Post-communism

Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economies. In 1989–1992, communist party governance collapsed in most communist party-governed states. After severe hardships the communist parties retained control in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Yugoslavia fell into parts that plunged into a long complex series of wars between ethnic groups. Soviet-oriented communist movements collapsed in countries where it was not in control. The policies of most Communist parties in both the Eastern and Western Bloc had been governed by the example of the Soviet Union. In most countries in the Eastern Bloc following the Revolutions of 1989 and the fall of communist-led governments, the communist parties split in two factions: a reformist social democratic party and a new less reformist-oriented communist party. The newly created social democratic parties were generally larger and more powerful than the remaining communist parties—only in Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Tajikistan the communist parties remained a significant force. In the Western Bloc, many of the self-styled communist parties reacted by changing their policies to a more moderate and less radical course. In countries such as Italy and reunited Germany, post-communism is marked by the increased influence of their existing social democrats. The anti-Soviet communist parties in the Western Bloc (e.g. the Trotskyist parties) who felt that the dissolution of the Soviet Union vindicated their views and predictions did not particularly prosper from it—in fact, some became less radical as well. Several communist states had undergone economic reforms from a planned economy towards a more market-oriented economy in the 1980s, notably Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The post-communist economic transition was much more abrupt and aimed at creating fully capitalist economies.