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=Development= Authoritarian Socialism is best understood through an examination of its developmental history, allowing for the analysis and comparison of its various global examples. Although authoritarian socialism was by no means restricted to the Soviet Union, its ideological development occurred in tandem with the Leninist and Stalinist regimes. However, as the USSR was a developmental model for many socialist states in the post-World War II era, Soviet authoritarian socialism was adopted by a diverse range of states and continued to develop well into the twentieth century in the Middle East and North African regions. These regions, characterized by authoritarian traits such as uncontested party leadership, restricted civil liberties, and strong unelected officials with non-democratic influence on policy, share many commonalities with the USSR.

Much like the Soviet Union, they feature external controls such as violent repression and forms of “artificial” socialization. In other words, the implementation of these authoritarian forms of socialism traditionally is accomplished with a dogmatized ideology reinforced by terror and violence. Ultimately, the combination of these external controls serves to implement a “normality” within an authoritarian country that “seems like illusion or madness” to someone removed from its political atmosphere. For many authoritarian socialist countries, regimes were a mix of this form of external-control based totalitarianism (for intellectually and ideologically active members of society) and traditional or cultural authoritarianism (for the majority of the population).

Authoritarianism in the USSR
Despite the Marxian basis of Vladimir Lenin’s socialism, the realities of his regime were, in fact, in direct opposition to Marx’s belief in the emancipation and autonomy of the working class. These contradictions stem primarily from Lenin’s implementation of a ‘vanguard’ party, or a regimented party of committed revolutionaries “who knew exactly what history’s mandate was and who were prepared to be its self-ordained custodians.” The function of this party was meant to be primarily transitional, given that Lenin believed that the working class was politically unprepared for rule and Russia was not yet industrially poised for socialism.

Vladimir Lenin's Soviet Union
Marx chronicled a history of development through a capitalist age of industrialization that resulted in the manipulation of the working class. This development culminated in the empowerment of a proletariat which could benefit from the fruits of industrialization without being exploited. Although he meant his ideology to appeal to the disenfranchised working class of an industrialized society, it was widely accepted by developing countries that had yet to successfully industrialize. This resulted in stagnant economies and socialist states without the necessary organization and structure to industrialize. Lenin, seeing the failure of these models, concluded that socialism in Russia had to be constructed “from above,” through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Because the working class was virtually non-existent, accounting for only 15% of the population, Lenin was forced to appeal to the much greater peasant class, accounting for nearly 80%, to propel the Bolshevik party. They promised “Bread, Peace, and Land” to the peasants and delivered, redistributing land from the landlords and increasing the number of farms in Russia from 427,000 in 1917 to 463,000 in 1919.

Despite this, Lenin’s legacy was one of violent terror and concentration of power in the hands of few. Lenin intentionally employed violence as a means to manipulate the population and tolerated absolutely no opposition, arguing that it was “a great deal better to ‘discuss with rifles’ that with the theses of the opposition.” He worked for the ideological destruction of society as a whole so that it could easily adopt the rhetoric and political ideals of the ruling party. Lenin’s use of terror (instilled by a secret police apparatus) to exact social obedience, mass murder and disappearance, censoring of communications, and absence of justice was only reinforced by his successor, Joseph Stalin.

Joseph Stalin
Stalin, too, sought to rapidly industrialize the USSR in a way that was perhaps unrealistic given the aggregate skill level and capital of the population. Acknowledging this inadequacy, Stalin ordered that resources slotted for consumption be redirected to production or exported as a temporary sacrifice on the part of the population for the sake of rapid growth. The model was successful initially, with ideology and nationalism promoting morale despite shortages in resources such as food and construction materials for housing. Presumably, the exploited classes believed that once the rapid and successful industrialization of Russia had taken place, power would be relinquished by the vanguard party and communism would ensue.

However, Stalin continued to demand even more far-reaching sacrifices. Because of his control over both political and economic arenas, which historians argue gave his vanguard party an amount of control surpassing that of Russia's czars or emperors, citizens were unwilling to challenge his decrees, given that aspects of their lives such as medical care, housing, and social freedoms could be restricted according to the discretion of the party. Indeed, many historians claim that extermination was the fate of a wide variety of people during Stalin’s regime, such as political opponents, ideological rivals, suspect party members, accused military officers, kulaks, lower class families, former members of the societal elites, ethnic groups, religious groups, and the relatives and sympathizers of these offenders.

It is little wonder, therefore, that his expectations remained uncontested by the working class. Despite this and the various economic failures of his regime, the regime model was adopted by a multitude of emerging socialist states during that era. For example, the catastrophic Soviet attempt to collectivize agriculture, which transformed the Soviet Union from one of the world’s largest exporters of grain to the world’s largest importer of grain, widely replicated despite its failure.

Arab Authoritarian Socialism
Socialism was introduced into the Middle East in the form of populist policies designed to galvanize the working class into overthrowing colonial powers and their domestic allies. These policies were held by authoritarian regimes interested in the rapid industrialization and social equalization of Arab nations and often were characterized by redistributive or protectionist economic policies, lower class mobilization, charismatic leaders, and promises to improve national living standards.

These regimes were progressive in terms of the colonial development that had occurred thus far. They allowed important political and economic gains to be made by workers, encouraged land redistribution, unseated oligarchical political powers, and implemented import-substituting industrialization development strategies.

However, with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the push for democratization, many Arab states have moved toward a model of fiscal discipline proposed by the Washington Consensus. Although authoritarian leaders of these socialist states implemented democratic institutions during the 1980s and 1990s, ultimately their multiparty elections created an arena in which business elites could lobby for personal interests, while largely silencing the lower class. Furthermore, economic liberalization in these regions yielded economies (and therefore regimes) built on the support of rent-seeking urban elites. However, political opposition invites the prospect of political marginalization and even retaliation.

Resistance to Democratization
A great deal of debate has been paid by the field of Comparative Politics to how the Arab region was able to avoid the third wave of democratization. A number of arguments have been offered by professionals in the field, ranging from a discussion of prerequisites not supported by the Arab culture to a lack of democratic actors initiating the necessary democratic transition.

Marsha Pripstein Posusney argues in Authoritarianism in the Middle East that the “patriarchal and tribal mentality of the culture is an impediment to the development of pluralist values,” rendering Arab citizens prone to accept patriarchal leaders and lacking the national unity that many argue is necessary for democratization to be successful. Eva Bellin concedes that the prevalence of Islam is a distinguishing factor of the region and therefore must contribute to the region’s exceptionalism “given Islam’s presumed inhospitality to democracy”. Posusney argues that this “intrinsic incompatibility between democracy and Islam” remains unproven given that efforts to test this association quantitatively have failed to produce conclusive results. Ethnic divisions in the area have also been cited as a factor, as well as a weak civil society, a state-controlled economy, poverty, low literacy rates, and inequality.

Oliver Schlumberger, in his book Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, has argued that there is in fact an international ambivalence toward authoritarianism in the Middle East given that stability is preferred over the uncertainty of democratization due to the region’s oil and gas supplies and the strategic importance of its geopolitical location.