This is mostly a category note for keeping track of communist movements in the 20th century.

History

Although there were social democraticparties in Germany and Russia at the start of the 20th century, the first proper "communist" movement could have been the Soviet Unionborn out of the 1917 October Revolution led by the Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks

With the failure of the German Revolution the Soviet Union was the only major communist power in the world until the end of the Second World War where the Soviets established a "buffer zone" between it and western Europe, creating the Eastern Blocof powers, establishing about a dozen "people's republics#34;. Yugoslaviawas the only one of these countries that had an independent socialist movement separate from the Soviet Union.

In 1947, Chinasaw its own independent revolution communist revolution, creating the People's Republic of Chinaunder Mao Zedong

In 1959, the Cuban Revolutionled to the establishment of the Republic of Cuba under Fidel Castro Although the movement did not start as a communist one, it came to embrace communism and the leadership of the Soviet Union.

The Cuban Revolution was the last major communist revolution in the 20th century. Koreaand Vietnamalso had communist movements and their attempts at revolution lead to protracted engagements with the United States which spent much of the 20th century undermining communist movements.

Ideology

Many of these states can be broadly described as Marxist-Leninist following the same ideological line as the Soviet Union Exceptions include China, which could be described for some parts of it as "Maoist#34;.

Characteristics of people's republics