A communist state is a form of government that combines the state leadership of a communist party through the supreme state organ of power, MarxistâÂÂLeninist political philosophy, and an official commitment to the construction of a communist society. Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe and blamed capitalism for societal miseries. In the 20th century, several communist states were established, first in Russia with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. The institutions of these states were heavily influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and others. However, the political reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev known as Perestroika and socio-economic difficulties produced the revolutions of 1989, which brought down all the communist states of the Eastern Bloc bar the Soviet Union. The repercussions of the collapse of these states contributed to political transformations in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and several other non-European communist states. Presently, there are five communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.
In applied communist practice, a socialist state is a communist state formation that is the product of a purported base and superstructural relation that is called the socialist mode of production, or simply socialism. Socialism acts as the base of the socialist state, while the superstructure is made up of two parts: the class character of the state and the organisational form of state power.
The majority of communist states have been unable to establish a socialist state. These states had, according to MarxistâÂÂLeninist doctrine, reached a lower form of development and designated themselves, or were designated, for example, as national democratic states, states of socialist orientation or as people's democratic states.
A people's democratic state is a communist state formation. According to the MarxistâÂÂLeninist theory of people's democracy, it purportedly tries to transition society from a capitalist mode of production to a socialist mode of production after a successful people's democratic revolution. This process transforms the people's democratic state into a socialist state. According to MarxistâÂÂLeninist theorists, the people's democratic state is socialist-type state, but not a socialist state itself. The form of government of people's democratic states is unified state power of the supreme state organ of power, under the leadership of the ruling communist party. Despite this, forms of government have not always been identical in different states, with some slight institutional differences.
A national democratic state is a state formation that, according to MarxistâÂÂLeninist national democratic theory, is the product of a national democratic revolution. In certain cases, it was believed, a national democratic state could endeavour to establish the socialist mode of production, transforming the state into a communist state formation known as a socialist state in the process.