El término "sociedad comunista" debe distinguirse del concepto occidental de "estado comunista", refiriéndose este último a un estado gobernado por un partido único mediante la dictadura del proletariado como lo profesa el marxismo-leninismo desarrollado por Iósif Stalin tras la muerte de Vladimir Ilich Ulianov Lenin en la Unión Soviética, este sistema desapareció en diciembre de 1991.[6][7]
↑Steele, David Ramsay (Septiembre de 1999). From Marx to Mises: Post Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation(en inglés). Open Court. p. 66. ISBN978-0875484495. «Marx distinguishes between two phases of marketless communism: an initial phase, with labor vouchers, and a higher phase, with free access.»|fechaacceso= requiere |url= (ayuda)
↑Busky, Donald F. (20 de julio de 2000). Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Praeger. p. 4. ISBN978-0275968861. «Communism would mean free distribution of goods and services. The communist slogan, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' (as opposed to 'work') would then rule».|fechaacceso= requiere |url= (ayuda)
↑O'Hara, Phillip (Septiembre de 2003). Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2. Routledge. p. 836. ISBN0-415-24187-1. «it influenced Marx to champion the ideas of a 'free association of producers' and of self-management replacing the centralized state.»
↑Busky, Donald F. (20 de julio de 2000). Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Praeger. p. 9. ISBN978-0275968861. «In a modern sense of the word, communism refers to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.»
↑Wilczynski, J. (2008). The Economics of Socialism after World War Two: 1945-1990. Aldine Transaction. p. 21. ISBN978-0202362281. «Contrary to Western usage, these countries describe themselves as ‘Socialist’ (not ‘Communist’). The second stage (Marx’s ‘higher phase’), or ‘Communism’ is to be marked by an age of plenty, distribution according to needs (not work), the absence of money and the market mechanism, the disappearance of the last vestiges of capitalism and the ultimate ‘whithering away of the state.»