People's Republic

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"People's Republic" is a term used in the official title of some currently or formerly communist or left-wing states. [1]

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A number of the short-lived states which formed during World War I and its aftermath called themselves "people's republics". Many of these sprang up in the territory of the former Russian Empire which collapsed following the Russian Revolution of 1917. Additional people's republics emerged following the Allied victory in World War II, mainly within the Soviet Union's Eastern Bloc.

The term is associated with socialist states as well as communist countries adhering to Marxism–Leninism, although its use is not unique to such states. A number of republics with liberal democratic political systems such as Algeria and Bangladesh adopted the title, given its rather generic nature, after popular wars of independence. Nonetheless, they usually mention socialism in their constitutions.

Marxist–Leninist people's republics

The first Marxist–Leninist people's republics that came into existence were those formed following the Russian Revolution. Ukraine was briefly declared a people's republic in 1917. [2] The Khanate of Khiva [3] and the Emirate of Bukhara, [4] both territories of the former Russian Empire, were declared people's republics in 1920. In 1921, the Russian protectorate of Tuva became a people's republic, [5] followed in 1924 by neighbouring Mongolia. [6] Following World War II, developments in Marxist–Leninist theory led to the appearance of people's democracy, a concept which potentially allowed for a route to socialism via multi-class, multi-party democracy. Countries which had reached this intermediate stage were called people's republics. [7] The European states that became people's republics at this time were Albania, [8] Bulgaria, [9] Czechoslovakia, [10] Hungary, [11] Poland, [12] Romania [13] and Yugoslavia. [14] In Asia, China became a people's republic following the Chinese Communist Revolution [15] and North Korea also became a people's republic. [16]

Many of these countries also called themselves socialist states in their constitutions. During the 1960s, Romania and Yugoslavia ceased to use the term people's in their official name, replacing it with the term socialist as a mark of their ongoing political development. Czechoslovakia also added the term socialist into its name during this period. It had become a people's republic in 1948, but the country had not used that term in its official name. [17] Albania used both terms in its official name from 1976 to 1991. [18] In the West, these countries are often referred to as communist states. However, none of them described themselves in that way as they regarded communism as a level of political development that they had not yet reached. [19] [20] [21] [22] Terms used by communist states include national-democratic, people's democratic, socialist-oriented and workers and peasants' state. [23] The communist parties in these countries often governed in coalitions with other progressive parties. [24]

During the postcolonial period, a number of former European colonies that had achieved independence and adopted Marxist–Leninist governments took the name people's republic. Angola, [25] Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, [26] Ethiopia, [27] Cambodia, [28] Laos, [29] Mozambique [30] and South Yemen [31] followed this route. Following the Revolutions of 1989, the people's republics of Central and Eastern Europe (Albania, [32] Bulgaria, [33] Hungary [34] and Poland) [35] and Mongolia [36] dropped the term people's from their names as it was associated with their former communist governments.[ citation needed ] They became known simply as republics and adopted liberal democracy as their system of government. [37] At around the same time, most of the former European colonies that had taken the people's republic name began to replace it as part of their move away from Marxism–Leninism and towards democratic socialism or social democracy.[ citation needed ]

List of Marxist–Leninist people's republics

The current officially socialist states that use the term people's republic in their full names include:

Historical examples include:

Other titles commonly used by Marxist–Leninist and socialist states are democratic republic (e.g. the German Democratic Republic or the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia between 1943 and 1946) and socialist republic (e.g. the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).


Non-Marxist–Leninist people's republics

The collapse of the European empires during and following World War I resulted in the creation of a number of short-lived non-Marxist–Leninist people's republics during the revolutionary 1917–1923 period. In many cases these governments were unrecognised and often had Marxist–Leninist rivals.

The Russian Empire produced several non-Marxist–Leninist people's republics after the October Revolution. The Crimean People's Republic was opposed to the Bolsheviks and the latter went on to capture its territory and establish the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic. The socialist-leaning Ukrainian People's Republic declared its independence from the Russian Republic, but it had a rival in the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets (later Ukrainian Soviet Republic) whom it fought during the Ukrainian War of Independence. The Belarusian People's Republic tried to create an independent Belarusian state in land controlled by the German Imperial Army, but the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia replaced it once the German army had left. All of these territories finally became constituent parts of the Soviet Union.

In the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the West Ukrainian People's Republic was formed in eastern Galicia under the political guidance of Greek Catholic, liberal and socialist ideologies. The territory was subsequently absorbed into the Second Polish Republic. Meanwhile, the Hungarian People's Republic was established, briefly replaced by the Hungarian Soviet Republic and eventually succeeded by the Kingdom of Hungary.

In Germany, the People's Republic of Bavaria, a name sometimes translated as People's State of Bavaria (German : Freier Volksstaat Bayern), was a short-lived socialist state formed in Bavaria during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 as a rival to the Bavarian Soviet Republic. It was succeeded by the Free State of Bavaria which existed within the Weimar Republic.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of former colonies that had gained independence through revolutionary liberation struggles adopted the name people's republic. Examples include Algeria, Bangladesh and Zanzibar. Libya adopted the term after its Al Fateh Revolution against King Idris.

In the 2010s, Ukrainian separatist movements during the War in Donbass declared the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk to be people's republics, but they have not received diplomatic recognition from the international community.[ citation needed ]

List of people's republics

Founded on socialist ideals, they currently include:

Currently unrecognized people's republics include:

Historical people's republic include:

See also

Related Research Articles

Leninism political, social, and economic theory developed by Vladimir Lenin

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Marxism–Leninism is a political philosophy and self-proclaimed science that seeks to establish a socialist state and then develop it further into socialism and eventually communism, a classless social system with common ownership of the means of production and with full social and economic equality of all members of society. Marxist–Leninists espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of orthodox Marxism and Leninism, but they generally support the idea of a vanguard party, a communist party-led state, state-dominance over the economy, internationalism and opposition to bourgeois democracy, capitalism, imperialism and racism. As an ideology, it was developed by Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s based on his understanding and synthesis of both orthodox Marxism and Leninism. It was the official state ideology of the Soviet Union and the other ruling parties making up the Eastern Bloc as well as the political parties of the Communist International after Bolshevisation. Today, Marxism–Leninism is the ideology of Stalinist and Maoist political parties around the world and remains the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam.

In political science, a communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the social and economic goals of communism through revolution and state policy. The term communist party was popularized by the title of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As a vanguard party, the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat); as the ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin developed the role of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when social democracy in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction and the Menshevik faction. To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism, which allowed centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries; once policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.

A communist state, also known as Marxist–Leninist state, is a state that is administered and governed by a single communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, of the Comintern after Bolshevization and of the communist states within the Comecon, the Eastern Bloc and the Warsaw Pact. Marxism–Leninism remains the ideology of several communist states around the world and the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam.

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Revisionism (Marxism) Various ideas, principles and theories based on a significant revision of fundamental Marxist premises

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People's democracy was a theoretical concept within Marxism–Leninism and a form of government in communist states which developed after World War II and that allowed in theory for a multi-class, multi-party democracy on the pathway to socialism.

Dictatorship of the proletariat Marxist political concept

In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of affairs in which the working class hold political power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, realised by the nationalisation of the means of production, from private ownership to collective ownership. The revolutionary socialist Joseph Weydemeyer coined the term "dictatorship of the proletariat", which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels adopted to their philosophy of political economy. The historical exemplar of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the Paris Commune (1871), a socialist-democratic opposition to peace with Germany and the socio-economic conservatism of the French Third Republic, which controlled the French capital city for two months, before being suppressed by Prussian soldiers.

Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation of Leninism that differed from his predecessor Joseph Stalin, the anti-revisionists within the international communist movement remained dedicated to Stalin's ideological legacy and criticized the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and his successors as state capitalist and social imperialist due largely to its hopes of achieving peace with the United States. The term Stalinism is also used to describe these positions, but it is often not used by its supporters who opine that Stalin simply synthesized and practiced Leninism. Because different political trends trace the historical roots of revisionism to different eras and leaders, there is significant disagreement today as to what constitutes anti-revisionism. As a result, modern groups which describe themselves as anti-revisionist fall into several categories. Some uphold the works of Stalin and Mao Zedong and some the works of Stalin while rejecting Mao and universally tend to oppose Trotskyism. Others reject both Stalin and Mao, tracing their ideological roots back to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. In addition, other groups uphold various less-well-known historical leaders such as Enver Hoxha.

Communist revolution Type of revolution

A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stage to Communism. The idea that a proletarian revolution is needed is a cornerstone of Marxism; Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by and for the working class. Thus, in the Marxist view, proletarian revolutions need to happen in countries all over the world.

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 often used interchangeably in the West specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term socialist republic or people's republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Portugal, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

Communist symbolism represents a variety of themes, including revolution, the proletariat, peasantry, agriculture, or international solidarity.

Proletarian internationalism Marxist social class concept

Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that capitalism is a world-system and therefore the working classes of all nations must act in concert if they are to replace it with communism. Proponents of proletarian internationalism often argued that the objectives of a given revolution should be global rather than local in scope—for example, triggering or perpetuating revolutions elsewhere.

References

  1. ↑ "People's Republic". Oxford Dictionaries . Retrieved 2019-12-30. People's Republic – Used in the official title of several present or former communist or left-wing states.
  2. ↑ Åslund, Anders (2009). How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy. Peterson Institute. p. 12. ISBN   9780881325461.
  3. ↑ Minahan, James (2013). Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States. Routledge. p. 296. ISBN   9781135940102.
  4. ↑ Tunçer-Kılavuz, Idil (2014). Power, Networks and Violent Conflict in Central Asia: A Comparison of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Routledge advances in Central Asian studies. Volume 5. Routledge. p. 53. ISBN   9781317805113.
  5. ↑ Khabtagaeva, Bayarma (2009). Mongolic Elements in Tuvan. Turcologica Series. Volume 81. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 21. ISBN   9783447060950.
  6. ↑ Macdonald, Fiona; Stacey, Gillian; Steele, Philip (2004). Peoples of Eastern Asia. Volume 8: Mongolia–Nepal. Marshall Cavendish. p. 413. ISBN   9780761475477.
  7. ↑ White, Stephen (2002). Communism and Its Collapse. Routledge. p. 13. ISBN   9781134694235.
  8. ↑ Gjevori, Elvin (2018). Democratisation and Institutional Reform in Albania. Springer. p. 21. ISBN   9783319730714.
  9. ↑ Stankova, Marietta (2014). Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy, 1943–1949. Anthem Series on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Anthem Press. p. 148. ISBN   9781783082353.
  10. ↑ Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand; Mansfeldová, Zdenka (2001). "Chapter 5: Czech Republic". In Blondel, Jean; Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand (eds.). Cabinets in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 62. doi:10.1057/9781403905215_6. ISBN   978-1-349-41148-1.
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  12. ↑ Frankowski, Stanisław; Stephan, Paul B. (1995). Legal Reform in Post-Communist Europe: The View from Within. Martinus Nijhoff. p. 23. ISBN   9780792332183.
  13. ↑ Paquette, Laure (2001). NATO and Eastern Europe After 2000: Strategic Interactions with Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. Nova. p. 55. ISBN   9781560729693.
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  15. ↑ "The Chinese Revolution of 1949". Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs. United States Department of State.
  16. ↑ Kihl, Young Whan; Kim, Hong Nack (2014). North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival. Routledge. p. 8. ISBN   9781317463764.
  17. ↑ Webb, Adrian (2008). The Routledge Companion to Central and Eastern Europe Since 1919. Routledge Companions to History. Routledge. pp. 80 & 88. ISBN   9781134065219.
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  19. ↑ Wilczynski, J. (2008). The Economics of Socialism after World War Two: 1945-1990. Aldine Transaction. p. 21. ISBN   978-0202362281. Contrary to Western usage, these countries describe themselves as 'Socialist' (not 'Communist'). The second stage (Marx's 'higher phase'), or 'Communism' is to be marked by an age of plenty, distribution according to needs (not work), the absence of money and the market mechanism, the disappearance of the last vestiges of capitalism and the ultimate 'whithering away' of the State.
  20. ↑ Steele, David Ramsay (September 1999). From Marx to Mises: Post Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation. Open Court. p. 45. ISBN   978-0875484495. Among Western journalists the term 'Communist' came to refer exclusively to regimes and movements associated with the Communist International and its offspring: regimes which insisted that they were not communist but socialist, and movements which were barely communist in any sense at all.
  21. ↑ Rosser, Mariana V. and J Barkley Jr. (23 July 2003). Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy. MIT Press. p. 14. ISBN   978-0262182348. Ironically, the ideological father of communism, Karl Marx, claimed that communism entailed the withering away of the state. The dictatorship of the proletariat was to be a strictly temporary phenomenon. Well aware of this, the Soviet Communists never claimed to have achieved communism, always labeling their own system socialist rather than communist and viewing their system as in transition to communism.
  22. ↑ Williams, Raymond (1983). "Socialism". Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, revised edition . Oxford University Press. p.  289. ISBN   978-0-19-520469-8. The decisive distinction between socialist and communist, as in one sense these terms are now ordinarily used, came with the renaming, in 1918, of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) as the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From that time on, a distinction of socialist from communist, often with supporting definitions such as social democrat or democratic socialist, became widely current, although it is significant that all communist parties, in line with earlier usage, continued to describe themselves as socialist and dedicated to socialism.
  23. ↑ Nation, R. Craig (1992). Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991. Cornell University Press. pp. 85–6. ISBN   978-0801480072 . Retrieved 19 December 2014.
  24. ↑ Wegs, J. Robert (1996). Europe since 1945: A Concise History. Macmillan International Higher Education. pp. 28–29. ISBN   9781349140527.
  25. ↑ "Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola". Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  26. ↑ Hughes, Arnold (2015). Marxism's Retreat from Africa. Routledge. pp. 10–11. ISBN   9781317482369.
  27. ↑ Shinn, David H.; Ofcansky, Thomas P. (2013). Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Scarecrow Press. p. 105. ISBN   9780810874572.
  28. ↑ Schliesinger, Joachim (2015). Ethnic Groups of Cambodia. Vol 1: Introduction and Overview. Booksmango. p. 75. ISBN   9781633232327.
  29. ↑ Anderson, Ewan W. (2014). Global Geopolitical Flashpoints: An Atlas of Conflict. Routledge. p. 194. ISBN   9781135940942.
  30. ↑ Wilczynski, Jozef (1981). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marxism, Socialism and Communism. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 318. ISBN   9781349058068.
  31. ↑ Busky, Donald F. (2002). Communism in History and Theory: Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 73. ISBN   9780275977337.
  32. ↑ Europe Review 2003/04: The Economic and Business Report. World of Information. Kogan Page Publishers. 2003. p. 3. ISBN   9780749440671.
  33. ↑ Dimitrov, Vesselin (2013). Bulgaria: The Uneven Transition. Postcommunist States and Nations. Routledge. p. ix. ISBN   9781135136772.
  34. ↑ Yup, Xing (2017). Language and State: An Inquiry Into the Progress of Civilization. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 138. ISBN   9780761869047.
  35. ↑ "Polska. Historia". Internetowa encyklopedia PWN [PWN Internet Encyklopedia] (in Polish). Archived from the original on 1 October 2006. Retrieved 11 July 2005.
  36. ↑ Bulag, Uradyn E. (2010). Collaborative Nationalism: The Politics of Friendship on China's Mongolian Frontier. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 65. ISBN   9781442204331.
  37. ↑ Rupnik, Jacques (July 2018). "Explaining Eastern Europe: The Crisis of Liberalism". Journal of Democracy. National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press. 29 (3): 24–38. doi:10.1353/jod.2018.0042.
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