Several past and present states have declared themselves socialist states or in the process of building socialism. The majority of self-declared socialist countries have been Marxist–Leninist or inspired by it, following the model of the Soviet Union or some form of people's or national democracy. They share a common definition of socialism and they refer to themselves as socialist states on the road to communism with a leading vanguard party structure, hence they are often called communist states. Meanwhile, the countries in the non-Marxist–Leninist category represent a wide variety of different interpretations of the term socialism and in many cases the countries do not define what they mean by it. Modern uses of the term socialism are wide in meaning and interpretation.
Because a sovereign state is a different entity from the political party that governs that state at any given time, a country may be ruled by a socialist party without the country itself claiming to be socialist or the socialist party being written into the constitution. This has occurred in both one-party and multi-party political systems. In particular, there are numerous cases of social democratic and democratic socialist parties winning elections in liberal democratic states and ruling for a number of terms until a different party wins the elections. While socialist parties have won many elections around the world and most elections in the Nordic countries, none of those countries has adopted socialism as a state ideology or written the party into the constitution.
Several countries with liberal democratic constitutions mention socialism. India is a democracy that has been governed by non-socialist parties on many occasions, but its constitution makes references to socialism. Certain other countries such as Hungary, Myanmar, and Poland have constitutions that make references to their communist and socialist past by recognizing or condemning it, but without claiming to be socialist in the present.
Overview
Self-identification is the only criterion used by the list, therefore it includes all countries that have claimed to be socialist, even if their claims are disputed. All countries that have not claimed to be socialist are excluded, even in cases where certain outside observers regarded those countries as socialist. Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China considered the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to be a proto-communist state, although the kingdom never declared itself socialist, hence it is not included on this list. The list includes countries that assert in their constitutions that they are based on socialism, regardless of their economic or political system. It does not list countries that do not have constitutional references to socialism as socialist states, even in cases where the government is currently run by a socialist party or other left-wing (centre-left and far-left) parties. Inversely, countries that do maintain constitutional references to socialism are listed, even when those countries are governed by non-socialist parties. The list is best understood as a list of countries that explicitly claim to be socialist and it does not reflect the actual economic systems themselves.
Current socialist states
Marxist–Leninist states
Non-Marxist–Leninist states
Countries with constitutional references to socialism
Socialist territories with limited recognition
These are territories that have claimed independence or autonomy and have declared themselves socialist under some interpretation of the term. While these territories have created stable institutions of governance that have existed for a considerable period of time, they are not widely recognized as states by the international community and officially belong to other sovereign states under international law. Wa State (April 1989–present) Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities (December 1994–present) Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (November 2013–present)