# Communist Nations **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 12, 2002, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communist-nations/118678 "2002-07-12T20:02:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communist-nations/118678/1 "2002-07-12T20:02:50Z")
Just a quick query- what are the nations that are still officially Communist? Are they just the PRC, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communist-nations/118678/2 "2002-07-12T21:22:30Z")
The CIA’s [World Factbook 2001](http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/) lists only China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam as having government type “communist state”. North Korea is listed as having government type “authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship”. The two types seem to me not to be mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communist-nations/118678/3 "2002-07-12T21:58:32Z")
In 2002 Angola advertises itself as a friend to Investors and welcomes them that way. OTOH its’ government (since elected with 49% of the vote) was installed & kept in power by Cuban troops. It’s ruling party is still called the Marxist Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA). Angola’s constitution has been revised, but it is still basically a 1975 Marxist special built with Cuban & Soviet political experts. But with Approx. 80% of its people living at subsistence level, (on less than $1 a day) it’s on and off again civil war: It has never truly become the Workers Paradise, that its benefactors (USSR/Cuba) or enemies (US/Apartheid South Africa) thought that it would. Still & again it doesn’t advertise, but if you asked those in power if they were “Communists” the bottom line answer would be yes. Appropos of nothing, but its’ flag is damn near THE most “communist looking” flag I’ve ever seen in my life. [http://www.flags.net/AGLA.htm](http://www.flags.net/AGLA.htm) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communist-nations/118678/4 "2002-07-13T00:49:37Z")
Not really sure if the PRC could really be called communist. Sure, they call themselves communist but then say a good communist is a capitalist. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics and other such. State owned enterprises make up IIRC about 20% of the economy these days. The iron rice bowl cradle to the grave system has been dismantled, et al