The People’s Democracies: Are They Socialist States?

Description

INTRODUCTION During and after the Second World War, eastern Europe was the scene of important social and politi- cal upheavals, which gave birth to a series of states of a particular type. These are usually given the name of People's Democracies. The common feature of the People's Democracies is an economic and social structure similar to that of the Soviet Union. For a long time, they also shared another feature -- a deep dependence on the Soviet bureaucracy. Most of them still have this, even today. For some years, particularly from 1948 to 1953, many people used the knowledge of this dependence on the Soviet Union as a substitute for an explanation of the nature of these countries. There was hardly any noticeable distinction made between the Baltic countries, which had been taken into the Soviet Union, and the People's Democracies, which had not been annexed, "yet." At that time, the fashionable phrase used by some Trotskyists was "structural assimilation," which was proclaimed as the main tendency in the evolution of the People's Democra- cies. The evolution of these countries for the past 10 years has shown that the states in question, far from being assimilated into the Soviet Union are instead winning more and more autonomy. Conse- quently they exist as states independently of the Soviet Union. The problem of the social nature of these states is then clearly posed, even for th>se who have turned their backs on the question. What is the nature of these states? How were they l;>orn? And what will be their future evolution? This is what we propose to examine.