalitarian vision of rule, allowing one-party systems and institutions to "penetrate every sphere of private or public activity".

Senegal

Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor was among the first and most vocal African advocates for socialism. Before being elected president, Senghor served as one of nine African delegates to the 1945 French Constituent Assembly, negotiating for the transfer of self-governing and policy-making power through locally elected councils. The measure shortly failed, keeping autonomy from the colonies until the French colonial empire#Decolonization, independence movements of the 1960s. After History of Senegal#Independence, Senegalese independence in 1960, Senghor's Socialist Party of Senegal, Union Progresiste Senegalaise, a derivative of the French Socialist Party, grew massive support throughout the continent. Much of his party's success hinged on his revisionist version of Marxism–Leninism, where he argued that "the major contradiction of Marxism is that it presents itself as a science, whereas, despite its denials, it is based on an ethic". By framing it as an ethic, Senghor was able to remove the strict determinism from the ideology, allowing it to be molded towards an Afro-centric model. His revision proved similar to that of Benito Mussolini as he called on a national movement from and for his one-party-ruled government, arguing: "In a word, we must awaken the National Consciousness. ..But the government cannot and must not do it all. It must be helped by the party. ..Our party must be the consciousness of the masses".

Ghana

In the same vein as Senghor, socialist leader Kwame Nkrumah sought to advance this one-party, nationalized form of socialist obedience. Nkrumah stressed the importance of government-owned property and resources. He maintained that "production for private profit deprives a large section of the people of the goods and services produced", advocating public ownership to fit the "people's needs". To accomplish this, Nkrumah emphasized the importance of discipline and obedience towards the single socialist party. He argued that if people submitted and accepted the singular party's program, political independence would be possible. By 1965, his one-party rule had produced an Assembly entirely made up of his own party members. Nkrumah saw law as a malleable weapon of political power, not as a product of a complex system of political institutions. Ghanaian power structures were dominated and controlled by his hand, but elite landowners questioned the legitimacy of Nkrumah's power. Those elites were only afforded one choice, namely to align with their government if they wanted access to the state. Gradually, those who were not granted or did not desire entrance into the party created regions blocs. The Ashanti people, Asante emerged as a regional force capable political sway. With the power to set the agenda, the authoritarian party often clashed with these emerging regional groups, ultimately undermining the one-party system.

Tanzania

Julius Nyerere attempted to socialist reform for Tanzania following those in Ghana and Senegal. The tenets of his initiatives were to promote the Tanzanian economy; secure state control over development; create a sole political party called the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) which would be under his control; and share the benefits of all gathered income. The system—called ujaama—became a tool for nationalization of the Tanzanian people. In the system, all Tanzanains were encouraged to run for office, with no campaign funding allowed. Speeches in the election would not focus on the national issues, but rather on the quality of the individual, each of whom would be closely controlled by TANU. Structurally, the power was shared along regional boundaries, giving increased policy making power and resource allocation to these regions. Local institutions were downplayed, with leadership organizations often facing subversion from higher governmental structures. The first wave of elections in the 1965 Tanzanian general election, Tanzanian general election produced a 100% voting rate for TANU officials.

Latin America

Socialism of the 21st century is an interpretation of socialist principles first advocated by German sociologist and political analyst Heinz Dieterich and taken up by a number of Latin Americans, Latin American leaders. Dieterich argued in 1996 that both free-market Industrialisation, industrial

and Marxism–Leninism, 20th-century authoritarian socialism have failed to solve urgent problems of Humanitarianism, humanity like poverty, hunger, Exploitation of labour, exploitation, economic oppression, sexism, racism, the destruction of natural resources and the absence of a truly participatory democracy.Dieterich, Heinz. ''Socialism of the 21st Century''. While having

elements, it primarily resembles Revisionism (Marxism), Marxist revisionism. Leaders who have advocated for this form of socialism include Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. Because of the local unique historical conditions, it is often contrasted with previous applications of socialism in other countries, with a major difference being the effort towards a more decentralised and participatory planning process. Critics claim that this form of socialism in Latin America acts as a façade for authoritarianism. The charisma of figures like Hugo Chávez and mottoes such as "Country, Socialism, or Death!" have drawn comparisons to the Latin American dictators and ''caudillos'' of the past. According to Steven Levitsky, only under "the dictatorships of the past ..were presidents reelected for life", with Levitsky further stating that while Latin America experienced democracy, citizens opposed "indefinite reelection, because of the dictatorships of the past". Levitsky then noted how in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela "reelection is associated with the same problems of 100 years ago". In 2014, ''

'' also argued that "Bolivia's Evo Morales, David Ortega of Nicaragua and the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez ..used the ballot box to weaken or eliminate term limits". The sustainability and stability of economic reforms associated with governments adhering to such socialism have also been questioned. Latin American countries have primarily financed their Bolivarian missions, social programs with extractive exports like petroleum, natural gas and minerals, creating a dependency that some economists claim has caused inflation and slowed growth. While some critics say the crisis is caused by "

" or the country's "Socialism of the 21st century, socialist policies", its policies have been described as "populist" or "hyper-populist" and the crisis has more to do with authoritarianism as well as anti-democratic governance, corruption and mismanagement of the economy. According to analysts and critics alike, the Bolivarian government has used those populist policies in order to maintain political power. Although socialists have welcomed a socialism of the 21st century, they have been skeptical of Latin America's examples and criticized their authoritarian qualities and occasional cults of personality. While citing their progressive role, they argue that the appropriate label for these governments is ''populism'' rather than ''socialism''. Chávez and Maduro have been compared to Lenin and Stalin, respectively, including Chávez and Lenin's early deaths and the economic problems after their deaths. Maduro, who has joked about his similar appearance and walrus moustache with Stalin, argued he is not a new Stalin and claimed to be merely following Chávez. Nonetheless, Maduro has been variously described by newspapers such as the ''New Statesman'' and ''The Times'' as the "Stalin of the Caribbean" and the "tropical Stalin", respectively. According to ''The Daily Beast'', Maduro has embraced the "tropical Stalin" moniker. According to Joshua Kurlantzick, Latin American countries such as Nicaragua and Venezuela have been following the Chinese model and are described as authoritarian capitalist regimes.

Venezuela

While elections won by Hugo Chávez were certified as being free and legitimate by Organization of American States and the Carter Center,Cannon, Barry (2009). ''Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Populism and Democracy in a Globalised Age''. Manchester: Manchester University Press. . the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under Chávez and his Bolivarianism moved toward authoritarian socialism. Chávez's earlier forms of Bolivarianism had been social-democratic in nature, merging elements of capitalism and socialism. By January 2005, Chávez began openly proclaiming the ideology of socialism of the 21st century. This new term was used to contrast the democratic socialism which he wanted to promote in Latin America from the authoritarian socialism that had been spread by socialist states like the Soviet Union and China during the 20th century, arguing that the latter had not been truly democratic, suffering from a lack of participatory democracy and an excessively authoritarian governmental structure). Despite those aspirations, the Bolivarian government used "centralized decision-making and a top-down approach to policy formation, the erosion of vertical power-sharing and concentration of power in the presidency, the progressive deinstitutionalization at all levels, and an increasingly paternalist relationship between state and society" in order to hasten changes in Venezuela. The various attempts, including the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt and the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003, at overthrowing the Bolivarian government from power and end his Bolivarian Revolution may explain Chávez's radicalization. In practice, Chávez's administration proposed and enacted Economic populism, populist economic policies. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Venezuelan communal councils, communal councils and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare and education. Venezuela received high oil profits in the mid-2000s, resulting in improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality and quality of life occurring primarily between 2003 and 2007. However, those gains started to reverse after 2012 and it has been argued that government policies did not address structural inequalities. On 2 June 2010, Chávez declared an economic war due to shortages in Venezuela, beginning the crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela. By the end of Chávez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade such as deficit spending and price controls proved to be unsustainable, with the economy of Venezuela faltering while poverty, inflation and shortages increased. His use of enabling acts and his government's use of Bolivarian propaganda were also controversial. On the socialist development in Venezuela, Chávez argued with the second government plan (') that "socialism has just begun to implant its internal dynamism among us" whilst acknowledging that "the socio-economic formation that still prevails in Venezuela is Rentier capitalism, capitalist and rentier". This same thesis is defended by Maduro, who acknowledges that he has failed in the development of the productive forces while admitting that "the old model of corrupt and inefficient

" typical of traditional Venezuelan oil rentism has contradictorily combined with a statist model that "pretends to be a socialist". Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela (2016) cropped

Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela (2016) cropped

In 2015, ''The Economist'' argued that the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela—now under Nicolás Maduro after Death of Hugo Chávez, Chávez's death in 2013—was devolving from

as opposition politicians were jailed for plotting to undermine the government, violence was widespread and opposition media shut down. Economic policy of the Hugo Chávez administration, Chávez and Economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro administration, Maduro administrations' economic policies led to shortages, a high inflation rate and a dysfunctional economy. The government has attributed Venezuela's economic problems to the decline in oil prices, sanctions imposed by the United States and economic sabotage by the opposition. Western media coverage of Chávez and other Latin American leaders from the 21st-century socialist movement has been criticized as unfair by their supporters and left-leaning media critics. Broadly, ''chavismo'' policies include nationalization, social welfare programs and opposition to neoliberalism, particularly the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. According to Chávez, Venezuelan socialism accepts private property, but this socialism is a form of social democracy that seeks to promote social property and supports participatory democracy. In January 2007, Chávez proposed to build the communal state, whose main idea is to build self-government institutions like communal councils, communes and communal cities. While Chávez remained relatively popular throughout his time in office, Maduro suffered unpopularity with the 2013–present economic crisis in Venezuela, deterioration of the economy during his tenure and there was a decline of self-identified ''chavistas''. Despite its claim to socialist rhetoric, ''chavismo'' has been frequently described as being state capitalist by critics. Critics frequently point towards Venezuela's large private sector. In 2009, roughly 70% of Venezuela's gross domestic product was created by the private sector. According to Asa Cusack, an expert on Latin America and frequent contributor to mainstream media, Venezuela's economy remained "market-based and private-sector dominated" throughout Chávez's time in office. Although "the social economy and the public sector were heavily promoted", for example through nationalization, "the private sector was expected to remain dominant, and it did. A centrally planned socialist economy like Cuba's was neither the aim nor the reality". ''Chavismo'' has been widely discussed in the media. According to Kirk A. Hawkins, scholars are generally divided into two camps, namely a liberal-democratic one that sees ''chavismo'' as an instance of democratic backsliding and a radical-democratic one that upholds ''chavismo'' as the fulfillment of its aspirations for participatory democracy. Hawkins argues that the most important division between these two groups is neither methodological nor theoretical, but ideological. It is a division over basic normative views of democracy, i.e. liberalism versus Political radicalism, radicalism. Scholars in the first camp tended to adhere to a classical liberal ideology that valued procedural democracy (Multi-party system, competitive elections, Voter turnout, widespread participation defined primarily in terms of voting and civil liberties) as the political means best suited to achieving human welfare. They saw ''chavismo'' in a mostly negative light as a case of democratic backsliding or even competitive

or electoral authoritarian regime. On the other hand, scholars in the second camp generally adhered to a classical socialist ideology that mistrusted market institutions in either the state or the economy. Although accepting the importance of liberal-democratic institutions, they saw procedural democracy as insufficient to ensure political inclusion and emphasized participatory forms of democracy and collective worker ownership in the economy.

Analysis and reception

Left-wing

Left-wing critics argue that it is a form of

that followed anti-imperialism, populism, nationalism and

. Rather than representing a

planned economy, the Soviet model has been described in practice as either a form of state capitalism or a Administrative-command system, non-planned,

. The fidelity of those varied socialist revolutionaries, leaders and parties to the work of

and that of other socialist thinkers is highly contested and has been rejected by many Marxists and other socialists alike. Some academics, scholars and socialists have criticized the linking of all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of authoritarian socialism.

Anarchism and Marxism

Many democratic and libertarian socialists, including

, Mutualism (economic theory), mutualists and syndicalists, deride it as

for its support of a workers' state instead of abolishing the bourgeois state apparatus outright. They use the term in contrast with their own form of socialism which involves either collective ownership (in the form of worker cooperatives) or common ownership of the means of production without central planning by the state. Those libertarian socialists believe there is no need for a state in a socialist system because there would be no class to suppress and no need for an institution based on coercion and regard the state being a remnant of capitalism. They hold that

is antithetical to true socialism, the goal of which is the eyes of libertarian socialists such as William Morris, who wrote as follows in a ''Commonweal'' article: "State Socialism? — I don't agree with it; in fact I think the two words contradict one another, and that it is the business of Socialism to destroy the State and put Free Society in its place". Classical Marxism, Classical and

Marxists also view the term as an oxymoron, arguing that while an association for managing production and economic affairs would exist in socialism, it would no longer be a state in the Marx's theory of the state, Marxist definition which is based on Anti-statism#General categories, domination by one class. Preceding the

-led October Revolution, revolution in Russia, many socialist groups—including reformists, orthodox Marxist currents such as council communism and the Mensheviks as well as anarchists and other libertarian socialists—criticized the idea of using the state to conduct Economic planning, planning and nationalization of the means of production as a way to establish socialism. Lenin himself acknowledged his policies as state capitalism, defending them from left-wing criticism, but arguing that they were necessary for the future development of socialism and not socialist in themselves. American Marxist Raya Dunayevskaya dismissed it as a type of state capitalism because state ownership of the means of production is a form of state capitalism; the dictatorship of the proletariat is a form of

and single-party rule is undemocratic; and Marxism–Leninism is neither Marxism nor Leninism, but rather a composite ideology which socialist leaders such as

used to expediently determine what is

and what is not communism among the Eastern Bloc countries.

Left communism

Critical of the economy and government of socialist states, Left communism, left communists such as the Italian Amadeo Bordiga argued that Marxism–Leninism was a form of political opportunism which preserved rather than destroyed Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory), capitalism because of the claim that the exchange of commodities would occur under Socialist mode of production, socialism; the use of popular front organisations by the Communist International;Bordiga, Amadeo (1952)
"Dialogue With Stalin"
Translated by Libri Incogniti. ''Il Programma Comunista''. Retrieved 11 November 2019. and that a Vanguardism, political vanguard organised by organic centralism was more effective than a vanguard organised by democratic centralism. For Bordiga and those left communists supporting his conception of Stalinism,

and later

, Ho Chi Minh,

and other anti-imperialist revolutionaries were great Romanticism, Romantic revolutionaries, i.e. bourgeois revolutionaries. According to this view, the Stalinist regimes that came into existence after 1945 were extending the bourgeois nature of prior revolutions that degenerated as all had in common a policy of expropriation and agrarian and productive development which those left communist considered negations of previous conditions and not the genuine construction of socialism. While the Russian Revolution was a proletarian revolution, it degenerated into a bourgeois revolutionMattick, Paul (1978)
"Otto Rühle and the German Labour Movement"''Anti-Bolshevik Communism''
London: Merlin Press. . and represented the French Revolution of the Eastern world, Eastern and Third World, with

taking liberalism's place. Although most Marxist–Leninists distinguish between communism and socialism, Bordiga, who did consider himself a Leninist and has been described as being "more Leninist than Lenin", did not distinguish between the two in the same way Marxist–Leninists do. Both Lenin and Bordiga did not see socialism as a separate mode of production from

, but rather just as how communism looks as it emerges from capitalism before it has "developed on its own foundations". This is coherent with Marx and Engels, who used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably. Like Lenin, Bordiga used ''socialism'' to mean what Marx called the "lower-stage of communism". For Bordiga, both stages of communist or socialist society—with stages referring to historical materialism—were characterized by the gradual absence of money, the market and so on, the difference between them being that earlier in the first stage a system of rationing would be used to allocate goods to people while in communism this could be abandoned in favour of full free access. This view distinguished Bordiga from Marxist–Leninists, who tended and still tend to telescope the first two stages and so have money and the other exchange categories surviving into socialism, but Bordiga would have none of this. For him, no society in which money, buying and selling and the rest survived could be regarded as either socialist or communist—these exchange categories would die out before the socialist rather than the communist stage was reached. Stalin first made the claim that the

had reached the lower stage of communism and argued that the law of value still operated within a socialist economy.Stalin, Joseph (1972) [1951]
''Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR''
(1st ed.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Retrieved 27 December 2019. Other left communists such as the councilists explicitly reject the Leninist vanguard party and the organic centralism promoted by Bordigists. Otto Rühle saw the Soviet Union as a form of state capitalism that had much in common with the state-centred capitalism of the Western world, West as well as

. While Rühle saw the Leninist vanguardist party as an appropriate form for the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, it was ultimately an inappropriate form for a proletarian revolution. For Rühle and others, no matter what the actual intentions of the Bolsheviks, what they actually succeeded in bringing about was much more like the bourgeois revolutions of Europe than a proletarian revolution.

Libertarian communism and socialism

A variety of non-state, libertarian communist and socialist positions reject the concept of a socialist state altogether, believing that the modern state is a byproduct of capitalism and cannot be used for the establishment of a socialist system. They reason that a socialist state is antithetical to socialism and that socialism will emerge spontaneously from the grassroots level in an Evolutionary economics, evolutionary manner, developing its own unique political and economic institutions for a highly organized stateless society. Libertarian communists, including Anarcho-communism, anarchists, Council communism, councilists, Left communism, leftists and Libertarian Marxism, Marxists, also reject the concept of a socialist state for being antithetical to socialism, but they believe that socialism and communism can only be established through revolution and dissolving the existence of the state. Within the socialist movement, there is criticism towards the use of the term ''socialist state'' in relation to countries such as China and previously of Soviet Union and Eastern and Central European states before what some term the "collapse of Stalinism" in 1989. Anti-authoritarian communists and socialists such as anarchists, other democratic and libertarian socialists as well as revolutionary syndicalists and left communistsCommunist Workers Organisation (2000)
"Trotsky, Trotskyism, Trotskyists: From Revolution to Social Democracy""Trotsky and the Origins of Trotskyism"
"The Nature of the USSR". Internationalist Communist Tendency. Retrieved 22 June 2020. claim that the so-called socialist states cannot be called socialist because they actually presided over state capitalist or non-planned administrative economies. Those socialists who oppose any system of state control whatsoever believe in a more decentralized approach which puts the means of production directly into the hands of the workers rather than indirectly through state bureaucracies which they claim represent a new elite or New class, class. This leads them to consider state socialism a form of state capitalism (an economy based on centralized management, capital accumulation and wage labor, but with the state owning the means of production) which Engels and other

leaders such as

and Nikolai Bukharin stated would be the final form of capitalism rather than socialism. Similarly, others pointed out that nationalisation and state ownership have nothing to do with socialism by itself, having been historically carried out for various different purposes under a wide variety of different political and economic systems.

Trotskyism

Some Trotskyists following on from Tony Cliff deny that it is socialism, calling it state capitalism. Other Trotskyists agree that these states could not be described as socialist, but they deny that those states were capitalist, supporting

's analysis of pre-restoration Soviet Union as a workers' state that had Degenerated workers' state, degenerated into a Bureaucratic collectivism, bureaucratic dictatorship which rested on a largely nationalized industry run according to a plan of production. and claimed that the former Stalinist states of Central and Eastern Europe were deformed workers' states based on the same relations of production as the Soviet Union. Trotsky believed that regardless of their intellectual capacity, central planners operate without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy that can understand and respond to local conditions and changes in the economy. In advocating a Decentralized planning (economics), decentralised planned socialist economy, Trotsky and some of his followers have criticized central state planning as being unable to effectively coordinate all economic activity. Some Trotskyists have emphasised Trotsky's revolutionary-democratic socialism and Trotskyists such as

described it as such. Those third camp revolutionary-democratic Trotskyists and socialists supported a socialist political revolution that would establish or re-establish socialist democracy in deformed or degenerated workers' states. Some such as Draper also compared

and Stalinism as two forms of socialism from above.

Right-wing

Right-wing criticism is mainly related to Criticism of communist party rule, communist party rule as well as anti-communism, anti-Marxism and anti-socialism. Another criticism is that of the

as first outlined by

economists Ludwig von Mises and

, followed by the socialist calculation debate. Socialist states and

are often conflated to and referred to by detractors simply as ''socialism''. Austrian School economists such as Mises and Hayek continually used ''socialism'' as a synonym for authoritarian socialism and its

. The attributive ''state'' is usually added by socialists with a non-state-based method for achieving socialism to criticize state socialism. This is especially notable in the United States, where ''socialism'' is a pejorative term used to refer to either authoritarian socialist states, any state or tax-funded industry, program and service, or the degree of government and economic interventionism by the state. In their broader critique of socialism, right-wing commentators have emphasised the lack of democracy in socialist states that are considered to be authoritarian or undemocratic, arguing that democracy and socialism are incompatible. Chicago school of economics, Chicago School economist

argued that a "society which is socialist cannot also be democratic" in the sense of "guaranteeing individual freedom". Sociologist Robert Nisbet, a philosophical conservative who began his career as a leftist, argued in 1978 that there is "not a single free socialism to be found anywhere in the world". For anti-communist academic Richard Pipes, the tendency to "merge political and economic power" is "implicit in socialism" and authoritarianism is "virtually inevitable". According to the Hungarian-born political sociologist and communist-studies scholar Paul Hollander, a critic of communism and left-wing politics in general, egalitarianism was one of the features of authoritarian socialist states that was so attractive to Western intellectuals that they quietly justified their authoritarianism and the murder of millions of Bourgeoisie, capitalists, Chinese Land Reform, landowners and supposedly wealthy Dekulakization, kulaks in order to achieve this equality. According to Walter Scheidel, authoritarian socialists who have supported equality were correct to the extent that historically only violent shocks have resulted in major reductions in economic inequality.

Political roots

Socialism from above

Utopian socialism

Austrian and Chicago schools of economics

Response

Characteristics

Theory and rationale

Formation of industry

Single-party system

Propaganda

Economics

Central planning

Economy of the Soviet Union

Economy of the Eastern Bloc

Economy of China

Economic challenges and legacy

Development

Soviet Union

Vladimir Lenin

Joseph Stalin

China

Maoism

Post-Maoism

Arab world

Resistance to democratisation

Africa

Senegal

Ghana

Tanzania

Latin America

Venezuela

Analysis and reception

Left-wing

Anarchism and Marxism

Left communism

Libertarian communism and socialism

Trotskyism

Right-wing

See also

References

Further reading