centrally planned economies

a term applied mainly to the traditionally communist states that looked to the former USSR for leadership; most have now evolved toward more democratic and market-oriented systems; also known formerly as the Second World or as the communist countries; through the 1980s, this group included Albania, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, North Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, USSR, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, but now is limited to Cuba and North Korea, and less so to China