In 1978 war broke out between Vietnam and Cambodia, two countries that were supposed to be “socialist”. This bemused – and embarrassed – the Stalinist Communist parties, who could not explain this phenomenon. Ted Grant explained that the two regimes involved in war were bureaucratic, deformed workers’ state, with a one party, military-police dictatorship in power. Marxists supported the nationalised, planned economies in these countries, but raised the need for genuine workers’ democracy.
