Editing Communist state (section)

===Left-wing criticism===

Left-wing critics argue that states under communist party rule took the form of [[state capitalism]] and that they followed [[anti-imperialism]], [[populism]], [[nationalism]] and [[social democracy]]. Rather than representing a [[socialist]] [[planned economy]], the Soviet model has been described in practice as either a form of state capitalism<ref name="Chomsky 1986">Chomsky, Noam (1986). [https://chomsky.info/1986____/ "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism"]. ''Our Generation'' (Spring/Summer). Retrieved 29 January 2020.</ref>{{sfn|Howard|King|2001}}{{sfn|Wolff|2015}} or a [[Administrative-command system|non-planned]], [[command economy]].{{sfn|Wilhelm|1985}}<ref name="Zimbalist & Sherman 1988">{{cite book |last1=Zimbalist |first1=Andrew |last2=Sherman |first2=Howard J. |url=https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/4 |title=Comparing Economic Systems: A Political-Economic Approach |publisher=[[Harcourt College Publishing]] |date=October 1988 |isbn=978-0-15-512403-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/comparingeconomi0000zimb_q8i6/page/4 4] |quote=Almost all industry in the Soviet Union is government owned and all production is directed, in theory, by a central plan (though in practice much is left for local discretion and much happens that is unplanned or not under government control).}}</ref><ref name="Ellman 2007">{{harvnb|Ellman|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/transitionbeyond00estr/page/n42 22]}}: "In the USSR in the late 1980s the system was normally referred to as the 'administrative-command' economy. What was fundamental to this system was not the plan but the role of administrative hierarchies at all levels of decision making; the absence of control over decision making by the population [...].</ref> The fidelity of those varied socialist revolutionaries, leaders and parties to the work of [[Karl Marx]] and that of other socialist thinkers is highly contested and has been rejected by many Marxists and other socialists alike.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Phillips |first=Ben |year=1981 |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-ussr.htm |title=USSR: Capitalist or Socialist? |journal=The Call |volume=10 |issue=8 |access-date=15 July 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] }}</ref> Some academics, scholars and socialists have criticised the linking of all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of authoritarian socialism.<ref>{{harvp|Dean|2012|pp=[https://archive.org/details/communisthorizon00dean/page/n11 6–7]}}; {{harvp|Ehms|2014}}; {{harvp|Milne|2002}}; {{harvp|Milne|2006}}</ref>

Many [[Democratic socialism|democratic]] and [[libertarian]] socialists, including [[anarchists]], [[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualists]] and [[syndicalists]], refer to communist states as examples of [[state socialism]], and they oppose this system for its support of a [[workers' state]] instead of abolishing the [[bourgeois]] state apparatus outright. They contrast state socialism with their own form of socialism which involves either [[collective ownership]] (in the form of [[worker cooperative]]s) 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 they regard the state being a remnant of capitalism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schumpeter |first=Joseph |year=2008 |orig-year=1942 |title=Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy |publisher=Harper Perennial |page=169 |isbn=978-0-06-156161-0 |quote=But there are still others (concepts and institutions) which by virtue of their nature cannot stand transplantation and always carry the flavor of a particular institutional framework. It is extremely dangerous, in fact it amounts to a distortion of historical description, to use them beyond the social world or culture whose denizens they are. Now ownership or property – also, so I believe, taxation – are such denizens of the world of commercial society, exactly as knights and fiefs are denizens of the feudal world. But so is the state (a denizen of commercial society).}}</ref><ref name="AFAQ H">{{cite book |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |year=2012 |section=Why do anarchists oppose state socialism? |title=An Anarchist FAQ |volume=II |location=Edinburgh |publisher=[[AK Press]] |isbn=978-1-902593-90-6 |oclc=182529204}}</ref><ref name="AFAQ I">{{cite book |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |year=2012 |section=What would an anarchist society look like? |title=An Anarchist FAQ |volume=II |location=Edinburgh |publisher=[[AK Press]] |isbn=978-1-902593-90-6 |oclc=182529204}}</ref> They hold that [[statism]] is antithetical to true socialism.<ref name="McKay 2008">{{cite book |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |year=2008 |section=Isn't libertarian socialism an oxymoron? |title=An Anarchist FAQ |volume=I |location=Stirling |publisher=[[AK Press]] |isbn=978-1-902593-90-6|oclc=182529204}}</ref> For instance, libertarian socialist [[William Morris]] wrote 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".{{sfn|Morris|1890|p=153}}

American Marxist [[Raya Dunayevskaya]] dismissed communist states as a type of state capitalism<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dunayevskaya |first=Raya |author-link=Raya Dunayevskaya |date=1941 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1941/ussr-capitalist.htm |title=The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a Capitalist Society |journal=Internal Discussion Bulletin of the Workers Party |access-date=23 April 2020 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref><ref>Dunayevskaya, Raya (1946). [https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1946/statecap.htm "The Nature of the Russian Economy"]. ''The New International''. '''XII''' (10): 313–317. '''XIII''' (1/January 1947): 27–30. Retrieved 23 April 2020.</ref><ref>Boggs, Grace Lee; Dunayevskaya, Ray; James, C. L. R. (1986). [https://libcom.org/files/State%20capitalism%20and%20world%20revolution%20-%20CLR%20James.pdf ''State Capitalism and World Revolution'']. Chicago: Charles H. R. Publishing Company. {{ISBN|9780882860794}}. Retrieved 23 April 2020.</ref> because she believed that [[state ownership]] of the means of production represents state capitalism rather than socialism.{{sfn|Lichtenstein|2011|pp=160–161}} the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] is a form of [[democracy]] and [[single-party rule]] is undemocratic;<ref>{{cite book |last=Ishay |first=Micheline |date=2007 |title=The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches, and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |page=245 |isbn=9780415951609}}</ref> She also argued that [[Marxism–Leninism]] is neither [[Marxism]] nor [[Leninism]], but rather a composite ideology which socialist leaders such as [[Joseph Stalin]] used to expediently determine what is [[communism]] and what is not communism among the [[Eastern Bloc]] countries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Todd |first=Allan |author-link=Allan Todd |date=2012 |title=History for the IB Diploma: Communism in Crisis 1976–1989 |page=16 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1107649279}}</ref>