People's democratic state in the context of "Communist Czechoslovakia"

The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, (Czech and Slovak: Československá socialistická republika, ČSSR) known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic (Československá republika), Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, or simply Czechoslovakia, was the Czechoslovak state from 1948 until 1989, when the country was under communist rule, and was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest.

Following the coup d'état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power with the support of the Soviet Union, the country was declared a "people's democratic state" when the Ninth-of-May Constitution became effective. The traditional name Československá republika (Czechoslovak Republic), along with several other state symbols, were changed on 11 July 1960 following the implementation of the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia as a symbol of the "final victory of socialism" in the country.

In applied communist practice, a socialist state is a communist state formation that is the product of a purported base and superstructural relation that is called the socialist mode of production, or simply socialism. Socialism acts as the base of the socialist state, while the superstructure is made up of two parts: the class character of the state and the organisational form of state power.

• The class character of the state involves the dictatorship of the proletariat (or a variant thereof) in which the proletariat acts as the ruling class; purportedly the most advanced elements of this class form a vanguard party (communist party) to lead the state. The theoretical exception to this rule was the Soviet Union: from 1961 onwards the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) argued that it had created a developed socialist society where the proletarian dictatorship had been replaced by a socialist state of the whole people since all the exploitative classes had been defeated. The Chinese Communist Party vehemently opposed this theory and argued that every state formation had to have a ruling class.

• The organisational form of state power, literally the form of government in Marxist–Leninist vocabulary, is centered on the unified power of the supreme state organ of power that operates under the guidance of the vanguard party.

The majority of communist states have been unable to establish a socialist state. These states had, according to Marxist–Leninist doctrine, reached a lower form of development and designated themselves, or were designated, for example, as national democratic states, states of socialist orientation or as people's democratic states.

People's democracy is a Marxist–Leninist theoretical concept that chiefly encompasses two processes: the people's democratic revolution and the people's democratic state. The first process focuses on the establishment of a communist state formation known as the people's democratic state through a people's democratic revolution. The second process deals with how the people's democratic state transitions the society it controls from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production, transforming the state into a socialist state in the process.

People's democratic theory has also spawned concepts unique to certain communist states. For example, the Chinese Communist Party has developed theories that have the same or similar origins to people's democracy, known as new democracy, the people's democratic dictatorship and whole-process people's democracy.

People's republic is an official title that is mostly used by current and former communist states, as well as other left-wing governments. It is mainly associated with soviet republics, communist states that self-designate as people's democratic states, sovereign states with a democratic-republican constitution that usually mentions socialism, as well as some countries that do not fit into any of these categories.

A number of the short-lived socialist states that formed during World War I and its aftermath called themselves people's republics. Many of these sprang up in the territory of the former Russian Empire, which had collapsed in 1917 as a result of the Russian Revolution. Decades later, following the Allied victory in World War II, the name "people's republic" was adopted by some of the newly established Marxist–Leninist states, mainly within the Soviet Union's Eastern Bloc.

People's democratic dictatorship (Chinese: 人民民主专政; pinyin: Rénmín Mínzhǔ Zhuānzhèng) is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) term to describe the state system of the People's Republic of China. The premise of the people's democratic dictatorship is that it is led by the working class, based on the alliance of workers and peasants, and the system exercises democracy over the people who constitute the vast majority of the national population, while perceived hostile elements are subject to dictatorship. The CCP and state represent and act on behalf of the people, but in the preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and possess and may use coercive powers against perceived reactionary forces.

The phrase is incorporated into the constitution of the People's Republic of China and the constitution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The term forms one of the CCP's Four Cardinal Principles. Implicit in the concept of the people's democratic dictatorship is the notion that dictatorial control by the party is necessary to prevent the government from collapsing into a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", a liberal democracy, which, it is feared, would mean politicians acting in the interest of the bourgeoisie. This would be in opposition to the socialist charter of the CCP. The concept, and form of government, is similar to that of "people's democracy" and a "people's democratic state," which was implemented in a number of Central and Eastern European Communist-controlled states under the guidance of the Soviet Union.

A people's democratic revolution is a specific type of revolution according to Marxist–Leninist people's democratic theory. This purported revolution seeks to establish a communist state formation known as the people's democratic state.