257-661: The People's Socialist Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë ), officially as the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 until 1976, and as the Republic of Albania from 1991 to 1992, was the communist state in Albania from 1946 to 1991. It succeeded the Democratic Government of Albania (1944–1946). During this time period, the country was ruled mainly by Enver Hoxha and
514-757: A Marxist–Leninist state , is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism , a branch of the communist ideology . Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union , the Comintern after its Bolshevisation , and the communist states within the Comecon , the Eastern Bloc , and the Warsaw Pact . After the peak of Marxism–Leninism, when many communist states were established,
771-447: A Soviet economy that remained capitalist to a significant degree ." This changed with the introduction of the command economy , and the term socialist law was conceived to reflect this in the 1930s. Hungarian legal theorist Imre Szabó acknowledged similarities between socialist law and civil law, but he noted that "four basic types of law may be distinguished: the laws of the slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist societies." Using
1028-813: A beachhead in Europe and acted as China's chief spokesman at the United Nations. To Albania's dismay, however, Chinese equipment and technicians were not nearly as sophisticated as the Soviet goods and advisers they replaced. Ironically, a language barrier even forced the Chinese and Albanian technicians to communicate in Russian. Albanians no longer took part in Warsaw Pact activities or Comecon agreements. The other East European communist nations, however, did not break diplomatic or trade links with Albania. In 1964,
1285-545: A civil law system . The countries of Eastern Europe had formally been governed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire , German Empire , and Russian Empire —all of whom had a civil law legal system. Cuba had a civil law system imposed on them by Spain, while China introduced civil law to overlay with Confucian elements, and Vietnam used French law. Since the establishment of the Soviet Union, there has been
1542-637: A communist society . Other terms used by communist states include national-democratic , people's democratic , socialist-oriented , and workers and peasants' states. Academics, political commentators, and other scholars tend to distinguish between communist states and democratic socialist states, with the first representing the Eastern Bloc and the latter representing Western Bloc countries that have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as France , Sweden , and Western social-democracies in general, among others. During
1799-433: A "great number of legal institutions and legal relations remain the same in socialist law", further stating that it is "necessary and justified" to put them to use if they are "in conformity with the corresponding interests of the ruling class in the state in question." Importantly, socialist law had retained civil law institutions, methodology, and organisation. This can be discerned by the fact that East Germany retained
2056-519: A "people's republic." However, the country had already been under out-and-out Communist rule for just over two years. After months of angry debate, the assembly adopted a constitution that mirrored the Yugoslav and Soviet constitutions. A couple of months later, the assembly members chose a new government, which was emblematic of Hoxha's continuing consolidation of power: Hoxha became simultaneously prime minister, foreign minister , defense minister , and
2313-411: A Soviet apology to Albania and reparations for damages which it had inflicted on the country. Albania had also been feuding with Moscow over suggestions that Albania should focus on agriculture to the detriment of industrial development. Soviet-Albanian relations dipped to new lows after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Albania felt that the Soviet Union had become too liberal since
2570-663: A Soviet double agent working as a liaison officer between the British intelligence service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency, had leaked details of the infiltration plan to Moscow, and the security breach claimed the lives of about 300 infiltrators. Following a wave of subversive activity, including the failed infiltration and the March 1951 bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tirana,
2827-434: A Yugoslav cession of Kosovo to Albania after the war. In January 1945, the two governments signed a treaty establishing Kosovo as a Yugoslav autonomous province. Shortly thereafter, Yugoslavia became the first country to recognize Albania's provisional government. In July 1946, Yugoslavia and Albania signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation that was quickly followed by a series of technical and economic agreements laying
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#17327872128823084-605: A backdrop of conventional interventions through the state or markets, alternative initiatives have been pioneered to address the problem of food security. One pan-African example is the Great Green Wall . Another example is the "Community Area-Based Development Approach" to agricultural development ("CABDA"), an NGO programme with the objective of providing an alternative approach to increasing food security in Africa. CABDA proceeds through specific areas of intervention such as
3341-637: A boon for Albania because Moscow had far more to offer Albania than hard-strapped Belgrade had. The fact that the Soviet Union had no common border with Albania also appealed to the Albanian regime because it made it more difficult for Moscow to exert pressure on Tirana. In November at the First Party Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor (APL), the former Albanian Communist Party which renamed itself at Stalin's suggestion, Hoxha pinned
3598-463: A broader 'segment of society' [...] than the court itself." Despite this, it does not mean that the communist states use legislatures to strengthen their communication with the populace—the party, rather than the legislature, could take that function. Ideologically, it has another function, namely, to prove that communist states do not only represent the interests of the working class but all social strata. Communist states are committed to establishing
3855-576: A classless society and use legislatures to show that all social strata, whether bureaucrat, worker, or intellectual, are committed and have interests in building such a society. As is the case in China, national institutions such as the legislature "must exist which brings together representatives of all nationalities and geographic areas." It does not matter if the legislatures only rubber stamp decisions because by having them, it shows that communist states are committed to incorporating minorities and areas of
4112-403: A decision has been reached, all people have a duty to account to that decision. When used within a political party, democratic centralism is meant to prevent factionalism and splits. When applied to an entire state, democratic centralism creates a one-party system . The constitutions of most communist states describe their political system as a form of democracy. They recognize the sovereignty of
4369-474: A famine created by human rights abuses is the 1998 Sudan famine . AIDS is also having long-term economic effects on agriculture by reducing the available workforce, and is creating new vulnerabilities to famine by overburdening poor households. On the other hand, in the modern history of Africa on quite a few occasions famines acted as a major source of acute political instability. In Africa, if current trends of population growth and soil degradation continue,
4626-624: A few days. When the unitary legislature is not in session, its powers are transferred to a smaller council (often called a presidium ) which acts as a collective head of state . In some systems, the presidium is composed of crucial communist party members who vote the resolutions of the communist party into law. A feature of communist states is the existence of numerous state-sponsored social organisations (associations of journalists, teachers, writers and other professionals, consumer cooperatives , sports clubs , trade unions , youth organisations , and women's organisations ) which are integrated into
4883-583: A few years before seizing full control and creating one-party states. Having sidelined the nationalist Balli Kombëtar after their collaboration with the Nazis , the LNÇ quickly moved to consolidate its power, liberate the country's tenants and workers, and fraternally link Albania with other socialist countries. King Zog I was permanently barred from returning to Albania. The internal affairs minister, Koçi Xoxe , "an erstwhile pro- Yugoslavia tinsmith", presided over
5140-594: A founding member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, better known as the Warsaw Pact , the only military alliance the nation ever joined. Although the pact represented the first promise Albania had obtained from any of the communist countries to defend its borders, the treaty did nothing to assuage the Albanian leaders' deep mistrust of Yugoslavia . Hoxha and Shehu, utilizing their immediate successes and Albanians' deep-seated fear of Yugoslav domination, were able to successfully maintain power during
5397-540: A fresh series of purges that removed the defense minister and many top military officials. A year later, Hoxha purged ministers who were responsible for the country's economy and replaced them with younger people. As Hoxha began to experience more health problems, he progressively withdrew from state affairs and took longer and more frequent leaves of absence. Meanwhile, he began to plan an orderly succession. He worked to institutionalize his policies, hoping to frustrate any attempt which his successors might make to venture from
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#17327872128825654-486: A given country. It deals with states that define themselves either as a socialist state or as a state led by a governing Marxist–Leninist party in their constitutions. For this reason alone, these states are often called communist states. All communist political systems practice unitary state power . This means that the legislature, usually defined as the highest organ of state power, has executive, legislative and judicial power and can interfere in these organs as long as
5911-628: A hemp factory at Rrogozhinë , a fish cannery in Vlorë , and a printing press, telephone exchange, and textile mill in Tirana. The Yugoslavs also bolstered the Albanian economy by paying three times the international price for Albanian copper and other materials. Relations between Albania and Yugoslavia declined, however, when the Albanians began complaining that the Yugoslavs were paying too little for Albanian raw materials and exploiting Albania through
6168-467: A large Palace of Culture in Tirana as a symbol of the Soviet people's "love and friendship" for the Albanians. But despite these gestures, Tirana was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy towards Albania. Hoxha and Shehu apparently decided in either May or June 1960 that Albania was assured of Chinese support, and when sharp polemics erupted between the PRC and the Soviet Union , they openly sided with
6425-404: A network of granaries . Its famines generally occurred immediately after El Niño-Southern Oscillation -linked droughts and floods. These events are comparable, though somewhat smaller in scale, to the ecological trigger events of China's vast 19th-century famines. Qing China carried out its relief efforts, which included vast shipments of food, a requirement that the rich open their storehouses to
6682-719: A new People's Assembly , but voters were presented with a single list from the Communist-dominated Democratic Front (previously the National Liberation Movement). Official ballot tallies showed that 92% of the electorate voted and that 93% of the voters chose the Democratic Front ticket. The assembly convened in January 1946. Its first act was to formally dethrone Zog, abolish the monarchy and to declare Albania
6939-472: A path for China, recording what has been won in China and what is yet to be conquered." A constitution in a communist state has an end. The preamble of the 1954 Chinese constitution outlines the historical tasks of the Chinese communists, "step by step, to bring about the socialist industrialisation of the country and, step by step, to accomplish the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft and capitalist industry and commerce." In communist states,
7196-514: A pledge to build textile and sugar mills and other factories and provide agricultural and industrial machinery to Albania, Joseph Stalin told Milovan Djilas , at the time a high-ranking member of Yugoslavia's communist hierarchy, that Yugoslavia should "swallow" Albania. The pro-Yugoslav faction wielded decisive political power in Albania well into 1948. At a party plenum in February and March,
7453-538: A plot within the APL to unseat Hoxha and Shehu by force. But given their tight control of the party machinery, army, and Shehu's secret police, the Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija e Sigurimit të Shtetit— Sigurimi ), the two Albanian leaders easily parried the threat. Four pro-Soviet Albanian leaders, including Teme Sejko and Tahir Demi , were eventually tried and executed. The PRC immediately began making up for
7710-486: A pronounced role in the Sino-Soviet split . By 1958, Albania stood with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in opposing Moscow on issues of peaceful coexistence , de-Stalinization , and Yugoslavia 's " separate road to socialism " through decentralization of economic life . The Soviet Union, other Eastern European countries, and China all offered Albania large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build
7967-490: A reprobate category, the Romanist laws and the common law, is the fact that they reason less as jurists and more as philosophers and Marxists; it is in taking a not strictly legal viewpoint that they affirm the originality of their socialist law." However, some socialist legal theorists, such as Romanian jurist Victor Zlatescu differentiated between type of law and family of law. According to Zlatescu, "[t]he distinction between
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8224-455: A scholarly debate on whether socialist law is a separate legal system or is a part of the civil law tradition. Legal scholar Renè David wrote that the socialist legal system "possesses, in relation to our French law, particular features that give it a complete originality, to the extent that it is no longer possible to connect it, like the former Russian law, to the system of Roman law ." Similarly, Christoper Osakwe concludes that socialist law
8481-508: A series of government guidelines and regulations on how to respond to famines and food shortages called the Famine Code. The famine code was also one of the first attempts to scientifically predict famine in order to mitigate its effects. These were finally passed into law in 1883 under Lord Ripon . The Code introduced the first famine scale : three levels of food insecurity were defined: near-scarcity, scarcity, and famine. "Scarcity"
8738-433: A single centralised communist party apparatus. These parties are usually Marxist–Leninist or some national variation thereof such as Maoism or Titoism . There have been several instances of communist states with functioning political participation (i.e. Soviet democracy ) processes involving several other non-party organisations such as direct democratic participation, factory committees , and trade unions , although
8995-413: A socialist state. A socialist state is more than a form of government and can only exist in countries with a socialist economy . There are examples of several states that have instituted a socialist form of government before achieving socialism. The former socialist states of Eastern Europe were established as people's democracies (a developmental stage between capitalism and socialism ). Regarding
9252-460: A strategy of generating employment for these sections of the population and relied on open-ended public works to do so. During the 20th century, an estimated 70 to 120 million people died from famines across the world , of whom over half died in China, with an estimated 30 million dying during the famine of 1958–1961 , up to 10 million in the Chinese famine of 1928–1930 , and over two million in
9509-419: A tool to defend the socialist nature of the state and attack its enemies. This contrasts with the liberal conception of constitutionalism that "law, rather than men, is supreme." Unlike the relatively constant (and, in some instances, permanently fixed ) nature of democratic constitutions, a Marxist–Leninist constitution is ever-changing. Andrey Vyshinsky , a Procurator General of the Soviet Union during
9766-486: A worldwide problem with hundreds of millions of people suffering. These famines cause widespread malnutrition and impoverishment. The famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s had an immense death toll, although Asian famines of the 20th century have also produced extensive death tolls. Modern African famines are characterized by widespread destitution and malnutrition, with heightened mortality confined to young children. Against
10023-427: Is "an autonomous legal system to be essentially distinguished from the other contemporary families of law." Proponents of socialist law as a separate legal system have identified the following features: Legal officials argue differently for their cases compared to Westerners. For instance, "[t]he predominant view among Soviet jurists in the 1920s was that Soviet law of that period was Western-style law appropriate for
10280-630: Is 9.5 to 13 million people. The largest famine of the 20th century was the 1958–1961 famine associated with the Great Leap Forward in China. The immediate causes of this famine lay in Mao Zedong's ill-fated attempt to transform China from an agricultural nation to an industrial power in one huge leap. Communist Party cadres across China insisted that peasants abandon their farms for collective farms, and begin to produce steel in small foundries, often melting down their farm instruments in
10537-772: Is also why amendments to constitutions are not enough and major societal changes need a novel constitution which corresponds with the reality of the new class structure. With Nikita Khrushchev 's repudiation of Stalin's practices in the " Secret Speech " and the Chinese Communist Party's repudiation of certain Maoist policies, Marxist–Leninist legal theories began to emphasise "the formal, formerly neglected constitutional order." Deng Xiaoping , not long after Chairman Mao Zedong 's death, noted that "[d]emocracy has to be institutionalised and written into law, to make sure that institutions and laws do not change whenever
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10794-718: Is believed to have been a major cause of the collapse of the Old Kingdom . An account from the First Intermediate Period states, "All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger and people were eating their children." As for recorded examples about more recent centuries: in the 1680s, famine extended across the entire Sahel , and in 1738 half the population of Timbuktu died of famine. In Egypt , between 1687 and 1731, there were six famines. The famine that afflicted Egypt in 1784 cost it roughly one-sixth of its population. The Maghreb experienced famine and plague in
11051-505: Is different from country to country. In the Soviet Union, the Supreme Soviet did "little more than listen to statements from Soviet political leaders and to legitimate decisions already made elsewhere" while in the legislatures of Poland, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia it has been more active and had an impact on rule-making. Marxist–Leninists view the constitution as a fundamental law and as an instrument of force. The constitution
11308-515: Is increasingly problematic: the Sahara reportedly spreads up to 48 kilometres (30 mi) per year. The most serious famines have been caused by a combination of drought, misguided economic policies, and conflict. The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia, for example, was the outcome of all these three factors, made worse by the Communist government's censorship of the emerging crisis. In Capitalist Sudan at
11565-440: Is ruled by the bourgeoisie class, and socialism, where the proletariat leads, the socialist-oriented state represents a broad and heterogeneous group of classes that seek to consolidate national independence. Since peasants were usually the largest class in socialist-oriented states, their role was emphasised—similar to the working class in other socialist states. However, Marxist–Leninists admitted that these states often fell under
11822-539: Is taken, lives will be lost. The responsibility to address this lies with states", they added. In November 2021, the World Food Programme reported that 45 million people were "teetering on the very edge of famine" in 43 countries and that the slightest shock would push them over the precipice. This number had risen from 42 million earlier in 2021, and from 27 million in 2019. The slightest shock — be it extreme weather linked to climate change, conflict, or
12079-642: Is that the socialist-oriented state was divided into two stages: a national-democratic socialist-oriented state and a people's democratic socialist-oriented state. Countries belonging to the national-democratic socialist-oriented state category were also categorised as national-democratic states. Examples of national-democratic socialist-oriented states are Algeria , ruled by the National Liberation Front , Ba'athist Iraq , and Socialist Burma . In contrast, people's democratic socialist-oriented states had to be guided by Marxism–Leninism and accept
12336-590: Is the most common and is currently in use in China. Marxism–Leninism was mentioned in the Soviet constitution . Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet constitution stated: "The Communist Party, armed with Marxism–Leninism, determines the general perspective of the development of society and the course of the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR." This contrasts with the 1976 Albanian constitution which stated in Article 3: "In
12593-637: Is the source of law and legality. Unlike in liberal democracies , the Marxist–Leninist constitution is not a framework to limit the power of the state. To the contrary, a Marxist–Leninist constitution seeks to empower the state—believing the state to be an organ of class domination and law to be the expression of the interests of the dominant class. Marxist–Leninists believe that all national constitutions do this to ensure that countries can strengthen and enforce their own class system. In this instance, it means that Marxist–Leninists conceive of constitutions as
12850-433: Is to create the conditions for socialism in countries where the social, political, and economic conditions for socialism do not exist. The second feature to be met is the establishment of a revolutionary-democratic party which has to establish itself as the leading force and guide the state by using Marxist–Leninist ideology. While introduced in these states, democratic centralism is rarely upheld. Unlike capitalism which
13107-428: Is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition , starvation , epidemic , and increased mortality . Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. During the 19th and 20th century, Southeast and South Asia , as well as Eastern and Central Europe , suffered the greatest number of fatalities due to famine. Deaths caused by famine declined sharply beginning in
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#173278721288213364-553: The 1896 German civil code until 1976 while Poland used existing Austrian, French, German, and Russian civil codes until adoption of its own civil code in 1964. Scholar John Quigley wrote that "[s]ocialist law retains the inquisitorial style of trial, law-creation predominantly by legislatures rather than courts, and a significant role for legal scholarship in construing codes." Communist states have established two types of civil-military systems. The armed forces of most socialist states have historically been state institutions based on
13621-624: The 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel caused the Gaza Strip famine . This includes a full ban on all shipments for a short time after the attack, later extremely restrictive security checks on aid attempting to go through the blockade, and Israeli protesters blocking aid . In 2024, famine conditions struck Haiti as a result of the ongoing Haitian crisis , resulting in a reported 6,000 people suffering from starvation and 5.4 million civilians— almost half of Haiti's population— suffering from "crisis levels of hunger or worse". While food insecurity
13878-499: The Bulgarian People's Republic , and Marshal Josip Broz Tito and Bulgaria's Georgi Dimitrov talked of plans to establish a Balkan Federation to include Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. Yugoslav advisers poured into Albania's government offices and its army headquarters. Tirana was desperate for outside aid, and about 20,000 tons of Yugoslav grain helped stave off famine. Albania also received US$ 26.3 million from
14135-537: The Chinese famine of 1942–1943 , and millions more lost in famines in North and East China. The USSR lost 8 million claimed by the Soviet famine of 1930–1933 , over a million in both the Soviet famine of 1946–1947 and Siege of Leningrad , the 5 million in the Russian famine of 1921–1922 , and others famines. Java suffered 2.5 million deaths under Japanese occupation during World War Two. The other most notable famine of
14392-730: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe , and it was the only European country that refused to take part in the Helsinki Conference of July 1975. Soon after Mao's death in 1976, Hoxha criticized the new leadership as well as Beijing's pragmatic policy towards the United States and Western Europe. China retorted by inviting Tito to visit Beijing in 1977 and ending assistance programs for Albania in 1978. The Sino-Albanian split left Albania with no foreign benefactor. Albania ignored calls to normalize relations by
14649-604: The Iron Curtain broke under public pressure during a wave of mostly non-violent movements as part of the Revolutions of 1989 which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism" and the Eastern Bloc ( Eastern Europe and the Third World ) as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems." Today, the existing communist states in
14906-712: The Narodniks in Russia, it is now associated with communist states. A number of the short-lived communist states which formed during World War I and its aftermath called themselves people's republics. Many of these sprang up in the territory of the former Russian Empire following the October Revolution . Additional people's republics emerged following the Allied victory in World War II, mainly within
15163-487: The Netherlands had one of the most commercialized agricultural systems in Europe. They grew many industrial crops such as flax , hemp and hops . Agriculture became increasingly specialized and efficient. The efficiency of Dutch agriculture allowed for much more rapid urbanization in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries than anywhere else in Europe. As a result, productivity and wealth increased, allowing
15420-486: The Party of Labour of Albania . They ruled Albania by establishing a Stalinist , and later Hoxhaist , style of state administration and adhering to policies which stressed national unity and self-reliance . Described by scholars as a totalitarian state, travel and visa restrictions made Albania one of the most difficult countries to visit or travel from. Being Europe's only Muslim-majority country (aside from Turkey ) at
15677-536: The Poor Law , the latter through soup kitchens . A systematic attempt at creating the necessary regulatory framework for dealing with famine was developed by the British Raj in the 1880s. In order to comprehensively address the issue of famine, the British created an Indian Famine commission to recommend steps that the government would be required to take in the event of a famine. The Famine Commission issued
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#173278721288215934-542: The Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states; however, Communism remained the official ideology of the ruling parties of China , Cuba , Laos , Vietnam , and to a lesser extent, North Korea . During the later part of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states. Communist states are typically authoritarian and are typically administered through democratic centralism by
16191-657: The Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, when Khrushchev denounced Stalin's Administration in his " secret speech ". Hoxha, deeply alarmed by the denunciation, defended Stalin and refused to follow Khrushchev's attempt at stepping away from the prior Soviet Administration. As the first years of the Khrushchev Administration passed, Hoxha continued to maintain this position, including through
16448-596: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration immediately after the war but had to rely on Yugoslavia for investment and development aid. Joint Albanian–Yugoslav companies were created for mining, railroad construction, the production of petroleum and electricity, and international trade. Yugoslav investments led to the construction of a sugar refinery in Korçë , a food-processing plant in Elbasan ,
16705-538: The University of Tirana ) was founded in 1957 and the Albanian Academy of Sciences opened 15 years later. Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet leader's demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to attend his funeral . The Soviet Union's subsequent movement toward rapprochement with the Yugoslavs alarmed
16962-495: The communist bloc 's organization for coordinating economic planning , the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Tirana soon entered into trade agreements with Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , and the Soviet Union . Soviet and East European technical advisers took up residence in Albania, and the Soviet Union also sent Albania military advisers and built a submarine installation on Sazan Island . After
17219-708: The disturbances in Poland and the rebellion in Hungary in 1956. Hoxha during this period purged party moderates with pro-Soviet and pro-Yugoslav leanings, however toned down his anti-Yugoslav rhetoric after a successful April 1957 trip to Moscow. This trip proved pivotal for the Albanian State, Hoxha having won cancellation of about US$ 105 million in outstanding loans and about US$ 7.8 million in additional food assistance. By 1958, however, tensions had re-sparked between Hoxha and Tito, with continued conflict over
17476-514: The mass line and learning from the people." This reasoning gives communist legislatures the right to interfere in every state institution unless the legislature itself has made a law that bars it from it. This also means there are no limits to politicisation, unlike in liberal democracies, where politicians are legally barred from interfering in judicial work. This is a firm rejection of the separation of powers found in liberal democracies since no institution can legally enforce checks and balances on
17733-583: The ongoing civil war in Greece , would back Greek demands for territory in southern Albania ; and anxieties grew in July when a United States Senate resolution backed the Greek demands. A major incident between Albania and Britain erupted in 1946 after Tirana claimed jurisdiction over the channel between the Albanian mainland and the Greek island of Corfu . Britain challenged Albania by sailing four destroyers into
17990-547: The rinderpest epizootic , introduced into Eritrea by infected cattle, spread southwards reaching ultimately as far as South Africa . In Ethiopia it was estimated that as much as 90 percent of the national herd died, rendering rich farmers and herders destitute overnight. This coincided with drought associated with an El Niño oscillation, human epidemics of smallpox , and in several countries, intense war. The Ethiopian Great famine that afflicted Ethiopia from 1888 to 1892 cost it roughly one-third of its population. In Sudan
18247-420: The trial of many non-communist politicians who were condemned as " enemies of the people " and " war criminals ". Many were sentenced to death. Those spared were imprisoned for years in work camps and jails and later settled on state farms built on reclaimed marshlands. In December 1944, the provisional government adopted laws allowing the state to regulate foreign and domestic trade, commercial enterprises, and
18504-462: The 16th and 17th century, the feudal system began to break down, and more prosperous farmers began to enclose their own land and improve their yields to sell the surplus crops for a profit. These capitalist landowners paid their labourers with money , thereby increasing the commercialization of rural society. In the emerging competitive labour market, better techniques for the improvement of labour productivity were increasingly valued and rewarded. It
18761-485: The 1870s to the 1970s, great famines killed an average of 928,000 people a year. Since 1980, annual deaths had dropped to an average of 75,000, less than 10% of what they had been until the 1970s. That reduction was achieved despite the approximately 150,000 lives lost in the 2011 Somalia famine . Yet in 2017, the UN officially declared famine had returned to Africa, with about 20 million people at risk of death from starvation in
19018-552: The 1930s, notes that the "Soviet constitutions represent the total of the historical path along which the Soviet state has travelled. At the same time, they are the legislative basis of subsequent development of state life." That is, the constitution sums up what has already been achieved. This belief is also shared by the Chinese Communist Party , which argued that "the Chinese Constitution blazes
19275-586: The 1970s, with numbers falling further since 2000. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent in the world by famine. According to the United Nations World Food Programme , famine is declared when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification criteria define Phase 5 famine of acute food insecurity as occurring when all three of
19532-664: The 1986–2006 period, active military figures sitting in the CPV Central Committee stood at an average of 9,2 per cent. Military figures are also represented in the national legislature (the National Assembly ) and other representative institutions. In China, the two CMC vice chairmen have had by right office seats in the CCP Politburo since 1987. A Marxist–Leninist party has led every communist state. This party seeks to represent and articulate
19789-540: The 20th century, the world's first constitutionally communist state was Soviet Russia at the end of 1917. In 1922, it joined other former territories of the empire to become the Soviet Union . After World War II , the Soviet Army occupied much of Eastern Europe and helped bring the existing communist parties to power in those countries. Originally, the communist states in Eastern Europe were allied with
20046-460: The 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania on the activity of the Party's Central Committee that the 1976 Constitution was an embodiment of the free will of the Albanian people, because genuine democracy was necessary in order for socialism to actually exist. He said that, "the broad masses of the working people freely aired their views on the new Fundamental Law of our state of the dictatorship of
20303-589: The APL and army, and using economic blackmail. "Soviet rats were able to eat while the Albanian people were dying of hunger," Hoxha railed, referring to purposely delayed Soviet grain deliveries. Communist leaders loyal to Moscow described Hoxha's performance as "gangsterish" and "infantile," and the speech extinguished any chance of an agreement between Moscow and Tirana. For the next year, Albania played proxy for China. Pro-Soviet Communist parties, reluctant to confront China directly, criticized Beijing by castigating Albania. China, for its part, frequently gave prominence to
20560-456: The African crisis has been interested in the political aspects of the continent, especially the liberation of the occupied parts of it and the elimination of racism. The organization has succeeded in this area but the economic field and development has not succeeded in these fields. African leaders have agreed to waive the role of their organization in the development to the United Nations through
20817-691: The Agrarian Reform Law, which redistributed about half of Albania's arable land, the government confiscated property belonging to absentee landlords and people not dependent on agriculture for a living. The few peasants with agricultural machinery were permitted to keep up to 40 hectares (99 acres) of land. Landholdings of religious institutions and peasants without agricultural machinery were limited to 20 hectares (49 acres). Finally, landless peasants and peasants with tiny landholdings were given up to 5 hectares (12 acres), although they had to pay nominal compensation. In December 1945, Albanians elected
21074-644: The Albanian government introduced an austerity program, appealing to the people to conserve resources, cut production costs, and abandon unnecessary investment. In October 1964, Hoxha hailed Khrushchev's fall from power, and the Soviet Union's new leaders made overtures to Tirana. It soon became clear, however, that the new Soviet leadership had no intention of changing its basic policies to suit Albania, and relations failed to improve. For decades, Tirana's propaganda continued to refer to Soviet officials as "treacherous revisionists" and "traitors to Communism," and in 1964, Hoxha said that Albania's terms for reconciliation were
21331-479: The Albanian leaders' morale, elevated diplomatic relations between the two countries to the ambassadorial level. Despite some cautious expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu quickly turned against Nikita Khrushchev 's programs of " peaceful coexistence " and "different roads to socialism". Raising concerns over supposed steps towards Marxist Revisionism , the Albanian Communists relationship with
21588-511: The Albanian nation and kept it mired in backwardness. Student agitators combed the countryside, forcing Albanians to quit practicing their faiths. Despite complaints, even by APL members, all churches, mosques, monasteries, and other religious institutions were closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, and workshops by year's end. A special decree abrogated the charters by which the country's main religious communities had operated. The campaign culminated in an announcement that Albania had become
21845-751: The Albanians went so far as to seize the empty Soviet embassy in Tirana, and Albanian workers pressed on with construction of the Palace of Culture on their own. The shift away from the Soviet Union wreaked havoc on Albania's economy. Half of its imports and exports had been geared toward Soviet suppliers and markets, so the souring of Tirana's relations with Moscow brought Albania's foreign trade to near collapse as China proved incapable of delivering promised machinery and equipment on time. The low productivity, flawed planning, poor workmanship, and inefficient management at Albanian enterprises became clear when Soviet and Eastern European aid and advisers were withdrawn. In 1962,
22102-614: The Albanians' fulminations against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which Tirana referred to as a "socialist hell." Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in February 1961. During the congress, the Albanian government announced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65), which allocated 54% of all investment to industry, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid programs and lines of credit for Albania, but China again came to
22359-678: The CPSU Central Committee was responsible for implementing the party personnel policies and supervised the KGB , the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. In the Chinese party-state model, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is a party institution. In the preamble of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party , it is stated: "The Communist Party of China (CPC) shall uphold its absolute leadership over
22616-519: The Chairman of the Council for National Defense and Security of Vietnam), National Supervisory institutions (such as the Director of China's National Supervisory Commission ) and other institutions if they exist. Moreover, in all communist states, the ruling party has either had a clear majority, such as China or held every seat as they did in the Soviet Union, in their Supreme Soviet. A majority in
22873-523: The Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping , who stated in 2013 that "[n]o organisation or individual has the privilege to overstep the Constitution and law." After Soviet Union general secretary Joseph Stalin 's death, several communist states have experimented with some sort of constitutional supervision. These organs were designed to safeguard the supreme power of the legislature from circumvention by political leaders. Romania
23130-463: The Chinese working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation." As noted by both communist parties, the ruling parties of communist states are vanguard parties . Vladimir Lenin theorised that vanguard parties were "capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organising the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organising their social life without
23387-400: The Chinese. The Soviet Union immediately retaliated by organizing a campaign to oust Hoxha and Shehu in the summer of 1960. Moscow cut promised grain deliveries to Albania during a drought, and the Soviet embassy in Tirana overtly encouraged a pro-Soviet faction in the Party of Labour of Albania (APL) to speak out against the party's pro-Chinese stance. Moscow also apparently involved itself in
23644-688: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee accused Hoxha of following "independent" policies and turning the Albanian people against Yugoslavia. This was the closest Hoxha ever came to being removed from power. Apparently attempting to buy support inside the Albanian Communist Party, Belgrade extended Tirana credits which were worth 40 million USD, an amount which was equivalent to 58% of Albania's 1947 state budget. A year later, Yugoslavia's credits accounted for nearly half of Albania's 1948 state budget. Relations worsened in
23901-569: The Communist authorities implemented harsh internal security measures. In September 1952, the assembly enacted a penal code that required the death penalty for anyone over eleven years old who was found guilty of conspiring against the state, damaging state property, or committing economic sabotage. Political executions were common and between 5,000 and 25,000 people were killed in total during the Communist era. Albania primarily depended on Soviet assistance and know-how after its break with Yugoslavia in 1948. In February 1949, Albania gained membership in
24158-454: The Communist ideology." Therefore, the sole ideological purpose of communist states is to spread socialism and to reach that goal these states have to be guided by Marxism–Leninism. The communist states have opted for two ways to achieve this goal, namely govern indirectly by Marxism–Leninism through the party (Soviet model), or commit the state officially through the constitution to Marxism–Leninism (Maoist China–Albania model). The Soviet model
24415-730: The Communists gained a majority in an interim government . The Republic of Albania was proclaimed on 29 April 1991 and the country's first parliamentary elections were held on 22 March 1992 . The People's Socialist Republic of Albania was officially dissolved on 28 November 1998 upon the adoption of the new Constitution of Albania . On 29 November 1944, Albania was liberated by the National Liberation Movement (In Albanian: Lëvizja Nacional-Çlirimtare LNÇ). The Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council, formed in May, became
24672-533: The Cultural and Ideological Revolution, traditional kinship links in Albania, which were centered on the patriarchal family, were shattered by the postwar repression of clan leaders, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, migration from the countryside to urban areas, and suppression of religion. The postwar regime brought a radical change in the status of Albania's women . Considered second-class citizens in traditional Albanian society, women did most of
24929-523: The Economic Commission for Africa "ECA". Chinese scholars had kept count of 1,828 instances of famine from 108 BC to 1911 in one province or another—an average of more than one famine per year. A major famine from 1333 to 1337 killed 6 million. The four famines of 1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 are said to have killed no fewer than 45 million people. China's Qing dynasty bureaucracy devoted extensive attention to minimizing famines with
25186-586: The International Council of Voluntary Agencies and the World Food Programme said: "Girls and boys, men and women, are being starved by conflict and violence; by inequality; by the impacts of climate change; by the loss of land, jobs of prospects; by a fight against Covid-19 that has left them even further behind". The groups warned that funding had dwindled, while money alone would not be enough by itself. Governments should step in to end conflicts and ensure humanitarian access, they said. "If no action
25443-511: The Main Political Directorate supervises not only the military, but also intelligence, the security services, and counterespionage work. Unlike in liberal democracies, active military personnel are members and partake in civilian institutions of governance. This is the case in all communist states. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has elected at least one active military figure to its CPV Politburo since 1986. In
25700-463: The Marxist theory of historical materialism , Szabó argues that socialist law cannot belong to the same law family since the material structure is different from the capitalist countries as their superstructure (state) has to reflect these differences. In other words, law is a tool by the ruling class to govern. As Renè David notes, socialist jurists "isolate their law, to put into another category,
25957-545: The Marxist–Leninist-ruled countries of Africa and the Middle East, the Soviet Union deemed none of them socialist states—referring to them as socialist-oriented states. While many countries with constitutional references to socialism and countries ruled by long-standing socialist movements exist, within Marxist–Leninist theory a socialist state is led by a communist party that has instituted a socialist economy in
26214-544: The Netherlands to maintain a steady food supply. By 1650, English agriculture had also become commercialized on a much wider scale. The last peacetime famine in England was in 1623–24. There were still periods of hunger, as in the Netherlands, but no more famines ever occurred. Common areas for pasture were enclosed for private use and large scale, efficient farms were consolidated. Other technical developments included
26471-573: The People's Liberation Army and other people's armed forces." The PLA carries out its work in accordance with the instructions of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party . Mao Zedong described the PLA's institutional situation as follows: "Every communist must grasp the truth, ' Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun .' Our principle is that the party commands the gun, and
26728-433: The People's Socialist Republic of Albania the dominant ideology is Marxism–Leninism. The entire social order is developing on the basis of its principles." The 1975 Chinese constitution had a similar tone, stating in Article 2 that "Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought is the theoretical basis guiding the thinking of our nation." The 1977 Soviet constitution did also use phrases such as "building socialism and communism", "on
26985-667: The Portuguese wrote of African raids on Portuguese merchants solely for food, giving clear signs of famine. Additionally, instances of cannibalism by the African Jaga were also more prevalent during this time frame, indicating an extreme deprivation of a primary food source. A notable period of famine occurred around the turn of the 20th century in the Congo Free State . In forming this state, Leopold used mass labor camps to finance his empire. This period resulted in
27242-587: The Prime Minister. The government hoped that they would not "stifle private enterprise" and that their actions would not act as a disincentive to local relief efforts. Due to weather conditions, the first shipment did not arrive in Ireland until the beginning of February 1846. The maize corn was then re-sold for a penny a pound. In 1846, Peel moved to repeal the Corn Laws , tariffs on grain which kept
27499-507: The Soviet Union's Eastern Bloc . In Asia, China became a people's republic following the Chinese Communist Revolution and North Korea also became a people's republic. During the 1960s, Romania and Yugoslavia ceased to use the term people's republic in their official name, replacing it with the term socialist republic as a mark of their ongoing political development. Czechoslovakia also added
27756-482: The Soviet Union. Yugoslavia would declare itself non-aligned , and Albania later took a different path. After a war against Japanese occupation and a civil war resulting in a Communist victory, the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Communist states were also established in Cambodia , Cuba , Laos , North Korea , and Vietnam . In 1989, the communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed after
28013-505: The Soviet government was known as the Council of Ministers and identical names were used for the governments of Albania , East Germany , Hungary , Poland , and Romania . It was independent of the other central agencies such as the legislature and its standing committee, but the Supreme Soviet was empowered to decide on all questions it wished. The Soviet government was responsible to the legislature, and in between sessions of
28270-515: The Soviet model, but in China, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam, the armed forces are party-state institutions. However, several differences exist between the statist (Soviet) and the party-state models (China). In the Soviet model, the Soviet armed forces was led by the Council of Defense (an organ formed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union ) while the Council of Ministers
28527-998: The Soviet one, the NPC is the highest organ of the state and elects a Standing Committee (the Soviets had a Presidium ), the government (named the State Council in China and the Council of Ministers in the Soviet Union), the Supreme Court (such as the Supreme Court of East Germany), the Supreme Procuratorate (such as the Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam ), the Chairman of the National Defence Council (for example,
28784-570: The Soviet-Yugoslav split, Albania and Bulgaria remained the only countries that the Soviet Union could use to supply war material to the communists fighting in Greece . What little strategic value Albania offered the Soviet Union, however, gradually shrank as nuclear-arms technology developed. Aligned with the orthodox line of Stalin , Albania's Communist Party implemented elements of Stalinist policy and economics. In 1949 Albania adopted
29041-456: The Stalinist path which he had blazed for Albania. In December 1976, Albania adopted its second Stalinist constitution of the postwar era. The document guaranteed Albanians freedom of speech , the press , organization , association , and assembly but subordinated these rights to the individual's duties to society as a whole. The constitution continued to emphasize national pride and unity,
29298-694: The Sudan and Sahelian regions of Africa. This caused famine because even though the Sudanese Government believed there was a surplus of grain, there were local deficits across the region. In October 1984, television reports describing the Ethiopian famine as "biblical", prompted the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia, which raised large sums to alleviate the suffering. A primary cause of
29555-515: The Supreme Soviet's Presidium, union republic constitutions and laws, some central administrative decrees, Supreme Court explanations, and other central normative documents." If the committee deemed the legislature to have breached legality, the legislature was obliged to discuss the issue, but it could reject it if more than two-thirds voted against the findings of the Constitutional Supervision Committee. While it
29812-527: The Union began to decline. Tirana and Belgrade renewed diplomatic relations in December 1953, but Hoxha refused Khrushchev's repeated appeals to posthumously rehabilitate the pro-Yugoslav Xoxe as a gesture to Tito. The Albanian duo instead entrenched their political position, expanding their control over their country's domestic life and letting the propaganda war with the Yugoslavs grind on. In 1955 Albania became
30069-506: The United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, Albania expanded its diplomatic ties with Western Europe and the developing nations , and it also began to stress the principle of self-reliance as the keystone of the country's strategy for economic development. Albania, however, did not have many resources of its own, and Hoxha's cautious opening to the outside world was not enough to bolster Albania's economy, and nascent movements for change stirred up inside Albania. Without Chinese or Soviet aid,
30326-546: The Yugoslav advisers in Albania 48 hours to leave the country, rescinded all bilateral economic agreements with its neighbor, and launched a virulent anti-Yugoslav propaganda blitz that transformed Stalin into an Albanian national hero, Hoxha into a warrior against foreign aggression, and Tito into an imperialist monster. Albania entered an orbit around the Soviet Union, and in September 1948 Moscow stepped in to compensate for Albania's loss of Yugoslav aid. The shift proved to be
30583-440: The academic and technical cadres necessary for construction of a socialist state and society, also improved dramatically. The number of schools, teachers, and students doubled between 1945 and 1950. Illiteracy declined from perhaps 85% in 1946 to 31% in 1950. The Soviet Union provided scholarships for Albanian students and supplied specialists and study materials to improve instruction in Albania. The State University of Tirana (later
30840-410: The agency in question failed to heed its advice, it needed to petition the legislature. In 1989, the Soviets established the Constitutional Supervision Committee, which "was subordinate only to the USSR constitution." It was empowered "to review the constitutionality and legality of a range of state acts of the USSR and its republics. Its jurisdiction included laws [passed by the legislature], decrees of
31097-623: The areas of industry, agriculture, education, the arts, and culture, which contributed to a general increase in the Albanian population's standard of living. However, these developments coincided with political repression by the secret police, the Sigurimi , for the purposes of preventing a counter-revolution , which included dismissal from employment, imprisonment in forced labor camps and executions. The first multi-party elections in Socialist Albania took place on 31 March 1991 –
31354-618: The armed forces through the Main Political Directorate (MPD) of the Ministry of Defense , a state organ that functioned "with the authority of a department of the CPSU Central Committee ." The MPD organised political indoctrination and created political control mechanisms at the centre to the company level in the field. Formally, the MPD was responsible for organising party and Komsomol organs as well as subordinate organs within
31611-440: The armed forces; ensuring that the party and state retain control over the armed forces; evaluates the political performance of officers; supervising the ideological content of the military press; and supervising the political-military training institutes and their ideological content. The head of the MPD was ranked fourth in military protocol, but it was not a member of the Council of Defense. The Administrative Organs Department of
31868-489: The army's commander in chief . Xoxe remained both internal affairs minister and the party's organizational secretary. In late 1945 and early 1946, Xoxe and other party hard-liners purged moderates who had pressed for close contacts with the West, a modicum of political pluralism, and a delay in the introduction of strict communist economic measures until Albania's economy had more time to develop. Hoxha remained in control despite
32125-442: The basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which state enterprises paid direct contributions to the treasury from their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed investments and other purposes. In 1951 the Albanian government launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized utilizing the country's oil , chromite , copper , nickel , asphalt , and coal resources; expanding electricity production and
32382-462: The blame for the country's woes on Yugoslavia and Xoxe. Hoxha had Xoxe sacked as Albania's internal affairs minister in October, and he was replaced with Mehmet Shehu . After a secret trial in May 1949, Xoxe was executed. The subsequent anti-Titoist purges in Albania brought the liquidation of 14 members of the party's 31 person Central Committee and 32 of the 109 People's Assembly deputies. Overall,
32639-497: The bourgeoisie." This idea eventually evolved into the concept of the party's leading role in leading the state as seen in the CCP's self-description and Vietnam's constitution. Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war , natural disasters , crop failure , widespread poverty , an economic catastrophe or government policies . This phenomenon
32896-511: The cancellation of Soviet wheat shipments despite a paucity of foreign currency and its own economic hardships. Albania again sided with the People's Republic of China when it launched an attack on the Soviet Union's leadership of the international communist movement at the November 1960 Moscow conference of the world's 81 communist parties. Hoxha inveighed against Khrushchev for encouraging Greek claims to southern Albania , sowing discord within
33153-578: The century was the Bengal famine of 1943 , resulting both from the Japanese occupation of Burma , resulting in an influx of refugees, and blocking Burmese grain imports and a failure of the Bengali provincial Government to declare a famine , and fund relief, the imposition of grain and transport embargoes by the neighbouring provincial administrations, to prevent their own stocks being transferred to Bengal,
33410-542: The channel. Two of the ships struck mines on 22 October 1946, and 44 crew members died. Britain complained to the UN and the International Court of Justice which, in its first case ever, ruled against Tirana. After 1946 the United States and the United Kingdom began implementing an elaborate covert plan to overthrow Albania's Communist government by backing anti-Communist and royalist forces within
33667-605: The communist leadership voted to merge the Albanian and Yugoslav economies and militaries. Hoxha even denounced Spiru for attempting to ruin Albanian-Yugoslav relations. During a party Political Bureau ( Politburo ) meeting a month later, Xoxe proposed appealing to Belgrade to admit Albania as a seventh Yugoslav republic. However, when the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia on 28 June, Albania made a rapid about-face in its policy towards Yugoslavia. Three days later, Tirana gave
33924-438: The communist legislature. The legislature passes the constitution, which can only be amended by the legislature. Soviet legal theorists denounced judicial review and extra-parliamentary review as bourgeoisie institutions. They also perceived it as a limitation of the people's supreme power. The legislature, together with its suborgans, oversaw the constitutional order. Since the legislature is the supreme judge of constitutionality,
34181-412: The communist party remained the centre of power. As a term, communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, and media to refer to these countries. However, these states do not describe themselves as communist nor do they claim to have achieved communism — they refer to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing socialism and progressing toward
34438-618: The communist party. This shows that legislatures are tools to garner popular support for the government in which leading figures campaign and spread information about the party's policies and ideological development. Furthermore, Western researchers have devoted little attention to legislatures in communist states. The reason is that there are no significant bodies of political socialisation compared to legislatures in liberal democracies. While political leaders in communist states are often elected as members of legislatures, these posts are not relevant to political advancement. The role of legislatures
34695-435: The concept of the national-democratic state "never received full theoretical elaboration as a political system." However, one feature was clearly defined, namely, that these states did not need to be led by a Marxist–Leninist party. A socialist-oriented state seeks to reach socialism by non-capitalist development. As a term, it substantially differs from the concept of the national-democratic state. The singular difference
34952-478: The conduct of processes of production. The state is not 'abolished'. It dies out." In "The Tax in Kind", Vladimir Lenin argued: "No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that
35209-413: The constitution was a tool to analyse the development of society. The Marxist–Leninist party in question would have to study the correlation of forces, literally society's class structure, before enacting changes. Several terms were coined for different developmental states by Marxist–Leninist legal theorists, including new democracy , people's democracy , and the primary stage of socialism . This
35466-572: The continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to United Nations University (UNU)'s Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. Famines in the early 21st century in Africa include the 2005–06 Niger food crisis , the 2010 Sahel famine and the 2011 East Africa drought , where two consecutive missed rainy seasons precipitated the one of the worst droughts in East Africa in 60 years. An estimated 50,000 to 150,000 people are reported to have died during
35723-404: The control of certain cliques such as the military in Ethiopia . The establishment of a legal system and coercive institutions are also noted to safeguard the socialist-oriented nature of the state. The fifth feature is that the socialist-oriented state must take over the media and educational system while establishing mass organisations to mobilize the populace. Unlike the Soviet economic model,
35980-483: The country began to experience widespread shortages of everything from machine parts to wheat and animal feed. Infrastructure and living standards began to collapse. According to the World Bank , Albania netted around US$ 750 in gross national product per capita throughout much of the 1980s. As Hoxha's health slipped, muted calls arose for the relaxation of party controls and greater openness. In response, Hoxha launched
36237-470: The country by including them in the composition of the legislature. In communist states, there is usually a high proportion of members who are government officials. In this instance, it might mean that it is less important what legislatures do and more important who its representatives are. The members of such legislatures at central and local levels are usually either government or party officials, leading figures in their community, or national figures outside
36494-508: The country was re-unified under the communist party in 1976 and the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Cuba states that the role of the communist party is to "guide the common effort toward the goals and construction of socialism." The DPRK's constitution outlines a socialist economy and the ruling Workers' Party of Korea remains ideologically committed to communism. Communist states share similar institutions, which are organised on
36751-463: The country's provisional government. The government, like the LNÇ, was dominated by the two-year-old Communist Party of Albania, and the party's first secretary, Enver Hoxha , became Albania's prime minister . From the start, the LNC government was an undisguised Communist regime . In most of the rest of what became the Eastern Bloc, the Communist parties were nominally part of a coalition government for
37008-540: The country, charging that they had instigated anti-Communist uprisings in the northern mountains. Britain announced in April that it would not send a diplomatic mission to Tirana; the United States withdrew its mission in November; and both the United States and Britain opposed admitting Albania to the United Nations (UN). Albania feared that the United States and Britain, which were supporting anti-Communist forces in
37265-463: The country, including those at work on the Palace of Culture , and halted shipments of supplies and spare parts for equipment already in place in Albania. In addition, the Soviet Union continued to dismantle its naval installations on Sazan Island , a process that had begun even before the break in relations. China again compensated Albania for the loss of Soviet economic support, supplying about 90% of
37522-597: The country. By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with King Zog and the mountainmen of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from Egypt , Italy , and Greece; trained them in Cyprus , Malta , and the Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany ); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952, but Albanian security forces killed or captured all of them. Kim Philby ,
37779-428: The crisis deepened. Russell's ministry introduced public works projects, which by December 1846 employed some half million Irish and proved impossible to administer. The government was influenced by a laissez-faire belief that the market would provide the food needed. It halted government food and relief works, and turned to a mixture of "indoor" and "outdoor" direct relief; the former administered in workhouses through
38036-470: The deadly interplay of both hunger drivers — could push tens of millions of people into irreversible peril, a prospect the agency had been warning of for more than a year. Afghanistan was becoming the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with the country's needs surpassing those of the other worst-hit countries — Ethiopia , South Sudan , Syria and even Yemen . In 2023 and 2024, the Israeli response to
38293-452: The death of Joseph Stalin . The invasion served as the tipping point, and within one month (September 1968) Albania formally withdrew from the Warsaw Pact . Leonid Brezhnev made no attempt to force Albania to remain. In the mid-1960s, Albania's leaders grew wary of a threat to their power by a burgeoning bureaucracy . Party discipline had eroded. People complained about malfeasance , inflation , and low-quality goods. Writers strayed from
38550-683: The death of up to 10 million Congolese from brutality, disease and famine. Some colonial "pacification" efforts often caused severe famine, notably with the repression of the Maji Maji revolt in Tanganyika in 1906. The introduction of cash crops such as cotton, and forcible measures to impel farmers to grow these crops, sometimes impoverished the peasantry in many areas, such as northern Nigeria, contributing to greater vulnerability to famine when severe drought struck in 1913. A large-scale famine occurred in Ethiopia in 1888 and in succeeding years, as
38807-408: The draining of marshes, more efficient field use patterns, and the wider introduction of industrial crops. These agricultural developments led to wider prosperity in England and increasing urbanization. By the end of the 17th century, English agriculture was the most productive in Europe. In both England and the Netherlands, the population stabilized between 1650 and 1750, the same time period in which
39064-677: The drought was brief the main cause of death in Rwanda was due to Belgian prerogatives to acquisition grain from their colony (Rwanda). The increased grain acquisition was related to WW2. This and the drought caused 300,000 Rwandans to perish. From 1967 to 1969 large scale famine occurred in Biafra and Nigeria due to a government blockade of the Breakaway territory . It is estimated that 1.5 million people died of starvation due to this famine. Additionally, drought and other government interference with
39321-589: The early 1950s. The number of Albanian doctors increased by a third to about 150 early in the decade (although the doctor-patient ratio remained unacceptable by most standards), and the state opened new medical-training facilities. The number of hospital beds rose from 1,765 in 1945 to about 5,500 in 1953. Better health-care and living conditions produced an improvement in Albania's dismal infant-mortality rate, lowering it from 112.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1945 to 99.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1953. The education system, geared towards cementing communism and creating
39578-451: The economy of the socialist-oriented states are mixed economies that seek to attract foreign capital and which seeks to maintain and develop the private sector . In the words of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev , these states were in the process of taking over the commanding heights of the economy and instituting a state-planned economy. According to Soviet sources, Laos was the one socialist-oriented state that has managed to develop into
39835-418: The election process by "universal suffrage in the various wards and towns." While the institution of such a legislature might not be important in itself, they "have a place in the literature and rhetoric of the ruling parties which cannot be ignored—in the language of the party's intimacy with working masses, of its alleged knowledge about interests of working people, of social justice and socialist democracy, of
40092-434: The escalating disaster was effectively suppressed. When the leadership did become aware of the scale of the famine, it did little to respond, and continued to ban any discussion of the cataclysm. This blanket suppression of news was so effective that very few Chinese citizens were aware of the scale of the famine, and the greatest peacetime demographic disaster of the 20th century only became widely known twenty years later, when
40349-461: The existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order." The introduction of the first five-year plan in the Soviet Union got many communists to believe that the withering away of the state was imminent. However, Joseph Stalin warned that the withering away of the state would not occur until after the socialist mode of production had achieved dominance over capitalism. Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky echoed this assumption and said that
40606-493: The existing framework until 2018, when the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress was bestowed the right of constitutional review. The government of communist states is usually defined as the "executive organ of the highest state organ of power" or as the "highest administrative agency of state power". It functions as the executive organ of the legislature. This model has been introduced with variations in all communist states. For most of its existence,
40863-405: The fact that he had once advocated restoring relations with Italy and even allowing Albanians to study in Italy. The government took major steps to introduce a Stalinist-style centrally planned economy in 1946. It nationalized all industries, transformed foreign trade into a government monopoly, brought almost all domestic trade under state control, and banned land sales and transfers. Planners at
41120-483: The failure to implement India wide rationing by the central Delhi authority, hoarding and profiteering by merchants, medieval land management practices, an Axis powers denial program that confiscated boats once used to transport grain, a Delhi administration that prioritised supplying, and offering medical treatment to the British Indian Army, War workers, and Civil servants, over the populace at large, incompetence and ignorance, and an Imperial War Cabinet initially leaving
41377-421: The fall, however, when Spiru's commission developed an economic plan that stressed self-sufficiency, light industry, and agriculture. The Yugoslavs complained bitterly. Subsequently, at a November 1947 meeting of the Albanian Economic Central Committee, Spiru came under intense criticism, which was spearheaded by Xoxe. Failure to win support from anyone within the party (he was effectively a fall guy for Hoxha) he
41634-446: The famine (one of the largest seen in the country) is that Ethiopia (and the surrounding Horn) was still recovering from the droughts which occurred in the mid-late 1970s. Compounding this problem was the intermittent fighting due to civil war , the government 's lack of organization in providing relief, and hoarding of supplies to control the population. Ultimately, over 1 million Ethiopians died and over 22 million people suffered due to
41891-536: The famines of the 20th century served the geopolitical purposes of governments, including traumatizing and replacing distrusted ethnic populations in strategically important regions, rendering regions vulnerable to invasion difficult to govern by an enemy power and shifting the burden of food shortage onto regions where the distress of the population posed a lesser risk of catastrophic regime de-legitimation. Until 2017, worldwide deaths from famine had been falling dramatically. The World Peace Foundation reported that from
42148-399: The few industries the country possessed. The laws sanctioned confiscation of property belonging to political exiles and "enemies of the people." The state also expropriated all German- and Italian-owned property, nationalized transportation enterprises, and canceled all concessions granted by previous Albanian governments to foreign companies. In August 1945, the provisional government adopted
42405-543: The first sweeping agricultural reforms in Albania's history. The country's 100 largest landowners, who controlled close to a third of Albania's arable land, had frustrated all agricultural reform proposals before the war. The communists' reforms were aimed at squeezing large landowners out of business, winning peasant support, and increasing farm output to avert famine . The government annulled outstanding agricultural debts, granted peasants access to inexpensive water for irrigation , and nationalized forest and pastureland. Under
42662-764: The following situations exist at the same time: The declaration of a famine carries no binding obligations on the UN or member states, but serves to focus global attention on the problem. The scarcity of food refers to a situation where the availability of food is insufficient to meet the demands of a population, often resulting from factors like poor agricultural productivity, climate change, political instability, or economic crises. This shortage can lead to widespread hunger, malnutrition, and social unrest, especially in vulnerable regions. Food scarcity affects not only individual health and well-being but also contributes to greater inequality and economic decline as prices for essential items rise dramatically, further limiting access for
42919-418: The food supply caused 500 thousand Africans to perish in Central and West Africa. Famine recurred in the early 1970s, when Ethiopia and the west African Sahel suffered drought and famine . The Ethiopian famine of that time was closely linked to the crisis of feudalism in that country, and in due course helped to bring about the downfall of the Emperor Haile Selassie . The Sahelian famine was associated with
43176-442: The form of a powerful All-Russian Soviet power; the object of which is to secure complete suppression of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of exploitation of man by man, and the establishment of Socialism, under which there shall be neither class division nor state authority". The communist state is the dictatorship of the proletariat , where the advanced elements of the proletariat are the ruling class. In Marxist–Leninist thinking,
43433-399: The former. Ramiz Alia , at the time a candidate-member of the Politburo and Hoxha's adviser on ideological questions, played a prominent role in the rhetoric. The Sino-Soviet split burst into the open in June 1960 at a Romanian Workers' Party congress, at which Khrushchev attempted to secure condemnation of Beijing . Albania's delegation, alone among the European delegations, supported
43690-411: The groundwork for integrating the Albanian and Yugoslav economies. The pacts provided for coordinating the economic plans of both states, standardizing their monetary systems, and creating a common pricing system and a customs union. So close was the Yugoslav-Albanian relationship that Serbo-Croatian became a required subject in Albanian high schools. Yugoslavia signed a similar friendship treaty with
43947-427: The gun must never be allowed to command the Party." The Central Military Commission (CMC) is both an organ of the state and the party—it is an organ of the CCP Central Committee and an organ of the national legislature, the National People's Congress. The CCP General Secretary is ex officio party CMC Chairman and the President of the People's Republic of China is by right state CMC Chairman. The composition of
44204-440: The idea of autarky was enshrined in law and the government was prohibited from seeking financial aid or credits or forming joint companies with partners from capitalist or revisionist communist countries. The constitution's preamble also boasted that the foundations of religious belief had been abolished in Albania. Communist state Former parties Former parties Former parties A communist state , also known as
44461-411: The inauguration of the July Theses . Hungary and Poland experimented with constitutional supervision in the early 1980s. Hungary established the Council of Constitutional Law, which was elected by the legislature and consisted of several leading jurists. It was empowered to review the constitutionality and legality of statutes, administrative regulations, and other normative documents; however, if
44718-416: The intellectuals (Hoxha and his allies) of the Albanian Party and, through Xoxe and his loyalists, attempted to unseat them. In 1947, Yugoslavia acted against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, including Hoxha and Spiru. In May, Tirana announced the arrest, trial, and conviction of nine People's Assembly members, all of whom were known for opposing Yugoslavia, on charges of antistate activities. A month later,
44975-426: The interests of the classes exploited by capitalism . It seeks to lead the exploited classes to achieve communism. However, the party cannot be identified with the exploited class in general. Its membership comprises members with advanced consciousness above sectional interests. Therefore, the party represents the advanced section of the exploited classes and, through them, leads the exploited classes by interpreting
45232-544: The introduction of drought-resistant crops and new methods of food production such as agro-forestry. Piloted in Ethiopia in the 1990s it has spread to Malawi, Uganda, Eritrea and Kenya. In an analysis of the programme by the Overseas Development Institute , CABDA's focus on individual and community capacity-building is highlighted. This enables farmers to influence and drive their own development through community-run institutions, bringing food security to their household and region. The organization of African unity and its role in
45489-435: The issue of Albanians in Kosovo . There was further tension over a Comecon plan for integrating the East European economies, which called for Albania to produce agricultural goods and minerals instead of emphasizing the development of heavy industry. On a twelve-day visit to Albania in 1959, Khrushchev reportedly tried to convince Hoxha and Shehu that their country should aspire to become " socialism 's orchard". Albania played
45746-438: The issue to the Colonial administration to resolve, than to the original local crop failures, and blights. A few of the great famines of the late 20th century were: the Biafran famine in the 1960s, the Khmer Rouge -caused famine in Cambodia in the 1970s, the North Korean famine of the 1990s , and the Ethiopian famine of 1983–1985 . Approximately 3 million died as a consequence of the Second Congo War . The Ethiopian famine
46003-426: The joint stock companies. In addition, the Albanians sought investment funds to develop light industries and an oil refinery, while the Yugoslavs wanted the Albanians to concentrate on agriculture and raw-material extraction. The head of Albania's Economic Planning Commission, and Hoxha's right-hand man, Nako Spiru , became the leading critic of Yugoslavia's efforts to exert economic control over Albania. Tito distrusted
46260-506: The last years of Stalin's life, although Albania was an economic liability for the Soviet Union. Albania conducted all its foreign trade with Soviet European countries in 1949, 1950, and 1951 – and over half its trade with the Soviet Union itself. Together with its satellites, the Soviet Union underwrote shortfalls in Albania's balance-of-payments with long-term grants. Although far behind Western practice, health care and education improved dramatically for Albania's 1.2 million people in
46517-429: The late 18th century and early 19th century. There was famine in Tripoli in 1784, and in Tunis in 1785. According to John Iliffe, "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into
46774-494: The law does not illegalise it. This is because both Marx and Lenin abhorred the parliamentary systems of bourgeois democracy , but neither sought to abolish the legislature as an institution. Lenin wrote that it would be impossible to develop proletarian democracy "without representative institutions." Both of them considered the governing model of the Paris Commune of 1871 , in which executive and legislative were combined in one body, to be ideal. More importantly, Marx applauded
47031-457: The law of the socialist countries and the law of the capitalist countries is not of the same nature as the difference between Roman-German law and the common law, for example. Socialist law is not a third family among the others, as in certain writings of Western comparatists." In other words, socialist law is civil law, but it is a different type of law for a different society. Yugoslav jurist Borislav Blagojević [ sr ] noted that
47288-464: The leadership changes or whenever the leaders change their views. [...] The trouble now is that our legal system is incomplete. [...] Very often what leaders say is taken as law and anyone who disagrees is called a lawbreaker." In 1986, Li Buyan wrote that "the policies of the Party usually are regulations and calls which to a certain extent are only principles. The law is different; it is rigorously standardised. It explicitly and concretely stipulates what
47545-418: The leadership of the communist party. In communist states, the government may not tolerate criticism of policies that have already been implemented in the past or are being implemented in the present. According to Marxist–Leninist thought, the state is a repressive institution led by a ruling class . This class dominates the state and expresses its will through it. By formulating law, the ruling class uses
47802-462: The legislature ensures the centralised and unitary leadership of the central committee of the ruling Marxist–Leninist party over the state. By having legislatures, the Marxist–Leninist parties try to keep ideological consistency between supporting representative institutions and safeguarding the party's leading role. They seek to use the legislatures as a linkage between the rulers and the ruled. These institutions are representative and usually mirror
48059-402: The legislature's acts cannot be unconstitutional. Moreover, this means that judicial independence in communist states does not mean the same as in liberal democracies. In communist states, judicial independence means stopping all interference not granted by law, but interference in itself is not barred. The Supreme Soviet was the first socialist legislature, and the Soviet legislative system
48316-502: The legislature, it reported to the legislature's standing committee. The standing committee could reorganise and hold the Soviet government accountable, but it could not instruct the government. In communist states, the government was responsible for the overall economic system, public order, foreign relations, and defense. The Soviet model was more or less identically implemented in Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, with few exceptions. One exception
48573-421: The mid-19th century and the onset of the Industrial Revolution , it became possible for governments to alleviate the effects of famine through price controls , large scale importation of food products from foreign markets, stockpiling, rationing , regulation of production and charity . The Great Famine of 1845 in Ireland was one of the first famines to feature such intervention, although the government response
48830-417: The mid-19th century, the system broke down. Thus the 1867–68 famine under the Tongzhi Restoration was successfully relieved but the Great North China Famine of 1877–78, caused by drought across northern China, was a catastrophe. The province of Shanxi was substantially depopulated as grains ran out, and desperately starving people stripped forests, fields, and their very houses for food. Estimated mortality
49087-433: The middle part of the 20th century, agriculturalists, economists and geographers did not consider Africa to be especially famine prone. From 1870 to 2010, 87% of deaths from famine occurred in Asia and Eastern Europe, with only 9.2% in Africa. There were notable counter-examples, such as the famine in Rwanda during World War II and the Malawi famine of 1949, but most famines were localized and brief food shortages. Although
49344-402: The military, and renounced professionalism in the army. Railing against a "white-collar mentality," the authorities also slashed the salaries of mid- and high-level officials, ousted administrators and specialists from their desk jobs, and sent such persons to toil in the factories and fields. Six ministries, including the Ministry of Justice, were eliminated. Farm collectivization even spread to
49601-411: The name of the" National People's Congress , and through it, the Chinese Communist Party . These bodies are responsible to and report on their work to the legislature. For instance, the Prosecutor-General of Vietnam's Supreme People's Procuracy delivers an annual Work Report to the legislature, the National Assembly , every year. Moreover, all communist states have been established in countries with
49858-463: The national liberation movements took power and instituted an anti-imperialist foreign policy and sought to construct a form of socialism were considered national-democratic states by Marxist–Leninists. An example of a national-democratic state is Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser which was committed to constructing Arab socialism . Except Cuba, none of these states developed socialism. According to scholar Sylvia Woodby Edington, this might explain why
50115-443: The new money to purchase manufactured goods. The agricultural and social developments encouraging increased food production were gradually taking place throughout the 16th century, but took off in the early 17th century. By the 1590s, these trends were sufficiently developed in the rich and commercialized province of Holland to allow its population to withstand a general outbreak of famine in Western Europe at that time. By that time,
50372-412: The newly founded Economic Planning Commission emphasized industrial development and in 1947 the government introduced the Soviet cost-accounting system. Until Yugoslavia 's expulsion from the Cominform in 1948, Albania was effectively a Yugoslav satellite. In repudiating the 1943 Albanian internal Mukaj agreement under pressure from the Yugoslavs, Albania's communists had given up on their demands for
50629-486: The northern part of Nigeria, in South Sudan , in Yemen , and in Somalia . On 20 April 2021, hundreds of aid organizations from around the world wrote an open letter to The Guardian newspaper, warning that millions of people in Yemen , Afghanistan , Ethiopia , South Sudan , Burkina Faso , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Honduras , Venezuela , Nigeria , Haiti , Central African Republic , Uganda , Zimbabwe and Sudan faced starvation. Organizations including
50886-503: The number of deaths by famine markedly. That said, many African countries are not self-sufficient in food production, relying on income from cash crops to import food. Agriculture in Africa is susceptible to climatic fluctuations, especially droughts which can reduce the amount of food produced locally. Other agricultural problems include soil infertility , land degradation and erosion , swarms of desert locusts , which can destroy whole crops, and livestock diseases. Desertification
51143-498: The orthodoxy of socialist realism , which demanded that art and literature serve as instruments of government and party policy. As a result, after Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, Hoxha launched his own Cultural and Ideological Revolution. The Albanian leader concentrated on reforming the military, government bureaucracy, and economy as well as on creating new support for his system. The regime abolished military ranks, reintroduced political commissars into
51400-445: The parts, foodstuffs, and other goods the Soviet Union had promised. China lent Albania money on more favorable terms than Moscow, and, unlike Soviet advisers, Chinese technicians earned the same low pay as Albanian workers and lived in similar housing. China also presented Albania with a powerful radio transmission station from which Tirana sang the praises of Stalin, Hoxha, and Mao Zedong for decades. For its part, Albania offered China
51657-421: The party CMC and the state CMC are identical. The CMC is responsible for the command of the PLA and determines national defence policies. fifteen departments report directly to the CMC and that are responsible for everything from political work to administration of the PLA. Of significance is that the CMC eclipses by far the prerogatives of the CPSU Administrative Organs Department while the Chinese counterpart to
51914-422: The party expelled about 25% of its members. Yugoslavia responded by launching a propaganda counterattack and canceling its treaty of friendship with Albania and in 1950, it withdrew its diplomatic mission from Tirana. Albania's relations with the West soured after the Communist government's refusal to allow free elections in December 1945. Albania restricted the movement of United States and British personnel in
52171-430: The party's edict on women's rights should be "hurled into the fire." Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when China began to reemerge from isolation and the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, Mao and the other Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to Albania. In response, Albania began to broaden its contacts with the outside world. Albania opened trade negotiations with France , Italy , and
52428-508: The people as embodied in a series of representative parliamentary institutions. Such states do not have a separation of powers and instead have one national legislative body (such as the Supreme Soviet in the Soviet Union), which is bestowed with unitary power and is often defined as the highest organ of state power. Unitary power means that the legislature has the power of the judiciary, legislature and executive but chooses to delegate these powers to other institutions. In communist states,
52685-432: The people should, can, or cannot do." These legal developments were echoed in later years in Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. This has led to the development of the communist concept of socialist rule of law, which runs parallel to, and is distinct from, the liberal term of the same name. In the last years, this emphasis on the constitution as both a legal document and a paper which documents society's development has been noted by
52942-475: The people. It demonstrated in practice that in socialist Albania the people are the masters, that nothing is done against their will." The numerous testimonies of those who suffered under the religious persecution of this era, however, casts serious doubts into how "free and fruitful" the thrashing out of opinions in this grand debate were, and consequently as critics of the regime would argue, the genuinely socialist character of Albania's socialist democracy. During
53199-425: The period. In 2012, the Sahel drought put more than 10 million people in the western Sahel at risk of famine (according to a Methodist Relief & Development Fund (MRDF) aid expert), due to a month-long heat wave. Today, famine is most widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa , but with exhaustion of food resources, overdrafting of groundwater , wars, internal struggles, and economic failure, famine continues to be
53456-545: The political system. In communist states, the social organisations are expected to promote social unity and cohesion, to serve as a link between the government and society and to provide a forum for the recruitment of new communist party members. Historically, the political organisation of many socialist states has been dominated by a one-party monopoly. Some communist governments such as those in China , Czechoslovakia , or East Germany have or had more than one political party, but all minor parties are or were required to follow
53713-429: The poor, and price regulation, as part of a state guarantee of subsistence to the peasantry (known as ming-sheng ). However the Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s disrupted the granary relief system such that 1850 to 1873 saw the population of China drop by over 30 million people from early deaths and missing births. When a stressed monarchy shifted from state management and direct shipments of grain to monetary charity in
53970-536: The poor. Addressing food scarcity requires sustainable agricultural practices, improved food distribution systems, and coordinated global efforts to alleviate poverty and inequality. The cyclical occurrence of famine has been a mainstay of societies engaged in subsistence agriculture since the dawn of agriculture itself. The frequency and intensity of famine has fluctuated throughout history, depending on changes in food demand, such as population growth , and supply-side shifts caused by changing climatic conditions. In
54227-466: The population in areas such as ethnicity and language , "yet with occupations distributed in a manner skewed towards government officials." Unlike in liberal democracies, legislatures of communist states are not to act as a forum for conveying demands or interest articulation—they meet too infrequently for this to be the case. This might explain why communist states have not developed terms such as delegates and trustees to give legislature representatives
54484-441: The power grid; increasing agricultural output ; and improving transportation . The government began a program of rapid industrialization after the APL's Second Party Congress and a campaign of collectivization of farmland in 1955. At the time, private farms still produced about 87% of Albania's agricultural output, but by 1960 the same percentage came from collective or state farms. Soviet-Albanian relations remained warm during
54741-448: The power to vote according to their best judgement or in the interest of their constituency. Scholar Daniel Nelson has noted: "As with the British parliament before the seventeenth-century turmoil secured its supremacy, legislative bodies in communist states physically portray the 'realm' ruled by (to stretch an analogy) 'kings'. Members of the assemblies 'represent' the population to whom the rulers speak and over whom they govern, convening
54998-436: The premise that the communist party is a vanguard of the proletariat and represents the long-term interests of the people. The doctrine of democratic centralism , developed by Vladimir Lenin as a set of principles to be used in the internal affairs of the communist party, is extended to society at large. According to democratic centralism, the people must elect all leaders, and all proposals must be debated openly, but once
55255-445: The price of bread artificially high. The famine situation worsened during 1846 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in that year did little to help the starving Irish; the measure split the Conservative Party, leading to the fall of Peel's ministry. In March, Peel set up a programme of public works in Ireland. Despite this promising start, the measures undertaken by Peel's successor, Lord John Russell , proved comparatively "inadequate" as
55512-471: The process. Collectivisation undermined incentives for the investment of labor and resources in agriculture; unrealistic plans for decentralized metal production sapped needed labor; unfavorable weather conditions; and communal dining halls encouraged overconsumption of available food. Such was the centralized control of information and the intense pressure on party cadres to report only good news—such as production quotas met or exceeded—that information about
55769-420: The proletariat. About 1,500,000 people, practically the entire adult population of the country, participated in the meetings which were held, and about 300,000 people contributed to the discussion... The great popular discussion, characterized by a free and fruitful thrashing out of opinions, by lively and constructive debate, was a clear expression of our socialist democracy in action and the genuine sovereignty of
56026-440: The prolonged drought, which lasted roughly 2 years. In 1992 Somalia became a war zone with no effective government, police, or basic services after the collapse of the dictatorship led by Siad Barre and the split of power between warlords. This coincided with a massive drought, causing over 300,000 Somalis to perish. Since the start of the 21st century, more effective early warning and humanitarian response actions have reduced
56283-489: The purpose of inculcating the scientific materialist world outlook in people" and Article 55 explicitly forbade the formation of "any type of organization of a fascist, anti-democratic, religious, and anti-socialist character" and stated that "Fascist, anti-democratic, religious , war-mongering, and anti-socialist activities and propaganda, as well as the incitement of national and racial hatred are prohibited." On 1 November 1977, Enver Hoxha claimed in his Report submitted to
56540-484: The recently independent Asian and African states, and in 1971 it normalised relations with Yugoslavia and Greece . Albania's leaders abhorred the contacts of China with the United States in the early 1970s, and its press and radio ignored President Richard Nixon 's trip to Beijing in 1972 . Albania actively worked to reduce its dependence on China by diversifying trade and improving diplomatic and cultural relations, especially with Western Europe . But Albania shunned
56797-463: The remote mountains. In addition, the government attacked dissident writers and artists, reformed its educational system, and generally reinforced Albania's isolation from European culture in an effort to keep out foreign influences. After the 5th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and Enver Hoxha's speech on 6 February 1967, the authorities launched a violent campaign to extinguish religious life in Albania , claiming that religion had divided
57054-475: The rescue. After additional sharp exchanges between Soviet and Chinese delegates over Albania at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Twenty-Second Party Congress in October 1961, Khrushchev lambasted the Albanians for executing an allegedly pregnant, pro-Soviet member of the Albanian party Politburo Liri Gega , and the Soviet Union finally broke diplomatic relations with Albania in December. Moscow then withdrew all Soviet economic advisers and technicians from
57311-399: The river valleys." The first documentation of weather in West-Central Africa occurred around the mid-16th to 17th centuries in areas such as Luanda Kongo, however, not much data was recorded on the issues of weather and disease except for a few notable documents. The only records obtained are of violence between Portuguese and Africans during the Battle of Mbwila in 1665. In these documents
57568-416: The road to communism", "to build the material and technical basis of communism" and "to perfect socialist social relations and transform them into communist relations" in the preamble. The people's democratic state was implemented in Eastern Europe after World War II. It can be defined as a state and society in which feudal vestiges have been liquidated and where the system of private ownership exists, but
57825-519: The same date, drought and economic crisis combined with denials of any food shortage by the then-government of President Gaafar Nimeiry , to create a crisis that killed perhaps 250,000 people—and helped bring about a popular uprising that overthrew Nimeiry. Numerous factors make the food security situation in Africa tenuous, including political instability, armed conflict and civil war , corruption and mismanagement in handling food supplies, and trade policies that harm African agriculture. An example of
58082-438: The slowly growing crisis of pastoralism in Africa, which has seen livestock herding decline as a viable way of life over the last two generations. Famines occurred in Sudan in the late-1970s and again in 1990 and 1998. The 1980 famine in Karamoja , Uganda was, in terms of mortality rates, one of the worst in history. 21% of the population died, including 60% of the infants. In the 1980s, large scale multilayer drought occurred in
58339-400: The socialist state is the last repressive state since the next stage of development is that of pure communism , a classless and stateless society. Friedrich Engels commented on the state, writing: "State interference in social relations, becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by
58596-451: The socialist state was necessary "in order to defend, to secure, and to develop relationships and arrangements advantageous to the workers, and to annihilate completely capitalism and its remnants." Ideology permeates these states. According to scholar Peter Tang, "[t]he supreme test of whether a Communist Party-state remains revolutionarily dedicated or degenerates into a revisionist or counterrevolutionary system lies in its attitude toward
58853-408: The state to oppress other classes and form a class dictatorship. However, the goal of the communist state is to abolish that state. The Soviet Russia Constitution of 1918 stated: "The principal object of the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R., which is adapted to the present transition period, consists in the establishment of a dictatorship of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry, in
59110-407: The state-owned enterprises in the field of industry, transport, and credit eclipse it. In the words of Eugene Varga , "the state itself and its apparatus of violence serve the interests, not of the monopolistic bourgeoisie, but of the toilers of town and country." Soviet philosopher N. P. Farberov stated: "People's democracy in the people's republics is a democracy of the toiling classes, headed by
59367-698: The sweeping changes to agriculture occurred. Famine still occurred in other parts of Europe, however. In Eastern Europe , famines occurred as late as the twentieth century. Because of the severity of famine, it was a chief concern for governments and other authorities. In pre-industrial Europe, preventing famine, and ensuring timely food supplies, was one of the chief concerns of many governments, although they were severely limited in their options due to limited levels of external trade, infrastructure, and bureaucracy generally too rudimentary to effect real relief. Most governments were concerned by famine because it could lead to revolt and other forms of social disruption. By
59624-426: The term socialist republic into its name during this period; it had become a people's republic in 1948, but the country had not used that term in its official name. Albania used both terms in its official name from 1976 to 1991. The concept of the national-democratic state tried to theorize how a state could develop socialism by bypassing the capitalist mode of production . While Vladimir Lenin first articulated
59881-408: The theory of non-capitalist development, the novelty of this concept was applying it to the progressive elements of the national liberation movements in the Third World . The term national-democratic state was introduced shortly after the death of Stalin , who believed colonies to be mere lackeys of Western imperialism and that the socialist movement had few prospects there. The countries where
60138-473: The time , it declared itself the world's first atheist state in 1967, but after the fall of communism in Albania in 1991, the practice of religion slowly increased. It was the only Warsaw Pact member to formally withdraw from the alliance before 1990, an action which was occasioned by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The government implemented reforms which were aimed at modernizing Albania, and they resulted in significant gains in
60395-407: The two Albanian leaders. Tirana soon came under pressure from Moscow to copy, at least formally, the new Soviet model for collective leadership . In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's prime minister. The Soviet Union, responding with an effort to raise
60652-529: The unitary legislatures often have a similar structure to the parliaments in liberal republics , with two significant differences. First, the deputies elected to these unitary legislatures are not expected to represent the interests of any particular constituency but rather the long-term interests of the people as a whole; and second, against Karl Marx 's advice, the unitary legislatures of communist states are not in permanent session. Instead, they convene once or several times yearly in sessions that usually last only
60909-521: The universal laws governing human history towards communism. In Foundations of Leninism (1924), Joseph Stalin wrote that "the proletariat [working class] needs the Party first of all as its General Staff, which it must have for the successful seizure of power. [...] But the proletariat needs the Party not only to achieve the [class] dictatorship; it needs it still more to maintain the [class] dictatorship." The current Constitution of Vietnam states in Article 4 that "[t]he Communist Party of Vietnam ,
61166-519: The universal truths of Marxism–Leninism and reject other notions of socialism such as African socialism . The socialist-oriented states had seven defining features, namely, they were revolutionary democracies, had a revolutionary-democratic party, class dictatorship, defense of the socialist-oriented states, had organs of socialisation, initiated socialist construction, and the type of socialist-oriented state (either national-democratic or people's democratic). The political goal of revolutionary democracy
61423-444: The vanguard of the Vietnamese working class, simultaneously the vanguard of the toiling people and of the Vietnamese nation, the faithful representative of the interests of the working class, the toiling people, and the whole nation, acting upon the Marxist–Leninist doctrine and Ho Chi Minh 's thought, is the leading force of the state and society." In a similar form, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) describes itself as "the vanguard of
61680-419: The veil of censorship began to lift. The exact number of famine deaths during 1958–1961 is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 18 million to at least 42 million people, with a further 30 million cancelled or delayed births. It was only when the famine had wrought its worst that Mao reversed agricultural collectivisation policies, which were effectively dismantled in 1978. China has not experienced
61937-463: The work at home and they also did most of the work in the fields. Before World War II, about 90% of Albania's women were illiterate, and in many areas, they were regarded as chattel under ancient tribal laws and customs. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, the party encouraged women to take jobs outside the home in an effort to compensate for labor shortages and overcome their conservatism . Hoxha himself proclaimed that anyone who trampled on
62194-413: The working class, a broad and full democracy for the overwhelming majority of the people, that is, a socialist democracy in its character and its trend. In this sense, we call it popular." The people's republican state is a socialist state with a republican constitution. Although the term initially became associated with populist movements in the 19th century, such as the German Völkisch movement and
62451-430: The world are in China , Cuba , Laos , Vietnam , and North Korea (DPRK) . These communist states often do not claim to have achieved socialism or communism in their countries but to be building and working toward the establishment of socialism in their countries. The preamble to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's Constitution states that Vietnam only entered a transition stage between capitalism and socialism after
62708-477: The world's first atheistic state , a feat which was trumpeted as one of Enver Hoxha's greatest achievements. While the Albanian Constitution had formally guaranteed freedom of religion to the Albanian people right up until that time, religious freedom was virtually non-existent after 1967. The 1976 Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania later stipulated in Article 37 that "The state recognizes no religion whatever and supports atheist propaganda for
62965-519: The year 1888 is remembered as the worst famine in history, on account of these factors and also the exactions imposed by the Mahdist state . The oral traditions of the Himba people recall two droughts from 1910 to 1917. From 1910 to 1911 the Himba described the drought as "drought of the omutati seed", also called omangowi , the fruit of an unidentified vine that people ate during the time period. From 1914 to 1916, droughts brought katur' ombanda or kari' ombanda 'the time of eating clothing'. For
63222-415: Was Czechoslovakia, where it had a president and not a collective head of state. Another exception was in Bulgaria, where the State Council was empowered to instruct the Council of Ministers. In every communist state, the judicial and procuratorial bodies are organs of the legislature. For instance, China's Supreme People's Court is the "legislative organ of governance that manages the judicial system in
63479-409: Was assassinated the very next day and his death framed as a suicide. The insignificance of Albania's standing in the communist world was clearly highlighted when the emerging Eastern European nations did not invite the Party of Labour of Albania to the September 1947 founding meeting of the Cominform . Rather, Yugoslavia represented Albania at Cominform meetings. Although the Soviet Union gave Albania
63736-538: Was constitutionally powerful, it lacked enforcement powers, it was often ignored, and it failed to defend the constitution during the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev . The Chinese leadership has argued against establishing any corresponding constitutional supervisory committee due to their association with the failed communist states of Europe. None of the surviving communist states (China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam) have experimented with constitutional supervision committees or constitutional supervision of any kind outside
63993-442: Was defined as three successive years of crop failure , crop yields of one-third or one-half normal, and large populations in distress. "Famine" further included a rise in food prices above 140% of "normal", the movement of people in search of food, and widespread mortality. The Commission identified that the loss of wages from lack of employment of agricultural labourers and artisans were the cause of famines. The Famine Code applied
64250-523: Was first noted in March 2024, a 30 September report released for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IFSPC) officially declared the presence of famine in Haiti as a consequence of gang conflict preventing transport of food while also preventing civilians from being able to find food outside of their homes. In the mid-22nd century BC, a sudden and short-lived climatic change that caused reduced rainfall resulted in several decades of drought in Upper Egypt . The resulting famine and civil strife
64507-633: Was in the farmer's interest to produce as much as possible on their land in order to sell it to areas that demanded that product. They produced guaranteed surpluses of their crop every year if they could. Subsistence peasants were also increasingly forced to commercialize their activities because of increasing taxes . Taxes that had to be paid to central governments in money forced the peasants to produce crops to sell. Sometimes they produced industrial crops , but they would find ways to increase their production in order to meet both their subsistence requirements as well as their tax obligations. Peasants also used
64764-403: Was introduced in all communist states. The Supreme Soviet convened twice a year, usually for two or three days each, making it one of the world's first frequently-convened legislatures during its existence. The same meeting frequency was the norm in the Eastern Bloc countries and modern-day China. China's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is modelled on the Soviet one. As with
65021-407: Was often lackluster. The initial response of the British government to the early phase of the famine was "prompt and relatively successful", according to F. S. L. Lyons . Confronted by widespread crop failure in the autumn of 1845, Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel purchased £100,000 worth of maize and cornmeal secretly from America. Baring Brothers & Co initially acted as purchasing agents for
65278-399: Was organized by Bob Geldof and featured more than 20 pop stars. The Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia raised even more funds for the cause. Hundreds of thousands of people died within one year as a result of the famine, but the publicity Live Aid generated encouraged Western nations to make available enough surplus grain to end the immediate hunger crisis in Africa. Some of
65535-421: Was reported on television reports around the world, carrying footage of starving Ethiopians whose plight was centered around a feeding station near the town of Korem . This stimulated the first mass movements to end famine across the world. BBC newsreader Michael Buerk gave moving commentary of the tragedy on 23 October 1984, which he described as a "biblical famine". This prompted the Band Aid single, which
65792-450: Was responsible for formulating defence policies. The party leader was ex officio the Chairman of the Council of Defense. Below the Council of Defense, there was the Main Military Council which was responsible for the strategic direction and leadership of the Soviet armed forces. The working organ of the Council of Defense was the General Staff tasked with analysing military and political situations as they developed. The party controlled
66049-434: Was the first to experiment with constitutional supervision when it established a Constitutional Committee in 1965. It was elected by the legislature, and leading jurists sat on the committee, but it was only empowered to advise the legislature. Keith Hand has commented that "[i]t was not an effective institution in practice", being unable to prevent Nicolae Ceausescu 's emasculation of Romania's Great National Assembly after
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