The form of socialist organization of production and distribution which is characterized by the control of resources by the organs of the state. In the nineteenth century, two distinct views of future socialist society were expressed. Saint-Simon would have involved the mobilization of all major economic resources in the hands of a technocratic elite, to be rationally allocated. Robert Owen contemplated the creation of small socialist communities united only in a fraternal relationship. In the writings of Marx and Engels, the conflict between these two contradictory views was not resolved. While Lenin professed to believe in the communalist form of socialism (his State and Revolution is an eloquent expression of this view), he contributed to creating an extreme form of state socialism. This was partly due to the need to defend the revolutionary state against internal resistance, independence movements within the Soviet Union, and external hostility. It was also partly due, however, to Lenin's economic naivety, which led him to a grossly exaggerated confidence in the economies of scale possible in both industry and agriculture, and to the belief that Western corporate management could provide the model for a centralized planned economy. The choice remained open, however, until Stalin disposed of Bukharin. The issue was dramatically re-opened by Mao Zedong in 1958, but by then in China as well as in Russia the strength of the state economic apparatus prevented effective change. However, as a result of Mao's influence subsequent economic reform in China under his successors has included a very large local, communal dimension of socialist development, and since 1971 local communal enterprises have been and continue to be the fastest growing sector of the Chinese economy, while creating at the same time the most likely basis for the renewal of a civil society.
— Jack Gray
