Authoritarian socialism is best understood through an examination of its developmental history, allowing for the analysis and comparison of its various global examples. Although authoritarian socialism was by no means restricted to the Soviet Union, its ideological development occurred in tandem with the Stalinist regimes. As the Soviet Union was a developmental model for many socialist states in the post-World War II era, Soviet authoritarian socialism was adopted by a diverse range of states and continued to develop well into the 20th century in the Middle East and North African regions. Those regions, characterized by authoritarian traits such as uncontested party leadership, restricted civil liberties and strong unelected officials with non-democratic influence on policy, share many commonalities with the Soviet Union. Authoritarian socialist states were ideologically Marxist–Leninist (the
state ideology of the Soviet Union that arose in Imperial Russia within the
Bolshevik faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) or one of its variants such as Maoism, among other national variants and updating, following the Soviet developmental model. While those socialist states saw themselves as a form of democracy opposed to that of Western states and claimed to be workers and peasants' states or people's democratic republics, The implementation of authoritarian forms of socialism was accomplished with a dogmatized ideology reinforced by terror and violence. The combination of those external controls served to implement a normality within an authoritarian country that seemed like illusion or madness to someone removed from its political atmosphere. Other countries such as Cuba and Vietnam followed the Chinese development in applying economic reforms while maintaining centralised political control. They also include Chinese allies such as the Philippines and Thailand, who were not authoritarian socialist regimes, but are now favouring the
Beijing Consensus over the
Washington Consensus followed by Eastern European countries. Rather than moving in the direction of
democratic capitalism followed by the majority of Eastern European countries, China and its allies, including Hungary, Nicaragua, Russia, Singapore, Turkey and Venezuela, are described as
authoritarian capitalist regimes.
Soviet Union Despite the Marxian basis of Vladimir Lenin's socialism, the realities of his system were in direct opposition to Karl Marx's belief in the emancipation and autonomy of the working class. Those contradictions stemmed primarily from Lenin's implementation of a vanguard or regimented party of committed revolutionaries "who knew exactly what history's mandate was and who were prepared to be its self-ordained custodians". The function of this party was meant to be primarily transitional, given that Lenin believed that the working class was politically unprepared for rule and Russia was not yet industrially poised for socialism. Lenin adopted state-capitalist policies. On seeing the Soviet Union's growing coercive power in 1923, a dying Lenin said Russia had reverted to "a
bourgeois tsarist machine [...] barely varnished with socialism". Marx coined the term
barracks communism () to refer to a form of authoritarian socialism in which all aspects of life are bureaucratically regimented and communal. Originally, Marx used the expression to criticize the vision of
Sergey Nechayev outlined in
The Fundamentals of the Future Social System The term itself did not refer to
military barracks, but rather to the workers' barracks-type primitive dormitories in which industrial workers lived in many places in the
Russian Empire of the time. Political theorists of the Soviet Union later applied the term to China under Mao Zedong. and then confirmed it in the
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Lenin did not call the Soviet Union a socialist state, nor did he claim that it had achieved socialism. While Stalin's colleagues described him as Asiatic and Stalin himself told a Japanese journalist that "I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian", Lenin identified ethnically as Russian, believed that other European countries, especially Germany, were culturally superior to Russia which he described as "one of the most benighted, medieval and shamefully backward of Asian countries". From his youth, Lenin had wanted Russia to become more culturally European and Western. In
his testament, Lenin grow concerned about the rise of the bureaucracy and proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies. He also made criticism of several Bolshevik leaders, including Stalin and
Leon Trotsky, warning of the possibility of a split developing in the party leadership between Trotsky and Stalin if proper measures were not taken to prevent it. In a post-script, Lenin suggested Stalin be removed from his position as
General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party's
Central Committee.
Isaac Deutscher, a biographer of both Trotsky and Stalin, argued that "[t]he whole testament breathed uncertainty". Leninist socialists remain divided in their views on Stalin. Some view him as Lenin's authentic successor while others believe he betrayed Lenin's ideas by deviating from them. The socio-economic nature of Stalin's Soviet Union has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of
bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism, state socialism or a totally unique
mode of production.
Vladimir Lenin Marx chronicled a history of development through a capitalist age of industrialization that resulted in the manipulation of the
working class. This development culminated in the empowerment of a
proletariat which could benefit from the fruits of industrialization without being exploited. Although he meant his ideology to appeal to the disenfranchised working class of an industrialized society, it was widely accepted by developing countries that had yet to successfully industrialize. This resulted in stagnant economies and socialist states without the necessary organization and structure to industrialize. Seeing the failure of those models, Lenin concluded that socialism in Russia had to be constructed from above through party dictatorship that appealed to both the working class and peasants. Because the working class accounted for only 15% of the population, Lenin was forced to appeal to the much greater peasant class (accounting for nearly 80%) to propel the Bolshevik faction of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that under Lenin eventually became the
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) due to a split within social democracy. The Bolsheviks promised "Bread, Peace, and Land" to the peasants and delivered, redistributing land from the landlords and increasing the number of farms in Russia from 427,000 in 1917 to 463,000 in 1919. For some, Lenin's legacy was one of violent terror and concentration of power in the hands of few. Lenin intentionally employed violence as a means to manipulate the population and tolerated absolutely no opposition, arguing that it was "a great deal better to 'discuss with rifles' than with the theses of the opposition". He worked for the ideological destruction of society as a whole so that it could easily adopt the rhetoric and political ideals of the ruling party. Lenin's use of terror (instilled by a secret police apparatus) to exact social obedience, mass murder and disappearance, censoring of communications and absence of justice was only reinforced by his successor Joseph Stalin. In contrast to those who support this thesis, others have disputed this characterization and separated Lenin from Stalin and Leninism from Stalinism. A controversial figure, Lenin remains both reviled and revered, a figure who has been both idolised and demonised. This has extended into academic studies of Lenin and
Leninism which have often been polarised along political lines. While there have been both sympathetic and expressly hostile Lenin's biographies, some sought to avoid making either hostile or positive comments about Lenin, thereby evading politicized stereotypes. Some Marxist activists, who defend both the
October Revolution and
soviet democracy, emphasise how the Bolsheviks wanted to avoid terror and argue that the
Red Terror was born in response to the
White Terror which has been downplayed. Lenin has been variously described as "the century's most significant political leader", "one of the undeniably outstanding figures of modern history" and one of the 20th century's "principal actors" as well as "one of the most widespread, universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century" and "one of the most significant and influential figures of modern history". Some historians have characterized Lenin's administration as totalitarian or a
police state; with Lenin as its dictator, although noting differences between Lenin and Stalin in that under the first there was a dictatorship of the party and under the latter that of one man. Acknowledging this inadequacy, Stalin ordered that resources slotted for consumption be redirected to production or exported as a temporary sacrifice on the part of the population for the sake of rapid growth. The model was successful initially, with ideology and nationalism promoting morale despite shortages in resources such as food and construction materials for housing. Presumably, the exploited classes believed that once the rapid and successful industrialization of Russia had taken place, power would be relinquished by the
vanguard party and communism would ensue. However, Stalin continued to demand even more far-reaching sacrifices. Because of his control over both political and economic arenas which historians argue gave his vanguard party an amount of control surpassing that of
Russia's tzars or emperors, citizens were unwilling to challenge his decrees, given that aspects of their lives such as medical care, housing and social freedoms could be restricted according to the discretion of the party. Despite failures, Stalin's expectations remained uncontested by the working class and the model was adopted by a multitude of emerging socialist states during that era. The Soviet attempt to
collectivize agriculture, transforming the Soviet Union from one of the world's largest exporters of grain to the world's largest importer of grain, was widely replicated despite its failure. Many historians claim that extermination was the fate of a wide variety of people during Stalin's regime such as political opponents, ideological rivals, suspect party members, accused military officers, kulaks, lower-class families, former members of the societal elites, ethnic groups, religious groups and the relatives and sympathizers of these offenders. Those deaths occurred as a result of collectivization, famine, terror campaigns, disease, war and mortality rates in the Gulag. As the majority of excess deaths under Stalin were not direct killings, the exact number of victims of Stalinism is difficult to calculate due to lack of consensus among scholars on which deaths can be attributed to Stalin. However, it is far lower than the estimates of 20 million or above which were made before access to the archives. Regarding the Holodomor, part of the greater
Soviet famine of 1932–1933, the consensus argues that while Stalin's policies contributed significantly to the high mortality rate, it rejects the view that Stalin or the Soviet government consciously engineered the famine. It has been argued that Stalin's "purposive killings" fit more closely into the category of "execution" rather than "murder", given he thought the accused were indeed guilty of crimes against the state and insisted on documentation. Among the
anti-Stalinist left and
anti-communist Russians and Westerners, Stalin's legacy is largely negative, with the Soviet Union under him characterised as a totalitarian state and Stalin as its authoritarian leader. Various biographers have described Stalin as a
dictator, an
autocrat, an
Oriental despot, described as "one of the most notorious figures in history" and possessing "that rare combination: both 'intellectual' and killer", the "ultimate politician" and the "most elusive and fascinating of the twentieth-century titans" as well as "one of the most powerful figures in human history", Stalin later built a "personal dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship", concentrated an "unprecedented political authority in his hands" and has been described as "closer to personal despotism than almost any monarch in history". Others argued that the campaigns of terror organized by Stalin were driven by his fear of counter-revolution. Other historians and scholars cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes" that portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent
tyrant who controlled every aspect of Soviet life through
repression and totalitarianism, noting that "powerful though he was, his powers were not limitless" and that Stalin's rule depended on his willingness to conserve the Soviet structure he had inherited. It has been observed that Stalin's ability to remain in power relied on him having a majority in the
Politburo at all times. It was noted that at various points, especially in his later years, there were "periodic manifestations" in which the party oligarchy threatened his autocratic control. Stalin denied to foreign visitors that he was a dictator, stating that those who labelled him as such did not understand the Soviet governance structure. as Cold War concepts that focus upon the upper levels of society and which use have obscured the reality of the system. Others further noted how the concept became prominent in Western anti-communist political discourse during the Cold War era as a tool to convert pre-war
anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the release of the archives, some of the heat has gone out of the debate and politicization has been reduced. It has been argued that the Soviet political system was not completely controlled from the center and that both Lenin and Stalin only responded to political events as they arose. Some also questioned the previously published findings that Stalin organized himself the murder of
Sergey Kirov to justify his campaign of Great Terror. Others stated that mass deaths from famines are not a "uniquely Stalinist evil" and compared the behavior of the Stalinist regime vis-à-vis the Holodomor to that of the
British Empire (towards Ireland and India) and even the
G8 in contemporary times, arguing that the latter "are guilty of mass manslaughter or mass deaths from criminal negligence because of their not taking obvious measures to reduce mass deaths" and that a possible defense of Stalin and his associates is that "their behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries". Despite the criticism, Stalin has been considered an outstanding and exceptional politician as mortality rates also declined. Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. Citing those achievements and highlighting crimes committed by the Western world and its leaders during the colonization and imperialist period as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century whilst arguing that Stalin's hatred came mainly from
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's
Secret Speech read during the
20th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, some have attempted to rehabilitate Stalin and its legacy, or otherwise gave a more neutral and nuanced view. However, those attempts have been criticized and most of its authors labelled as
neo-Stalinists. In the 21st century, more than half of Russians view Stalin positively and many support restoration of his monuments either dismantled by leaders or destroyed by rioting Russians during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Stalin's popularity has tripled among Russians in the last twenty years and the trend accelerated since
Vladimir Putin, who has been described as holding
neo-Soviet views, has come to power.
China Following the fall of the elite,
land-owning class of the early 20th century, China began its
Communist Revolution through the countryside. As relationships between agrarian masses and state-controlled programs splintered, the
Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong began seizing power. In his 1949 essay ''On People's Democratic Dictatorship'', Mao committed himself and the Chinese state to the creation of a strong state power with increased economic control. With the aggressive failure of his
Cultural Revolution, Chinese support for the party and for Mao waned. Continuing struggles after his death would undermine his socialist system, allowing a more democratic yet still one-party ruled system to continue into today. As there is little agreement over his legacy both in China and abroad, Mao is a controversial figure who has been regarded as one of the most important and influential individuals in modern world history. Supporters credit Mao with driving imperialism out of China, modernizing the nation and building it into a
world power, promoting the status of women and improving education and health care as well as increasing life expectancy as China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million under his leadership, among other achievements. Conversely, his regime has been called
autocratic and totalitarian and condemned for bringing about mass repression and destroying religious and cultural artifacts and sites. It was additionally responsible for vast numbers of deaths, with estimates ranging from 30 to 70 million victims through starvation, prison labour and mass executions. While some critics argue that Mao was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies, or that he was well aware that his policies would be responsible for the deaths of millions, others have disputed this. Praised as a political intellect, theorist, military strategist, poet and visionary, Mao has been variously described as a "great historical criminal", "both monster and a genius", who was also "a great force for good", a "great leader in history" and a "great criminal" as well as "one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century", comparable to
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, with a death toll surpassing both. However, others reject those comparisons, arguing that whereas the deaths caused by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were largely systematic and deliberate, the overwhelming majority of the deaths under Mao were unintended consequences of famine, noting that the
landlord class was not exterminated as a people due to his belief in redemption through thought reform. Mao has been compared to 19th-century Chinese reformers who challenged China's traditional beliefs in the era of China's clashes with
Western colonial powers as well as to
United States President Andrew Jackson. Similarly, Maoist economics policies are controversial. Supporters argue that life expectancy greatly improved under Mao and that such policies rapidly industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the country's later rise to become an economic superpower. Critics argue that policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were impediments to industrialization and modernization that delayed economic development and claim that
China's economy underwent its rapid growth only after Maoist policies had been widely abandoned. All in all, both supporters and critics alike generally agree that the human cost has been staggering. While believing in
democratic centralism, where party decisions are brought about by scrutiny and debate and then are binding upon all members of the party once implemented, Mao did not accept dissenters to the party's decisions. Those states were progressive in terms of the colonial development that had occurred thus far. They allowed important political and economic gains to be made by workers, encouraged land redistribution, unseated oligarchical political powers and implemented
import-substituting industrialisation development strategies. other socialists argued that the
neo-Ba'athists promoted capitalists from within the party and outside their countries.
Resistance to democratisation A great deal of debate has been paid by the field of comparative politics to how the Arab region was able to avoid the
third wave of democratisation. A number of arguments have been offered by professionals in the field, ranging from a discussion of prerequisites for
democratisation not supported by the
Arab culture to a lack of democratic actors initiating the necessary democratic transition. Marsha Pripstein Posusney argues that the "patriarchal and tribal mentality of the culture is an impediment to the development of pluralist values", rendering Arab citizens prone to accept patriarchal leaders and lacking the national unity that many argue is necessary for democratization to be successful. Eva Bellin concedes that the prevalence of
Islam is a distinguishing factor of the region and therefore must contribute to the region's exceptionalism, "given Islam's presumed inhospitality to democracy". In his book
Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, Oliver Schlumberger has argued that there is in fact an international ambivalence toward authoritarianism in the Middle East given that stability is preferred over the uncertainty of democratisation due to the region's oil and gas supplies and the strategic importance of its geopolitical location. While there were few Marxist movements into the continent, Soviet Union activity spurred anti-imperialist and globalization movements from African countries. The congress established
national liberation as the main topic of their sessions, emphasizing the elimination and exploitation by the imperialist powers over authentic national sovereignty. However, they did not establish clear social or political parameters for this new liberation.
Senegal Senegalese President
Leopold Sedar Senghor was among the first and most vocal African advocates for socialism. Before being elected president, Senghor served as one of nine African delegates to the 1945 French Constituent Assembly, negotiating for the transfer of self-governing and policy-making power through locally elected councils. The measure shortly failed, keeping autonomy from the colonies until the
independence movements of the 1960s. After
Senegalese independence in 1960, Senghor's
Union Progresiste Senegalaise, a derivative of the
French Socialist Party, grew massive support throughout the continent. To accomplish this, Nkrumah emphasized the importance of discipline and obedience towards the single socialist party. He argued that if people submitted and accepted the singular party's program, political independence would be possible. Nkrumah saw law as a malleable weapon of political power, not as a product of a complex system of political institutions. The
Asante emerged as a regional force capable political sway. With the power to set the agenda, the authoritarian party often clashed with these emerging regional groups, ultimately undermining the one-party system. The system—called ujaama—became a tool for nationalization of the
Tanzanian people. In the system, all Tanzanains were encouraged to run for office, with no campaign funding allowed. Speeches in the election would not focus on the national issues, but rather on the quality of the individual, each of whom would be closely controlled by TANU. The first wave of elections in the
Tanzanian general election produced a 100% voting rate for TANU officials.
Latin America Socialism of the 21st century is an interpretation of socialist principles first advocated by German sociologist and political analyst
Heinz Dieterich and taken up by a number of
Latin American leaders. Dieterich argued in 1996 that both
free-market industrial capitalism and 20th-century authoritarian socialism have failed to solve urgent problems of
humanity like poverty,
hunger,
exploitation,
economic oppression,
sexism,
racism, the destruction of
natural resources and the absence of a truly
participatory democracy. While having democratic socialist elements, it primarily resembles
Marxist revisionism. Leaders who have advocated for this form of socialism include
Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela,
Néstor Kirchner of
Argentina,
Rafael Correa of
Ecuador,
Evo Morales of
Bolivia and
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of
Brazil. Because of the local unique historical conditions, it is often contrasted with previous applications of socialism in other countries, with a major difference being the effort towards a more decentralised and participatory planning process. According to
Steven Levitsky, only under "the dictatorships of the past [...] were presidents reelected for life", with Levitsky further stating that while Latin America experienced democracy, citizens opposed "indefinite reelection, because of the dictatorships of the past". Levitsky then noted how in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela "reelection is associated with the same problems of 100 years ago". The sustainability and stability of economic reforms associated with governments adhering to such socialism have also been questioned. Latin American countries have primarily financed their
social programs with extractive exports like petroleum, natural gas and minerals, creating a dependency that some economists claim has caused inflation and slowed growth. While some critics say the crisis is caused by socialism or the country's socialist policies, its policies have been described as populist or "hyper-populist" and the crisis has more to do with authoritarianism as well as anti-democratic governance, corruption and mismanagement of the economy. According to analysts and critics alike, the Bolivarian government has used those populist policies in order to maintain political power. Although socialists have welcomed a socialism of the 21st century, they have been skeptical of Latin America's examples and criticized their authoritarian qualities and occasional cults of personality. While citing their progressive role, they argue that the appropriate label for these governments is
populism rather than
socialism. Chávez and Maduro have been compared to Lenin and Stalin, respectively, including Chávez and Lenin's early deaths and the economic problems after their deaths. Maduro, who has joked about his similar appearance and
walrus moustache with Stalin, argued he is not a new Stalin and claimed to be merely following Chávez. Nonetheless, Maduro has been variously described by newspapers such as the
New Statesman and
The Times as the "Stalin of the Caribbean" and the "tropical Stalin", respectively. According to
The Daily Beast, Maduro has embraced the "tropical Stalin" moniker. According to Joshua Kurlantzick, Latin American countries such as Nicaragua and Venezuela have been following the Chinese model and are described as authoritarian capitalist regimes. Chávez campaigned for a constituent assembly and to draft a new constitution, which was approved in 1999. The
1999 Venezuelan constitution eliminated much of Venezuela's
checks and balances, Chávez's government controlled every branch of the Venezuelan government for over 15 years after it passed until the
2015 parliamentary election. The 1999 constitution also brought the military closer to political power, allowing military officers the right to vote, eliminating its apolitical nature, and transferring the function of military promotions of high officers to the president, which in the 1961 constitution was the responsibility of the
Senate. By January 2007, after being reelected in the
2006 presidential election and swearing in as president, Chávez began openly proclaiming the ideology of socialism of the 21st century. The Bolivarian government used "centralized decision-making and a top-down approach to policy formation, the erosion of vertical power-sharing and concentration of power in the presidency, the progressive deinstitutionalization at all levels, and an increasingly paternalist relationship between state and society" in order to hasten changes in Venezuela. In practice, Chávez's administration proposed and enacted
populist economic policies. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created
communal councils and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare and education. Venezuela received high oil profits in the mid-2000s, resulting in improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality and quality of life occurring primarily between 2003 and 2007. However, those gains started to reverse after 2012 and it has been argued that government policies did not address
structural inequalities. On 2 June 2010, Chávez declared an economic war due to
shortages in Venezuela, beginning the
crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela. By the end of Chávez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade such as
deficit spending and
price controls proved to be unsustainable, with the
economy of Venezuela faltering while poverty,
inflation and his government's use of
Bolivarian propaganda were also controversial. On the socialist development in Venezuela, Chávez argued with the second government plan ('''') that "socialism has just begun to implant its internal dynamism among us" whilst acknowledging that "the socio-economic formation that still prevails in Venezuela is
capitalist and rentier". This same thesis is defended by Maduro. In 2015,
The Economist argued that the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela—now under
Nicolás Maduro after
Chávez's death in 2013—was devolving from authoritarianism to dictatorship as opposition politicians were jailed for plotting to undermine the government, violence was widespread and independent media shut down.
Chávez and
Maduro administrations' economic policies led to shortages, a high inflation rate and a dysfunctional economy. The government has attributed Venezuela's economic problems to the decline in oil prices, sanctions imposed by the United States and economic sabotage by the opposition. Western media coverage of Chávez and other Latin American leaders from the 21st-century socialist movement has been criticized as unfair by their supporters and left-leaning media critics. Broadly,
chavismo policies include nationalization,
social welfare programs and
opposition to neoliberalism, particularly the policies of the
International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank. According to Chávez, Venezuelan socialism accepts
private property, but this socialism is a form of social democracy that seeks to promote
social property. In January 2007, Chávez proposed to build the communal state, whose main idea is to build self-government institutions like communal councils, communes and communal cities. While Chávez remained relatively popular throughout his time in office, Maduro suffered unpopularity with the
deterioration of the economy during his tenure and there was a decline of self-identified
chavistas. Despite its socialist rhetoric,
chavismo has been frequently described as being
state capitalist by critics. Critics frequently point towards Venezuela's large private sector. In 2009, roughly 70% of Venezuela's
gross domestic product was created by the private sector. According to Asa Cusack, an expert on Latin America and frequent contributor to
mainstream media, Venezuela's economy remained "market-based and private-sector dominated" throughout Chávez's time in office. Although "the social economy and the public sector were heavily promoted", for example through nationalization, "the private sector was expected to remain dominant, and it did. A centrally planned socialist economy like Cuba's was neither the aim nor the reality".
Chavismo has been widely discussed in the media. According to Kirk A. Hawkins, scholars are generally divided into two camps, namely a liberal-democratic one that sees
chavismo as an instance of
democratic backsliding and a
radical-democratic one that upholds
chavismo as the fulfillment of its aspirations for participatory democracy. Hawkins argues that the most important division between these two groups is neither methodological nor theoretical, but ideological. It is a division over basic normative views of democracy, i.e.
liberalism versus
radicalism. Scholars in the first camp tended to adhere to a
classical liberal ideology that valued procedural democracy (competitive elections,
widespread participation defined primarily in terms of voting and
civil liberties) as the political means best suited to achieving human welfare. They saw
chavismo in a mostly negative light as a case of democratic backsliding or even competitive authoritarianism or electoral authoritarian regime. On the other hand, scholars in the second camp generally adhered to a classical socialist ideology that mistrusted market institutions in either the state or the economy. Although accepting the importance of liberal-democratic institutions, they saw procedural democracy as insufficient to ensure political inclusion and emphasized participatory forms of democracy and collective worker ownership in the economy. == Criticism ==