Socialist state

A socialist state is a purported base and superstructural relation that a communist state reaches. The base of the socialist state is the socialist mode of production. The superstructure is the class character of the state, which is the dictatorship of the proletariat (or a variant thereof) in which the proletariat acts as the ruling class. The exception to this rule was the Soviet Union. From 1961 onwards, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) argued it had created a developed socialist society where the proletarian dictatorship had been replaced by a socialist state of the whole people since all the exploitative classes had been defeated. The Communist Party of China vehemently opposed this theory and argued that every state formation had to have a ruling class.

The majority of communist states have been unable to establish a socialist state system. These states had, according to Marxist–Leninist teachings, reached a lower form of development and designated themselves, or were designated, for example, as states of socialist orientation or as people's democratic states.