Applebaum argues that the history of one-party rule began with the Soviet Union under Lenin. The historical pattern set by the Soviet Union was that one party would rule the government and fill political positions and the media with party loyalists. Applebaum describes this pattern as the rejection of the concept of a “neutral state,” which means a nation where the media tries to be objective and civil servants are not loyal to a single political party or agenda (24). Applebaum argues both left-wing and right-wing authoritarians are cynical because they reject the idea that the institutions of democratic and capitalist nations can actually be neutral and objective. This is how authoritarian governments justify filling those institutions with people loyal to the ruling party.

However, Applebaum goes on to state that even governments that technically had multiple political parties can count as one-party states. She writes, “But a one-party state is not necessarily a state with no opposition parties at all […] there are plenty of examples of one-party states […] that permitted some limited opposition, if only for show” (25). She gives a number of examples, including apartheid South Africa, Communist Poland, Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia (25-26).