Talk:People's republic

Political Use of the Expression

It has typically been used by political members of the political right wing to castigate towns for policies they deem beyond the pale or "un-American", by casting their ideological opponents as communists.

I lived in Boston for a long time, surrounded almost exclusively by liberals and socialists. It was from them I heard the term "People's Republic of Cambridge", in a light-hearted jocular way. They seemed to think it was normal usage.

I believe it refers to substantial changes (made within the democratic system) to conform the economic modalities of the community to the socialist ideal. Such measures as rent control come to mind.

I don't think the usage is primarily a dig by conservatives. I listened to 3 or 4 months of Sean Hannity on the radio and can't remember hearing him use the term. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:43, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

In Amherst, several of my teachers used it half-jokingly, to refer to excessive political correctness on the part of the town or the school board, or less commonly, to refer to such incidences as the performance of The Vagina Monologues, which would be unacceptable in most towns. Generally these teachers did consider themselves "liberals" (with one exception, who never refered to his own politics), and didn't appear to object to the concepts referenced, but were rather old, and did appear to find the goings on in modern Amherst mildly amusing.

I think it's more often independents who use it actually, most of the Republicans in the town keep fairly quiet, those who don't use rather more hysterical terms. One teacher considered himself a "liberal" but was a staunch independent, the others I can think of didn't mention their affiliation. Regardless, I think it's common to use the term humorously, if one isn't really offended by the goings on but doesn't particularly support them. --71.192.116.13 01:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this is kind of inaccurate, though not entirely. Just from having studied Maoism, Mao is pretty specific in saying that China is a people's republic because the People -- workers, students, peasants, cadres, revolutionary classes in general -- enjoy the full benefits of democracy (borrowed from America's 1st amendment) whereas reactionary classes are denied these basic freedoms. I think he talks about it in "On Handling Contradictions Among the People," and Starr does a good job of summarizing it in his book "The Political Thought of Mao". User:arobotar

• Irrelevant. China isn't under Mao anymore and can hardly be called Maoist. 67.39.180.44 22:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is itself irrelevant, because the reasonings used by the modern-day Chinese Government are pretty much the same. --Mrdie (talk) 09:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

In Chinese

In Chinese, the words for "people's republic" (renmin gongheguo 人民共和国) and "republic" (minguo 民国) are practically synonyms. In fact if you abbreviate "people's republic" in Chinese (a la Chinese language conventions), it becomes "republic" (民国). To the Chinese speaker, renmin gongheguo (people's republic) is just a wordier term for minguo (republic). 67.39.180.44 22:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Not just in Chinese... Republic itself is derived from res publica. -- Миборовский 22:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

No, renmin gongheguo never abbreviated as minguo.--刻意(Kèyì) 22:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

民国 is derived from 人民共和国 via shortening, just like how 美国 comes from 美利坚合众国, 亚洲 comes from 亚细亚, 北大 comes from 北京大学, 台灣高鐵 comes from 台灣高速鐵路 and the "京广" in 京广高速铁路 comes from 北京-广州. Though today 民国 isn't used as an abbreviation for 人民共和国, back in the 1910s it certainly was. The concept of "republic" was a foreign concept, after all, and things tend to have various semantic translations. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

If that is the case, wouldn't it make the English phrase "people's republic" similar to a redundant acronym, tautology or pleonasm, given that res publica itself refers to "a public (i.e. "of people") affair"? It seems similar to phrases such as "ATM machine" (automatic teller machine machine) or "PIN number" (personal identification number number), since "people's republic" can be loosely translated as "an affair of people belonging to the people" or "people's people's affair". -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Vital info missing

The article at this point completly lacks the very fundamentals on the meaning of the term. A 'people's republic' or a 'democratic republic' is, in Marxist-Leninist doctrine, not just a state governed by communists, its is a transitory stage towards building socialism. Thus, when the name of Vietnam was changed from 'Democratic Republic of Vietnam' to 'Socialist Republic of Vietnam', this marked a qualitivative development in the analysis of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Likewise, the usage of the term 'People's Republic' denotes that the CP of China does not consider that China has acheived socialism. --12:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the anon - my understanding is that Marxist-Leninist doctrine basically envisions a number of steps towards true communism - first you have the bourgeois state - then you have the "democratic republic" or "people's republic" or "people's democracy" which is, theoretically, a popular front type organization where the communist party cooperates with non-communist parties until the time is ready to move to socialism. Thus, the USSR was a socialist state, where only the CPSU was a legal political party, but the various eastern European satellites were "people's democracies" where the communist party (theoretically) governed in coalition with non-communist parties - like the continued existence of the various non-socialist parties in the East German Volkskammer. This ought to be clarified if possible. john k (talk) 16:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Marx and Lenin opposed the idea of a "People's state"

From State and Revolution by Lenin: "We are in favor of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism. But we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic. Furthermore, every state is a “special force” for the suppression of the oppressed class. Consequently, every state is not “free” and not a “people's state". Marx and Engels explained this repeatedly to their party comrades in the seventies."

Here, Lenin specifically states after attacking people who use the term "people's state" earlier, that there can never be such thing as a "people's state". It seems weird that the article calls "People's Republic" a Marxist-Leninist term when its usage goes strongly against the philosophy of both Marx and Lenin. Maybe it would be more correct to call it a Stalinist or Maoist term. 129.21.126.46 (talk) 17:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The idea of "People's Republics" came during the "People's Democracy" period of the 1940's (of which China was also classified as). "People's Democracies" did not claim to do away with classes or stress that "no class leads the state" per se, it just stressed that everyone was united in fighting fascism. By 1950 or so the People's Republics were described as being under the dictatorship of the proletariat. --Mrdie (talk) 09:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The origin of the term

The idea of People's republic" term was born in Hungary in 1918. It was invented by count Mihály Károlyi who was liberal capitalist and extremely wealthy man. In 1919, the communist Hungarian Soviet Republic held the name of "People's republic". After that, it became a fasionable prevalent denomination for communist states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stubes99 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Democratic republics

I don't think that "Democratic Republic" shall be redirected here. It don't need to be a socialist republic to take the name 'democratic republic'! —Preceding unsigned comment added by A young communist (talk • contribs) 13:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Too Many Examples in 'Other Uses?'

There's a lot of examples in that paragraph for an expression that could be applied to roughly half the cities on the planet. I get the problem. I come from Taxachussettes myself. It's a liberal state. I've heard people use the term in regards to my state. But I assume that the expression is also applied to Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and any number of cities, townships, counties, colleges, corporations, etc. You got to draw the line somewhere.

So, I suggest we keep the cities/states/whatevers with a cited reference and purge the rest. If it's really that common a phenomenon that it's become a part of that area's cultural identity, then it should be easy to prove, right? Otherwise, the list just becomes a giant 'me too' pile on. Does that sound fair? 198.140.203.1 (talk) 07:08, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Done. Here's the full list in case anyone wants to find citations and put them back in:

Examples are The People's Republic of Madison, Wisconsin, "The People's Republic of New Jersey", the People's Republic of Berkeley, the People's Republic of Montclair, the People's Republic of Dublin South-Central, "The People's Republic of Taxachussetts" (Massachusetts), the "People's Republic of South Yorkshire" or "The People's Republic of Chicago". "People's Republic of California", and "People's Republic of Boulder."

--Wikimedes (talk) 08:40, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

References

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. A split or new article otherwise may still be valuable. --BDD (talk) 19:46, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

People's Republic → People's Democracy – "People's Republic" are the name often given to socialist states, yes, that's right, but the reason for this is the ideological concept, "People's Democracy".. The article should be moved to the ideological concept (for instance, China still has "people's democracy", but they call it the "People's Democratic Dictatorship")... Its a notable subject and deserves to be moved to its proper name. The only reason for why I can't move it is because currently People's Democracy redirects to a small, Northern Irish political organization. And yes, I know, there are state who have called themselves people's republic without actually being communist, but they were inspired by Marxist, socialist thought, as in the case of Bangladesh and Libya. --TIAYN (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Poll

• Oppose. The article as it stands is not about an ideological concept, but about countries whose name includes/included "People's Republic". In fact, the word "democracy" only occurs once in the article. The "Northern Irish political organization" may have been small, but it was significant in the history of The Troubles. It should not have been unilaterally moved, but included in this RM and left where it was pending the outcome. Scolaire (talk) 22:57, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
• Question - shouldn't this really be a dab page, given that it is/was just a title? The ideology behind most of the uses of the title could be easily explained at socialist state, with short notes here for the non-socialist ones, instead of the unreferenced article/dab currently. Green Giant (talk) 03:18, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
• ? Split - looking at it again, I can see what both of you (User:TIAYN and User:Scolaire) are getting at, so I think the best option might be to split the current article into two roughly as follows:

• a (hopefully referenced) article on the concept of people's democracy as suggested by User:TIAYN, composed of the current lead and the first paragraph of the main section (with some sort of disambiguation between the concept and the political group);
• a list of People's Republics as suggested by User:Scolaire composed of the bullet points in the lower half of the current article, which could serve a dual purpose because even as a list it would still be a sort of dab page.

Green Giant (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - Not all "People's Republics" subscribe to "people's democracy". The scope of the current article is broader than the proposed title. No objection to the creation of an article on people's democracy as Green Giant suggests above. TDL (talk) 20:41, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Danlaycock and Green Giant. Neljack (talk) 02:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

@Scolaire: You don't seem to get the point, the countries were named "People's Republic" because of the ideological concept of "People's Democracy". The two are directly related to each other.. Secondly, by itself, as it currently stands, this article is not notable enough to be an article (its like listing every country which has the word "Democratic" or "Kingdom" in it. --TIAYN (talk) 23:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Then nominate this article for deletion, and then write an article on people's democracy on your user subpage, and then talk about moving articles. This process is back-to-front. Unilaterally moving perfectly good articles, as you did, and then requesting that this article be moved, and then presumably asking somebody else to re-write it to your prescription, is farcical. Scolaire (talk) 13:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Trust Is All You Need: Was the Belarusian People's Republic named because of the ideological concept of "People's Democracy"?

As for your second point, we have numerous such articles including -stan, -land, Democratic republic, Commonwealth. TDL (talk) 20:42, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Green Giant: "People's Democracy" is notable enough to have its own article, names of countries who happen to have the words "People's Republic" is not.. I agree with you, if the article isn't moved, it should be turned into a disambig page. --TIAYN (talk) 08:07, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Alternatively, it could be moved to List of People's Republics. A list differs from a dab page in that it has a short introductory paragraph, which is essentially all that this article is. Also, there is no real ambiguity, since "People's Republic" means esentially the same thing in each country. Scolaire (talk) 14:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Scolaire: @Green Giant: @Danlaycock: There is not a single good reason for creating an article entitled "List of People's Republic.. What is notable about this, what's the point of just listing the countries by there names if there is no single denominator. If that is the point of this article, it should be turned into a disambig page. But since this article is actually directly linked to the concept of people's democracy, the only thing we need to do is to move to "People's democracy" (and I can expand it, its an extremely important concept within communist thought. So no, either move, turn into a disambig article (and then I can create an article titled "People's democracy") or delete it. Creating an article List of countries having People's Republic in their name is original research, should we create an article entitled List of countries having Republic in their name? No, of course not, so why is this any different? --TIAYN (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

A list is just a list. There are hundreds if not thousands of them on WP. As for creating an article, you can create one any time you want. In fact, It's already been created: People's democracy. Just do the writing, post the link, and put your money where your mouth is. Scolaire (talk) 00:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

@Scolaire: Don't care, we don't need to throw away space for articles such as those.. Either move it to People democracy, delete this or create a people's democracy article (I can do that) and redirect List of People's Republics to List of socialist states.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Trust Is All You Need (talk • contribs) 17:06, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

@Trust Is All You Need: "Don't care"??? Well, if that is your attitute there is no point in continuing this discussion. Scolaire (talk) 09:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER, so we don't need to worry about "throwing away space". If you think the subject of this article is not notable enough to justify an article, then file an WP:AFD. (While you're at it, you should also nominate all the other similar articles such as -stan, -land, Democratic republic, Commonwealth). But requesting a move so that you can change the subject of the article isn't the appropriate way to deal with the situation.

As I said above, not all "People's Republics" are socialist states, so redirecting List of People's Republics to List of socialist states would not be appropriate. TDL (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

@Danlaycock: There is a big different, both -stan and -land is an article on their own respective terms, what constitute a democratic republic is heavily debated (and therefore its a notable topic, but an extremely bad article), and Commonwealth is an article, again, in its own term ... People's Republic is not an article on its own term, and since People's Republic and People's Democracy are the same thing, why not move it to its actual name (and explain its ideological rationale, instead of splitting it into two, small articles?) --TIAYN (talk) 19:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Was the Belarusian People's Republic named because of the ideological concept of "People's Democracy"? TDL (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

@Danlaycock: "People's Republic" is a Marxist term, in fascism it doesn't have any meaning (its just another name)... If you search People's Republic on google, you will get directed to Marxist sites, sources, not fascist. Per WP:RS we follow reliable sources (and what the majority of reliable sources say).. According to the majority of reliable sources, people's republic is a Marxist term (and not a fascist one).. Move. --TIAYN (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

No one is denying that the term is often used by Marxist states. But clearly it's used more widely than that. If you'd like to write an article on "People's Democracy" and the subset of "People's Republics" which were inspired by this ideological concept, then go right ahead. But this article is about the broader usage of the term and shouldn't be repurposed for the narrower scope that you propose. TDL (talk) 02:59, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I am afraid you all are not familiar with both concepts and their development, hence the discussion. Briefly: "people's democracy" is a true marxist "trademarked" term, in reference to the intermediate step between "bourgeoise democracy" ("false democracy") to "socialist democracy" ("true democracy") and further to communism where the term "democracy" will be meaningless, since there will be no government. Whereas the term "people's republic" started as a generic term to indicate transition from monarchy to democracy since 1917 and into 1930s (most of them were off Russian Empire and all of them were under the influence of Russian Revolution). Many of them were not Marxist, not even Socialist. The second "wave" was post-WWII, clearly under Soviet dictation to use a standard name. Third wave was staring with decolonization of 1960s, when some of them kissed ass of Soviet Union, and what kind of marxism/socialism was in Kongo or Cambodja, you know yourselves. In summary: "people's democracy" is a form of government, "people's republic" is not (if somebody is interested they may look into constitutions of all "peoples' republics and often find unexpected things). - Altenmann >t 04:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move(merge)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: procedurally closed. Mergers are outside the scope of RM. Jenks24 (talk) 12:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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People's Republic → People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism) – I've looked into definitions.. Merriam-Webster defines people's republic as "a republic usually organized and controlled by a national Communist or Socialist party" and Oxford dictionaries defines it as "Used in the official title of several present or former communist or left-wing states".. No dictionaries I've checked defines it as anything else then Marxist related. This article should be merged into the existing People's Democracy (Marxism–Leninism) article. --TIAYN (talk) 07:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support Merger --TIAYN (talk) 07:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The above is the nominator
• Speedy procedural close This is not the way to propose a merge. You are requesting a move to a location occupied by a different article. The proper method uses WP:PM -- proposed mergers. Furhter, this article is not tagged with the merger templates. If you require assistance, then the people at WP:PM will provide it to you. If not, please use the proper {{mergefrom}}/{{mergeto}} tags and list it at WP:PM -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Whether it's a "people republic" or a "people's democracy," it should be lower cased. King of all fruit (talk) 08:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC) Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kauffner
• Oppose merger as per the last RM on the subject. Not all the "People's Republics" listed on this page are based on Marxism–Leninism (hence why there is a Non-Marxist–Leninist People's Republics section), so this content would not fit within the scope of the target article. There are many states that go by "People's Republic", so some sort of list of them is encyclopedic (like Democratic republic) Since not all People's Republics are based on Marxism–Leninism, this list should be separate from the article on the ideology. TDL (talk) 12:32, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

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North Korea

How is North Korea non-Marxist?65.123.43.130 (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Because they have stopped calling themselves that in 1994. Secondly, its hard to fathom how a hereditary system has any connection to Marxism at all considered Marxism is again hereditary anything.. --TIAYN (talk) 23:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Democratic People's Republic of Korea no longer Marxist–Leninist?

I thought North Korea had removed all references to Marxism–Leninism, but this article classifies the country as a "communist or socialist state". Dustin (talk) 21:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

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"Other uses" section

The "Other uses" section covers places (cities, counties etc) that have been informally nicknamed "people's republics" as a result of electing more left-wing representatives than other places have. This does not seem to me very encyclopedic. It also seems rather out of place in an article about forms of national government. It also runs the risk of growing like Topsy as one editor after another adds a newly-nicknamed "people's republic". I suggest that we remove this section from the article. - Polly Tunnel (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. This use should be mentioned and illustrated by one or two examples at most, with references in the most reliable sources. It is enough to illustrate the point. It would be useless to try to list all local administrations that have a constituency at the left of their national average. Note that this has been discussed higher on this talk page. Place Clichy (talk) 18:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comment. As no opposition to my proposal has been raised in the last four weeks I have removed the "Other uses" section from the article. Polly Tunnel (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 27 December 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 23:59, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

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It's my understanding that it should be capitalised only when referring to the actual country and not to the concept itself, unless I'm missing something.--Davide King (talk) 12:34, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• The previous RM concluded that this article was about countries whose name includes/included "People's Republic" rather than about an ideological concept. The concept may be already covered in People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism). But it seems to me that this article is doing a fair bit of synthesis, doesn't seem like the sources are about this term. – Thjarkur (talk) 15:24, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support - This is an article about people's republics in general and should take no special caps. Primergrey (talk) 19:42, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support, common noun. Compare Islamic republic, crowned republic, etc. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 08:24, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support it is not a proper noun here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:24, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

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Term or form of government?

I find almost no good sources about this subject. Oxford Dictionaries define the term as a title rather than as a common noun or a form of government, however Merriam-Webster defines it as "noun, usually capitalized – a republic usually organized and controlled by a national Communist or Socialist party". "Democratic-republican constitution usually mentioning socialism" appears to be original research. – Thjarkur (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Left-Wing Bangladesh?

I know but Bangladesh’s Full Name contains People’s Republic so It’sleft-wing Abdullah Al Manjur (talk) 13:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Left wing Abdullah Al Manjur (talk) 13:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Abdullah Al Manjur (talk) 18:52, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Removing tags

I'm hoping to remove the remaining tags from this article:

(i) The Template:More citations needed at the "Non-Marxist–Leninist people's republics" section. I have added a dozen citations to this section so I am proposing to remove the tag.

(ii) The Template:Original research at the top of the article. It's unclear exactly what is being questioned here. The only Template:Citation needed in the article concerns the clause "Although it initially became associated with populist movements in the 19th century such as the German Völkisch movement and the Narodniks in Russia..." in the lead. I can find no sources confirming this association, though it may be genuine. I suggest that we remove both this clause and the tag.

-- Polly Tunnel (talk) 10:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done as no objections have been raised. I have retained the wikilinks from the deleted text in the "See also" section and removed some wikilinks from there that repeat those in the main text (per MOS:NOTSEEALSO). -- Polly Tunnel (talk) 13:48, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

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