Socialist countries

A socialist state or socialist republic (sometimes Workers' State) refers to any state that is constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. In Western usage, the term "Communist state" is often used in reference to single-party socialist states governed by parties adhering to a variant of Marxism–Leninism; however these states officially refer to themselves as "socialist states" that are in the process of building socialism and do not describe themselves as "communist" or as having achieved communism. Aside from the "Communist states", a number of other states have described their orientation as "socialist" in their constitutions.

A socialist state is to be distinguished from a multi-party liberal democratic state governed by a self-described socialist party, where the state is not constitutionally bound to the construction of socialism. In such cases, the political system and machinery of government is not specifically structured to pursue the development of socialism.

The concept of a socialist state is closely related to "state socialism", the political view that a socialist system can be established through the use of state action or government policies. As such, the concept of a socialist state is usually advocated by Leninists and Marxist-Leninists but rejected as being either unnecessary or counterproductive by some classical Marxists, libertarian socialists and political thinkers who view the modern state as a byproduct of capitalism which would have no function in a socialist system, and as a result, cannot be used to construct socialism. In the Marxist–Leninist view, a "socialist state" is a state under the control of a vanguard party that is organizing the economic, social, and political affairs of the country toward the realization of socialism. The vanguard party presides over a state capitalist economy structured upon state-directed capital accumulation, with the goal of building up the country's productive forces and promoting worldwide socialist revolution, with the eventual long-term goal of building a socialist economy.

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