In Trotskyist political theory, deformed workers' states are states where the bourgeoisie has been overthrown through social revolution, the industrial means of production have been largely nationalized, but where the working class has never held political power (as it did in Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution). These workers' states are deformed because their political and economic structures have been imposed from the top (or from outside), and because revolutionary working class organizations are crushed. Like a degenerated workers state, a deformed workers' state cannot be said to be a state that is transitioning to socialism. Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... In the Trotskyist movement, the term social revolution refers to an unpheaval in which existing property relations are smashed. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a political movement in Russia that climaxed in 1917 with the overthrow of the provisional government that had replaced the Russian Tsar system, and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its collapse in 1991. ... In Trotskyist political theory, degenerated workers states are states where capitalism has been overthrown through social revolution and the property forms have changed into a collectivized planned economy, but where the working class has lost its political power and socialist democracy has been replaced by a form of dictatorship. ...

The concept of deformed workers' states was developed by the theorists of the Fourth International after World War II, when the Soviet Union had created satellite states in Eastern Europe. Taking Leon Trotsky's concept of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers state, the Trotskyists described the new regimes as deformed workers' states. Logo of the Fourth International The Fourth International was an international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... The term satellite state, by analogy to stellar objects orbiting a larger object, such as planets revolving around the sun, refers to a country that is formally sovereign but that is in fact dominated by a larger hegemonic power. ... Eastern Europe is, by convention, that part of Europe from the Ural and Caucasus mountains in the East to an arbitrarily chosen boundary in the West. ... 1915 passport photo of Trotsky Leon Davidovich Trotsky (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij and Trotzky ) (October 26 (O.S.) = November 7 (N.S.), 1879 - August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist intellectual. ... In Trotskyist political theory, degenerated workers states are states where capitalism has been overthrown through social revolution and the property forms have changed into a collectivized planned economy, but where the working class has lost its political power and socialist democracy has been replaced by a form of dictatorship. ...

Rather than advocating a social revolution, they came to advocate a political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy. In the Trotskyist movement, the term political revolution refers to an unpheaval in which the government is replaced, or the form of government altered, but in which property relations are predominantly left intact. ... Stalinism is a brand of political theory, and the political and economic system implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. ... In sociological theories, bureaucracy is an organizational structure characterized by regularized procedure, division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships. ...

Other Trotskyists disagreed with this interpretation, and adopted other theories, describing the Soviet Union as being state capitalist or bureaucratic collectivist. There are multiple definitions of the term state capitalism. ... Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. ...

Orthodox Trotskyists cite examples of deformed workers' states today as including Cuba, the People's Republic of China, North Korea and Vietnam. The Committee for a Workers International has also included states such as Syria or Burma at times when they have had a nationalised economy. The Committee for a Workers International (CWI) is an international association of Trotskyist Parties. ... Nationalization is the act of taking assets into state ownership. ...

Compare with other left-wing theories regarding Soviet-style societies: new class, state socialism, state capitalism, bureaucratic collectivism and coordinatorism. The new class is a term to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which typically arises in a Stalinist communist state. ... State socialism, broadly speaking, is any variety of socialism which relies on ownership of the means of production by the state. ... There are multiple definitions of the term state capitalism. ... Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. ... Coordinatorism is an economic system in which control is held neither by people who own capital, nor by the workers, but instead is held by an intervening class of coordinators, typically in the roles of managers, administrators, engineers, university intellectuals, doctors, lawyers. ...