Anthropology of Socialist Societies

Socialist (also known as communist) societies constitute a class of twentieth-century societies sharing two distinctive features: the political dominance of a revolutionary — usually a Communist — Party, and widespread nationalization of means of production, with consequent preponderance of state and collective property. This definition excludes societies governed by socialist or social-democratic parties in multi-party systems, such as the Scandinavian welfare states. It includes, among others, the Soviet Union, the East European countries, the People’s Republic of China, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, South Yemen, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.