The Cunctator wrote:
I don't see anything that's absurd. Jtdirl deleted the following text, which seems pretty defensible at first glance and certainly not "vandalism".
I agree. The text is highly problematic in places, and needs NPOV work in many ways, *however* it is certainly not "vandalism" or anything of the sort. It needs softening and formalizing.
Typically a communist state is characterized by grinding [[poverty]], a bloated [[bureaucracy]], diversion of resources into [[military]] assets, a general loss of [[morale]] by the general population, and [[political stability|instability]] marked by periodic [[rebellion]]s which are brutally repressed. A communist state is characterized by the sharp division of the population into two castes, party members and the rest of the population. A small group, the [[politbureau]], typically consisting of less than 10 people, sometimes only 1, within the party hold any real power or have access to accurate information. A large [[secret police]] apparatus closely monitors the population. [[Concentration camp]]s and other facilities are used to incarcerate those dissidents which are not liquidated.
There have been two major communist states, The [[Soviet Union]] and its satellites and the [[People's Republic of China]]. Minor states include [[Yugoslavia]], [[Cuba]], [[Viet Nam]] and [[North Korea]]. The pattern varies in each with those clinging most closely to communist ideals being most characteristically totalitarian, impoverished, militaristic, and static. Attempts to incorporate [[democracy|democratic]] principles as in the case of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, [[socialism|socialist]] principles as in Yugoslavia,or [[capitalism|capitalistic]] techniques as in China result in some mitigation of the negative features of the communist state but sometimes result in dynamic situations which may undermine the control of the party over the state or even lead to its collapse.
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