Hi all,
I’ve been a longtime lurker here and this is my first real post—I wanted to ask folks about the liberalization and subsequent destruction of the USSR versus Deng’s reforms in the PRC.
I know the USSR’s politburo was largely calcified near the end of its existence (with a lot of politicians being in their 60s-70s, lots of corruption, etc.) and the choice to both politically and economically liberalize is what put the last nail in the coffin for the USSR. From what I have read, the party basically gave its power away, let other parties run, and many old party members became part of the new bourgeois class. Most takes I see from other communists these days seem to be of the opinion that it’s the political liberalization that really killed the USSR, not necessarily just the economic opening up.
Which brings us to China: I think it’s an understatement to call the PRC’s development a miracle, and it seems like they’re going to continue a progressive path for the foreseeable future. Deng also opened things up, but in a much more controlled manner, with no political liberalization—it seems this is what has really contributed to the PRC’s success. Using the developmental ability of capital, while ensuring power remains in the hands of a state ideologically committed to improving material conditions, has worked well.
So my question then is: what allowed China’s political system to be adept at managing their economy without caving to bourgeois interests, compared to the USSR’s? What caused the USSR’s political system to fail compared to China’s? Does it have to do with policies made as far back as Stalin or Khrushchev? And what can a revolutionary socialist movement take away from this contrast to ensure it wouldn’t happen again in a (hypothetical) future?
Any responses or resources are greatly appreciated! Thank you.
Can't say this was THE reason but one thing that struck me reading zubok's Collapse book, 1 biography of deng and isabella weber's "how china escaped shock therapy" was the totally deferential attitude of the soviet reform economist towards the western economists and their theories compared to the much more contested relations between chinese and western economists.
Zubok's book shows the soviet economists completely buying into everything the western economists told them. While weber relates a reccuring event where western economists would sit chinese economists down in conferences and dictate to them what they should do, the chinese economists would silently listen, write stuff in their notes and go home, the western economists would then go home believing they had fully convinced the chinese. Then the next day the chinese economists would show up to the conference and dispute the ideas they listened to the day before, which would frustrate the western economists.
There was just simply more debate in the chinese case, Deng did not have as much power as gorbachev so even though he was at diffetent points pro-shock therapy, cautious reformers like Shen Yun also had the clout to frustrate those efforts
wait wait wait, you can just... think through proposals and not blindly accept what your told because it's the big economy that said it???
So give me a break, I just read some Le Carre, but I think that there was some kind of rapprochement that existed between the West and the USSR throughout the Cold War that really enabled the Chicago School brainrot to take hold while there was no similar effort to establish a similar relationship with China. It might be trite, but the Oriental-Occidental mental block probably prevented the West from even considering capitalist ideological infiltration.
Yeah I think you have a point, chinese reformers were more proud of being chinese than soviet reformers (who might've been russian, ukranian, tajik etc) were of being soviet. Plus they had the "europeanism" brainrot