People's Republic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Look up people's republic in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)

People's Republic (rarely Popular Republic) is a title that is often used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist republic is a people's republic. Many of these countries also called themselves socialist states in their constitutions. Opponents of Marxism-Leninism argue that the name "people's republic" is merely used for propaganda purposes.

In the West, countries governed by Marxist-Leninists are referred to as "Communist states," though they never actually used this name for themselves and used the term countries of people's democracy (see the main article on communist states for more information).

In the 1990s, many of the self-styled "People's Republics" of Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria) and Mongolia dropped the term and became known simply as "Republics" as they adopted democratic systems of government — the term "People's Republic" being associated with the former Communist regimes.

Currently, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the only Marxist-Leninist state in the world that uses the title People's Republic. Media and scholars may sometimes use just The People's Republic to refer to the PRC. When media cover news which is reporting about Cross-Strait relations, they may sometimes use just The People's Republic to differentiate between the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (Mainland).

Two other Marxist-Leninist states include the words People's Republic in their full names:

  • Laos (Lao People's Democratic Republic)
  • North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)

Historical examples include:

Other titles commonly used by Marxist-Leninist states are "Democratic Republic" (e.g. the German Democratic Republic or the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia between 1943 and 1946), and "Socialist Republic" (e.g. the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).

However, neither of the two titles mentioned above, nor the term "People's Republic" itself, are unique to Marxist-Leninists. All three of them have also been used by a number of countries which are/were not Marxist-Leninist. The reason for this is the rather generic nature of the titles in question. Marxist-Leninists are by no means alone in claiming to be democratic, socialist or popular. Thus, at the present time, there are three People's Republics which do not subscribe to Marxism-Leninism: Algeria (People's Democratic Republic of Algeria), Bangladesh (People's Republic of Bangladesh), and Libya (Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya).

The addition of the attribute “people’s” before the term republic is redundant since republic itself means public or people’s thing in Latin. Thus a possible translation of “popular/people’s republic” would be “people’s popular dominion”. In the case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), it would be "People’s People-ruling Popular Dominion of Korea".

[edit] Other uses of the term

Sometimes the term People's Republic is used sarcastically to refer to any predominantly left-wing or liberal area, especially those cities or states with a large, leftist, university population. The usage probably derives from the late 1960s, when The People's Republic of Berkeley (California) was used to describe the site of the radical Free Speech Movement. The cities of Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Toronto, Ontario; Cambridge, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisconsin have similarly been nicknamed "People's Republics" for their left-wing reputations. Attribution of the moniker is particularly prevalent in cases where a municipality represents an island of liberal politics within a more conservative, especially rural, area. Despite the derisive manner in which the term is used, some have come to adopt it, usually in an ironic manner. For example, there is a pub in Cambridge dubbed People's Republik, complete with faux-Cyrillic type on its storefront.

In the 1970s, industrial areas in the north of England were known as the People's (or Socialist) Republic of South Yorkshire. Wadham College, part of the University of Oxford has been called the "People's Republic of Wadham," as a result of its reputation for radicalism.

The city of Cork, Ireland is often jocularly referred to as The People's Republic of Cork.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic"
Personal tools