State of socialist orientation

In the political terminology of the former Soviet Union, the state of socialist orientation (Russian: Страны социалистической ориентации, romanized: Strany sotsialisticheskoy oriyentatsii, lit.

[1] In Soviet press, these states were also called "countries on the path of the construction of socialism" (Russian: страны, идущие по пути строительства социализма, romanized: strany, idushchiye po puti stroitel'stva sotsializma) and "countries on the path of the socialist development" (Russian: страны, стоящие на пути социалиcтического развития, romanized: strany, stoyashchiye na puti sotsialicticheskogo razvitiya).

[5] However, the adoption of leftist economic programs (such as nationalization and/or land reform) by many of these movements and governments, as well as the international alliances between the revolutionary nationalists and the Soviet Union, obliged communists to reassess their nature.

These movements were now seen as neither classical bourgeois nationalists nor socialist per se, but rather offering the possibility of "non-capitalist development" as a path of "transition to socialism".

[2] In some countries designated as socialist-leaning by the Soviet Union such as India, this formulation was sharply criticized by emerging Maoist or Chinese-leaning groups such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who considered the doctrine class collaborationist as part of the larger Sino-Soviet split and the Maoist struggle against so-called Soviet revisionism.