Not Poetry...Communist State Govt. Form Poem by Rommel Mark Dominguez Marchan

In political science, a Communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule[citation needed] of a Communist party and a professed allegiance to a communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state. Communist states may have several legal political parties, but the Communist party is usually granted a special or dominant role in government, [citation needed] often by statute or under the constitution. Consequently, the institutions of the state and of the Communist party become intimately entwined, such as in the development of parallel institutions.

While almost all claim lineage to Marxist thought, there are many varieties of Communist states, with indigenous adaptions. For Marxist-Leninists, the state and the Communist Party claim to act in accordance with the wishes of the industrial working class; for Maoists, the state and party claim to act in accordance to the peasantry. Under Deng Xiaoping, the People's Republic of China proclaimed a policy of 'socialism with Chinese characteristics.' In most Communist states, governments assert that they represent the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.

Most Communist states adopted planned economies. However, there are exceptions: The Soviet Union during the 1920s and Yugoslavia after World War II allowed limited markets and a degree of worker self-management, while China and Vietnam have introduced far-reaching market reforms since the 1980s.