After World War II, the terms "real socialism" or "really existing socialism" gradually became the predominating euphemisms used as self-description of the Eastern Bloc states' political and economical systems and their society models. De jure often referred to as " people's republics", these states were ruled by a single Soviet-aligned Marxism–Leninism party, some of which were ruled autocratically and had adapted a form of planned economy and propagated socialism and/or communism as their ideology. The term "real socialism" was introduced to explain the obvious gap between the propagated ideological framework and the political and economical reality faced by these states' societies.
Another aspect of the term real socialism contained elements of the Sino-Soviet split and other "disagreements", which were actually ideological gulfs, between the Soviet Union and its satellite states on one side and the People's Republic of China and the followers of a more Maoist brand of communist ideology on the other. The Soviets wished to enforce the idea that their version of socialism was "real" and the Chinese and their followers were not, precisely because the Maoist-inspired communist movement, which had grown so rapidly worldwide as a "radical left" alternative to Soviet ideas, had consistently claimed that the Soviet Union was no longer socialist and had betrayed the revolution. To counter this claim of Marxist revisionism, the Soviets defiantly claimed that their socialism was "real socialism", implying that other models of socialism were unrealistic.
The term was also used in an ironical criticism. The "reality" of "real socialism" was used against it. In particular, the term became a target of numerous political jokes in the Soviet Union, the following being typical examples.
"Do you know the boundary between real socialism and communism?" – "The border runs along the Kremlin's wall" .
"What is real socialism?" – "This is when you cannot yet get everything without money, but you already cannot buy anything for your money" .
Armenian Radio was asked: "Is it possible to build real socialism in Armenia?". Armenian Radio answers: "Yes, but it would be better to do it in Georgia".
The term "actually existing socialism" was often used by orthodox communists in the West to attack either their external opponents or their internal critics. The achievement of "actual" socialism being used as a counter to these groups' critiques of repression inside the "socialist countries".
