It's over now -- National Organization for Women at UH

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Date Posted: 04:48:28 11/28/04 Sun
Author: Jennifer
Subject: It's over now

In the 20th century, a number of Communist Parties based on the Stalinist development of Leninism (which is a branch of Marxism) established governments in various countries. In those countries, the aforementioned Communist Parties (and other parties allied with them) became the only legal political parties. Such countries are the ones known as "communist states".

The history of communist states is often closely related to the history of Communist-ruled countries that were not communist states, and to the history of the communist movement in general. As such, the following historical account is not restricted to communist states:

Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, which established what later became the Soviet Union, there was a revolutionary wave throughout Europe. Communist revolutions, uprisings or attempted uprisings took place in many European countries. However, outside Russia, only two of them were able to overthrow the government and take power. They resulted in the Munich Soviet Republic (which lasted from November 1918 until May 3, 1919) and the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. On the other side of the world,Mongolia had been a protectorate of the Russian Empire from 1912 until 1919 (when the Chinese took control during the Russian Civil War). The Russian monarchist White Army took control in 1921, and then was driven out by the Red Army that same year. Mongolia was not absorbed into the Soviet Union, but a Mongolian People's Republic - which was a communist state with a very close relationship with the Soviet Union - was established in 1924.

From 1924 until World War II, there were no further successful communist revolutions (although there were a number of unsuccessful ones), and no more communist states were established.

Most of the communist states in the world were established in the aftermath of World War II in Eastern Europe, either in countries which were liberated from the Nazis by the Soviet Red Army and subsequently occupied by Soviet troops, or in countries where Communist-led partisans succeeded in driving out the Nazis and taking power themselves. The Red Army supported the establishment of Communist governments in what became the Soviet Union's satellite states of Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Communist partisans established Communist governments which were initially pro-Soviet in Albania and Yugoslavia. Furthermore, in East Asia, the Red Army joined the war against Japan and established a communist state in North Korea.

Independent of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Revolution led to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and the First Indochina War led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam in 1954. Later, the Vietnam War resulted in the North Vietnamese ultimately conquering the rest of the country and establishing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975 (both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam were communist states). The conflict also led to a communist state being established in Laos, and the related Cambodian Civil War resulted in the establishment of the quasi-communist state of Democratic Kampuchea in 1975.

In 1959, the Cuban revolution resulted in the first communist state being established in the Western Hemisphere - the Republic of Cuba.

A civil war led to the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1969.

For several years, communist regimes also existed in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique and in other developing countries, although these were short-lived.

By the early 1980s, nearly one third of the world's population was ruled by Communist Party-led governments, and the tide of the Cold War seemed to turn decisively in the Soviet Union's favor.

However, due to a complex combination of causes (which is still a matter of controversy to this day), the Soviet Union itself was growing increasingly unstable. By the late 1980s, Eastern Europe was in chaos - and by the early 1990s, the Soviet Union itself had collapsed. None of the European communist governments survived these events.

As of 2004, there are 5 communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. However, they have gone their separate ways, and despite a few common elements, each of them is now very different from the others.

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