The USSR was ruled as enemy number 1 precisely because it took a hard-line stance against colonialism and capitalism. The PRC, despite siding against colonialism and capitalism, ultimately is not nearly as fierce a fighter. This is the tradeoff, the “deal with the devil” that China made in order to advance socialism forward. The soviet path was not incorrect, but neither was the Chinese decision.
As for the Cultural revolution, again, it was a product of China coming from even less development than Russia had during its revolution. China absolutely relied on soviet help, no doubt exists in my mind on that, but you clearly cannot draw a 1 to 1 comparison. Without the industrialization of the economy under Mao, China would not be the industrial giant it is today.
The reason I say Mao’s contributions were essential is because Mao played a similar role as Stalin, turning a post-revolutionary country into a newly industrialized one. Like the Stalin era, mistakes and excess occurred, but also like the Stalin era, such industrialization became the backbone of the future economy and brought incredible improvements to quality of life and production.
Comrade, I don’t want you to be upset with me. You’re a very interesting conversationalist for me.
Believe me, I’m sometimes as genuinely surprised by your information as you are by mine.
According to my information, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) was Mao Zedong’s massive economic campaign aimed at the accelerated industrialization and modernization of China. The campaign failed due to utopian management methods, the destruction of agriculture, and environmental problems, resulting in the Great Chinese Famine—one of the largest humanitarian disasters in history.
According to my information, the imposition of pseudoscience (Lysenkoism): In agriculture, experiments were conducted with deep plowing and ultra-dense seeding, which led to soil depletion and a sharp drop in crop yields.
According to your information, crop yields increased by 150%.
If this has offended me, then I apologize to you, of course, but I don’t understand what I’m apologizing for… We’re talking about Mao the manager now.
The USSR was ruled as enemy number 1 precisely because it took a hard-line stance against colonialism and capitalism. The PRC, despite siding against colonialism and capitalism, ultimately is not nearly as fierce a fighter.
On the one hand, China isn’t exactly a fierce champion of socialist ideals; yet on the other, Mao loathes Khrushchev—and actually went to war against the USSR precisely because Khrushchev had betrayed those very ideals, betrayed Stalin. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, Comrade?
Kafka is nervously smoking in the corner… You get what I mean, anyway.
This is the tradeoff, the “deal with the devil” that China made in order to advance socialism forward. The soviet path was not incorrect, but neither was the Chinese decision.
Yes, China had no other choice back then. It was a choice between reconciling with the USSR or turning toward the West. The Chinese proved to be a proud people, and so they turned to the West. I believe that China did not want to play second fiddle; it aspired to be the greatest socialist power of all.
What do you think would have happened back then—in the 70s—if China had chosen the USSR instead of selling its soul to the devil?
What course of events do you envision if two great nations were to unite against the yoke of capitalism—that force which devours everything in its path? Whether in the West or in China, there is essentially no difference… for what does it matter whether capitalism is “red” or “white”?
Without the industrialization of the economy under Mao
It failed—even though the Russians were helping. A great many Chinese students studied at universities across the USSR; there were plenty in my city, too. The USSR helped build factories and supplied machinery. Mao personally toured Soviet plants and copied their technological processes. He even secured a loan from Stalin.
So why, in that case, wouldn’t they have carried out industrialization?
You give Mao all the credit, while the assistance from the USSR somehow gets completely overlooked… Everything Mao achieved back then, he achieved with the help of the USSR. Had the USSR not provided nuclear weapons technology, the U.S. would have simply pecked China to death—strangled it. It was only after acquiring nuclear weapons that China attained true freedom. This is precisely what Iran needs; otherwise, it will be pecked to death in the exact same way.
The reason I say Mao’s contributions were essential is because Mao played a similar role as Stalin, turning a post-revolutionary country into a newly industrialized one. Like the Stalin era, mistakes and excess occurred, but also like the Stalin era, such industrialization became the backbone of the future economy and brought incredible improvements to quality of life and production.
The reason I say Mao’s contributions were essential is because Mao played a similar role as Stalin
Rather, like Lenin. Mao is the ideologue of Chinese socialism. Stalin always referred to himself as Lenin’s disciple.
turning a post-revolutionary country into a newly industrialized one.
A different view prevails here: that the best work Mao ever did was accomplished before—or, to use the Soviet analogy, prior to 1921. Subsequently, however, Mao went off the rails, drifting into “uncharted territory”—uncharted, at least, for him. His approach to economic construction ultimately devolved into a nightmare for China. The path he was pursuing proved untenable, necessitating an abrupt change of course.
but also like the Stalin era, such industrialization became
Yes, of course, there were many mistakes, but Stalin ended his journey on a high note.
As I said, the Sino-Soviet split was a tragedy. The world would have been better off had it never happened. However, China is not capitalist, just like public ownership under capitalism is not socialism, private ownership under socialism is not capitalism.
Further, I am not giving Mao all of the credit. Of course the USSR assisted. However, you’re giving Mao practically none of the credit for overseeing the same tumultuous period Stalin oversaw, in a country even less developed. Mao’s economic construction was not a mistake, it was uneven and unstable but ultimately positive, and serves as the bedrock for the modern socialist market economy.
Neither Mao nor Stalin were perfect. Both made mistakes, as any socialist leader will, especially in some of the earliest attempts. However, both also achieved tremendous results.
private ownership under socialism is not capitalism.
Private property and the means of production are two different kinds of property. I hope Dialectics will overcome this obstacle.
And I agree with you that China has a unique government system, unlike any other in the world.
The struggle and unity of opposites. When class struggle rages, socialism is being built; when the struggle ceases, communism begins.
But we mustn’t forget, as Stalin would probably say in my place, the NEP is a swamp: the further you go, the deeper you sink, and the harder it is to get out.
However, you’re giving Mao practically none of the credit for overseeing the same tumultuous period Stalin oversaw
I fully give Mao his due for having governed during the same era that Lenin did. Furthermore—with the assistance of the USSR—Mao laid the foundation for the China of the future. However, those things he attempted to accomplish on his own—or believed he could accomplish single-handedly—did not turn out particularly well.
For Reference:
Under Mao Zedong, the foundations of heavy industry were established in China. While the exact number of small-scale enterprises (specifically, backyard furnaces) ran into the hundreds of thousands, there were 154 major industrial facilities of primary importance. These were constructed during the 1950s with active technological and financial support from the USSR.
Soviet Assistance (1950s): The USSR transferred technology to China and built 154 major industrial enterprises from the ground up. These included giants such as the First Automobile Works (FAW) in Changchun, metallurgical complexes in Anshan and Wuhan, as well as aircraft and machine-building plants.
The “Great Leap Forward” Campaign (1958–1960): Mao Zedong attempted to accelerate industrialization using artisanal methods. Approximately 600,000 small, makeshift blast furnaces for smelting steel were constructed across the country. The attempt failed: the resulting steel was of poor quality, and the campaign triggered a massive economic crisis and famine.
The “Third Front” Program (1960s): Following the rupture in relations with the USSR, China began constructing military, heavy industrial, and machine-building plants in the country’s interior—specifically in the mountainous and hard-to-reach western provinces—in preparation for a potential war. Several hundred such facilities were erected, although their economic efficiency proved to be extremely low.
Now, pay particular attention to the years 1958–1960. This was precisely when Mao began “hunting sparrows,” scapegoating them as the cause of all the nation’s failures. In reality, the true culprit was the disastrous failure of his project involving the backyard blast furnaces operated by the peasantry. I spoke about this earlier.
Now, just judge for yourself: how much simpler it would have been to simply turn to Soviet specialists—who, at the time, were world leaders in steel production—rather than embarking on that monstrous gamble, which ultimately led to the starvation of the peasantry.
How do you assess such a decision coming from a man who was the leader of a vast nation? I call it a reckless decision! He didn’t want to invest money in large-scale industrial enterprises—the way Stalin did over the course of a decade; he wanted to achieve it faster, and solely at the expense of the peasants.
Just think about how absurd that sounds: becoming the world leader in steel production on the backs of the peasants.
How does that even make sense, Comrade? There is only one explanation: Mao confused steel with rice cakes.
We had a similar “corn tycoon” of our own… Khrushchev, who thought the U.S. had built its wealth on corn… the moron!
And mind you, I’m not drawing my data from books by modern Russian authors; I’m drawing it from old Soviet films.
If you could actually understand what is being said in them, your ears would shrivel up, and all your dialectical musings would hit a brick wall. This is a subject you know absolutely nothing about.
But I won’t translate it for you—I wouldn’t want to kill the poet inside you.
I don’t just mean personal property, I mean private ownership of the means of production and distribution. This is the germ of capitalism, but is not capitalism itself. Socialism and capitalism are systems, you cannot slice up parts of the system and identify some as capitalist and some as socialist.
Regarding Mao’s significance in liberating China, I already agree with you. However, I sincerely disagree with your underplaying of Mao’s contributions towards the buildup of socialism in China.
As for the Great Leap Forward, during 1949 and 1978, the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.
In 1952, industry was 36% of gross value of national output in China. By 1975, industry was 72% and agriculture was 28%. It is quite obvious that Mao’s supposedly disastrous socialist economic policies paved the way for the rapid economic and industrial development of Reform and Opening Up.
Official Chinese statistics show that after the end of the Leap in 1962, industrial output value had doubled; the gross value of agricultural products increased by 35 percent; steel production in 1962 was between 10.6 million tons or 12 million tons; investment in capital construction rose to 40 percent from 35 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period; the investment in capital construction was doubled; and the average income of workers and farmers increased by up to 30 percent. Additionally, there was significant capital construction (especially in iron, steel, mining and textile enterprises) that ultimately contributed greatly to China’s industrialization.
Heavy industry grew a great deal in this period too. Developments such as the establishment of the Taching oil field during the Great Leap Forward provided a great boost to the development of heavy industry. A massive oil field was developed in China. This was developed after 1960 using indigenous techniques, rather than Soviet or western techniques. (Specifically the workers used pressure from below to help extract the oil. They did not rely on constructing a multitude of derricks, as is the usual practice in oil fields).
See the original link for sources. Of course, there were mistakes, such as relying on the peasantry for the creation of steel in backyard furnaces. However, it is also undeniable that industrialization was rapidly achieved.
I have given my arguments as for why China is socialist, and the term “real socialism” is more religious and sentimental than logical. China is under a dictatorship of the proletariat, and has public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. This is true.
I don’t just mean personal property, I mean private ownership of the means of production and distribution. This is the germ of capitalism, but is not capitalism itself. Socialism and capitalism are systems, you cannot slice up parts of the system and identify some as capitalist and some as socialist.
I understand all of that, but I’m getting at something slightly different.
I hope you’ll agree with me that socialism in China is not yet fully built—that it is still in a raw, unfinished state.
In your view, what will socialism in China look like once it reaches its completed form?
How will people be induced—through the use of “soft power”—to give up private property? Or will they be compelled to give it up at all?
However, I sincerely disagree with your underplaying of Mao’s contributions towards the buildup of socialism in China.
Yes, Mao did lay the industrial and agrarian foundations over the course of several decades—I agree with that.
However, don’t forget that by the 1940s, the USSR had risen to second place in the world in terms of industrial capacity! Stalin even appeared on the cover of Time. The entire world acknowledged it. And this wasn’t merely a foundation, but a fully operational industrial sector. Furthermore, you can scarcely imagine the destitute state the country was in back in 1930.
Now, perhaps, you understand why I consider something else entirely to be truly remarkable.
the term “real socialism” is more religious and sentimental than logical.
You’re trying to take a jab at me again with this “incorrect socialism” argument.
Okay, let me be more precise, then. In that video, the host referred to Chinese socialism as Maoism—specifically stating that Maoism is a distorted superstructure built upon Marxism and Leninism. That is precisely—word for word—how it was viewed in the USSR back then.
And let me reiterate: I didn’t say this to you; the USSR said it. Every single film in the Soviet Union was subjected to rigorous censorship before being aired on television.
China is under a dictatorship of the proletariat
Yes—except that the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” was struck from the CPC Charter in the early 80s… in case you didn’t know.
The USSR was ruled as enemy number 1 precisely because it took a hard-line stance against colonialism and capitalism. The PRC, despite siding against colonialism and capitalism, ultimately is not nearly as fierce a fighter. This is the tradeoff, the “deal with the devil” that China made in order to advance socialism forward. The soviet path was not incorrect, but neither was the Chinese decision.
As for the Cultural revolution, again, it was a product of China coming from even less development than Russia had during its revolution. China absolutely relied on soviet help, no doubt exists in my mind on that, but you clearly cannot draw a 1 to 1 comparison. Without the industrialization of the economy under Mao, China would not be the industrial giant it is today.
The reason I say Mao’s contributions were essential is because Mao played a similar role as Stalin, turning a post-revolutionary country into a newly industrialized one. Like the Stalin era, mistakes and excess occurred, but also like the Stalin era, such industrialization became the backbone of the future economy and brought incredible improvements to quality of life and production.
Comrade, I don’t want you to be upset with me. You’re a very interesting conversationalist for me.
Believe me, I’m sometimes as genuinely surprised by your information as you are by mine.
According to my information, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) was Mao Zedong’s massive economic campaign aimed at the accelerated industrialization and modernization of China. The campaign failed due to utopian management methods, the destruction of agriculture, and environmental problems, resulting in the Great Chinese Famine—one of the largest humanitarian disasters in history.
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/三年困难时期
You say that the foundation was laid…
According to my information, the imposition of pseudoscience (Lysenkoism): In agriculture, experiments were conducted with deep plowing and ultra-dense seeding, which led to soil depletion and a sharp drop in crop yields.
According to your information, crop yields increased by 150%.
If this has offended me, then I apologize to you, of course, but I don’t understand what I’m apologizing for… We’re talking about Mao the manager now.
What’s the catch, Comrade?
On the one hand, China isn’t exactly a fierce champion of socialist ideals; yet on the other, Mao loathes Khrushchev—and actually went to war against the USSR precisely because Khrushchev had betrayed those very ideals, betrayed Stalin. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, Comrade?
Kafka is nervously smoking in the corner… You get what I mean, anyway.
Yes, China had no other choice back then. It was a choice between reconciling with the USSR or turning toward the West. The Chinese proved to be a proud people, and so they turned to the West. I believe that China did not want to play second fiddle; it aspired to be the greatest socialist power of all.
What do you think would have happened back then—in the 70s—if China had chosen the USSR instead of selling its soul to the devil?
What course of events do you envision if two great nations were to unite against the yoke of capitalism—that force which devours everything in its path? Whether in the West or in China, there is essentially no difference… for what does it matter whether capitalism is “red” or “white”?
It failed—even though the Russians were helping. A great many Chinese students studied at universities across the USSR; there were plenty in my city, too. The USSR helped build factories and supplied machinery. Mao personally toured Soviet plants and copied their technological processes. He even secured a loan from Stalin.
So why, in that case, wouldn’t they have carried out industrialization?
You give Mao all the credit, while the assistance from the USSR somehow gets completely overlooked… Everything Mao achieved back then, he achieved with the help of the USSR. Had the USSR not provided nuclear weapons technology, the U.S. would have simply pecked China to death—strangled it. It was only after acquiring nuclear weapons that China attained true freedom. This is precisely what Iran needs; otherwise, it will be pecked to death in the exact same way.
Rather, like Lenin. Mao is the ideologue of Chinese socialism. Stalin always referred to himself as Lenin’s disciple.
A different view prevails here: that the best work Mao ever did was accomplished before—or, to use the Soviet analogy, prior to 1921. Subsequently, however, Mao went off the rails, drifting into “uncharted territory”—uncharted, at least, for him. His approach to economic construction ultimately devolved into a nightmare for China. The path he was pursuing proved untenable, necessitating an abrupt change of course.
Yes, of course, there were many mistakes, but Stalin ended his journey on a high note.
As I said, the Sino-Soviet split was a tragedy. The world would have been better off had it never happened. However, China is not capitalist, just like public ownership under capitalism is not socialism, private ownership under socialism is not capitalism.
Further, I am not giving Mao all of the credit. Of course the USSR assisted. However, you’re giving Mao practically none of the credit for overseeing the same tumultuous period Stalin oversaw, in a country even less developed. Mao’s economic construction was not a mistake, it was uneven and unstable but ultimately positive, and serves as the bedrock for the modern socialist market economy.
Neither Mao nor Stalin were perfect. Both made mistakes, as any socialist leader will, especially in some of the earliest attempts. However, both also achieved tremendous results.
Private property and the means of production are two different kinds of property. I hope Dialectics will overcome this obstacle.
And I agree with you that China has a unique government system, unlike any other in the world.
The struggle and unity of opposites. When class struggle rages, socialism is being built; when the struggle ceases, communism begins.
But we mustn’t forget, as Stalin would probably say in my place, the NEP is a swamp: the further you go, the deeper you sink, and the harder it is to get out.
I fully give Mao his due for having governed during the same era that Lenin did. Furthermore—with the assistance of the USSR—Mao laid the foundation for the China of the future. However, those things he attempted to accomplish on his own—or believed he could accomplish single-handedly—did not turn out particularly well.
For Reference:
Under Mao Zedong, the foundations of heavy industry were established in China. While the exact number of small-scale enterprises (specifically, backyard furnaces) ran into the hundreds of thousands, there were 154 major industrial facilities of primary importance. These were constructed during the 1950s with active technological and financial support from the USSR.
Soviet Assistance (1950s): The USSR transferred technology to China and built 154 major industrial enterprises from the ground up. These included giants such as the First Automobile Works (FAW) in Changchun, metallurgical complexes in Anshan and Wuhan, as well as aircraft and machine-building plants.
The “Great Leap Forward” Campaign (1958–1960): Mao Zedong attempted to accelerate industrialization using artisanal methods. Approximately 600,000 small, makeshift blast furnaces for smelting steel were constructed across the country. The attempt failed: the resulting steel was of poor quality, and the campaign triggered a massive economic crisis and famine.
The “Third Front” Program (1960s): Following the rupture in relations with the USSR, China began constructing military, heavy industrial, and machine-building plants in the country’s interior—specifically in the mountainous and hard-to-reach western provinces—in preparation for a potential war. Several hundred such facilities were erected, although their economic efficiency proved to be extremely low.
Now, pay particular attention to the years 1958–1960. This was precisely when Mao began “hunting sparrows,” scapegoating them as the cause of all the nation’s failures. In reality, the true culprit was the disastrous failure of his project involving the backyard blast furnaces operated by the peasantry. I spoke about this earlier.
Now, just judge for yourself: how much simpler it would have been to simply turn to Soviet specialists—who, at the time, were world leaders in steel production—rather than embarking on that monstrous gamble, which ultimately led to the starvation of the peasantry.
How do you assess such a decision coming from a man who was the leader of a vast nation? I call it a reckless decision! He didn’t want to invest money in large-scale industrial enterprises—the way Stalin did over the course of a decade; he wanted to achieve it faster, and solely at the expense of the peasants.
Just think about how absurd that sounds: becoming the world leader in steel production on the backs of the peasants.
How does that even make sense, Comrade? There is only one explanation: Mao confused steel with rice cakes.
We had a similar “corn tycoon” of our own… Khrushchev, who thought the U.S. had built its wealth on corn… the moron!
And mind you, I’m not drawing my data from books by modern Russian authors; I’m drawing it from old Soviet films.
If you could actually understand what is being said in them, your ears would shrivel up, and all your dialectical musings would hit a brick wall. This is a subject you know absolutely nothing about.
But I won’t translate it for you—I wouldn’t want to kill the poet inside you.
https://youtu.be/Ny28m_9TSDM
Most importantly, the man narrating the clip states that he created this film for one specific reason.
He is a writer, and he had a falling-out with his colleagues—fellow socialist writers from the GDR and France.
Do you know why they fell out?
Now, take a deep breath, Comrade.
Because he argues that the socialism practiced in China isn’t real socialism…
I’m not making any assertions here myself; I’m simply showing you archival footage from the 1970s.
I completely agree with you.
I don’t just mean personal property, I mean private ownership of the means of production and distribution. This is the germ of capitalism, but is not capitalism itself. Socialism and capitalism are systems, you cannot slice up parts of the system and identify some as capitalist and some as socialist.
Regarding Mao’s significance in liberating China, I already agree with you. However, I sincerely disagree with your underplaying of Mao’s contributions towards the buildup of socialism in China.
As for the Great Leap Forward, during 1949 and 1978, the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.
See the original link for sources. Of course, there were mistakes, such as relying on the peasantry for the creation of steel in backyard furnaces. However, it is also undeniable that industrialization was rapidly achieved.
I have given my arguments as for why China is socialist, and the term “real socialism” is more religious and sentimental than logical. China is under a dictatorship of the proletariat, and has public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. This is true.
I understand all of that, but I’m getting at something slightly different.
I hope you’ll agree with me that socialism in China is not yet fully built—that it is still in a raw, unfinished state.
In your view, what will socialism in China look like once it reaches its completed form?
How will people be induced—through the use of “soft power”—to give up private property? Or will they be compelled to give it up at all?
Yes, Mao did lay the industrial and agrarian foundations over the course of several decades—I agree with that.
However, don’t forget that by the 1940s, the USSR had risen to second place in the world in terms of industrial capacity! Stalin even appeared on the cover of Time. The entire world acknowledged it. And this wasn’t merely a foundation, but a fully operational industrial sector. Furthermore, you can scarcely imagine the destitute state the country was in back in 1930.
Now, perhaps, you understand why I consider something else entirely to be truly remarkable.
You’re trying to take a jab at me again with this “incorrect socialism” argument.
Okay, let me be more precise, then. In that video, the host referred to Chinese socialism as Maoism—specifically stating that Maoism is a distorted superstructure built upon Marxism and Leninism. That is precisely—word for word—how it was viewed in the USSR back then.
And let me reiterate: I didn’t say this to you; the USSR said it. Every single film in the Soviet Union was subjected to rigorous censorship before being aired on television.
Yes—except that the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” was struck from the CPC Charter in the early 80s… in case you didn’t know.