State Socialism on the 12 Axes

The idea took shape in the nineteenth century with thinkers such as Louis Blanc and Ferdinand Lassalle, who wanted the state to fund workers' cooperatives and take over key industries. In the twentieth century it described economies where the government owned heavy industry, banks, transport and utilities, from the Soviet bloc to postcolonial states such as Nasser's Egypt, with their national planning commissions and five-year plans. State socialism is defined by its method rather than by a revolutionary theory: it can arrive through elections, a military coup or a single party. It is less tied to Marxist doctrine and world revolution than Leninism, more centralized than democratic socialism, and far from anarchism and libertarian socialism, which want ownership by workers and communities rather than by the state.

• Leninism 77%Leninism is the theory and practice of Vladimir Lenin: a disciplined vanguard party leads a revolution, takes state power and builds socialism through a dictatorship of the proletariat.
• State Capitalism 76%State capitalism is an economic system in which the state owns or controls major companies and directs markets toward national goals, often under a single-party or strongly centralized government.
• Maoism 71%Maoism is the version of Marxism-Leninism developed by Mao Zedong, which places the peasantry at the center of revolution and relies on protracted people's war and constant mass mobilization.
• Stalinism 67%Stalinism is the system of rule associated with Joseph Stalin: socialism in one country, rapid state-led industrialization, collectivized agriculture and total political control by one leader and party.