Table Of ContentA Critique
of Soviet Economics
A Critique
of Soviet Econom ics
by Mao Tsetung
Translated by Moss Roberts
Annotated by Richard Levy
With an Introduction
by James Pech
Monthly Review Press
New York and London
Copyright © 1977 by Moss Roberts
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mao, Tsetung, 1893-1976.
A critique of Soviet economics.
CONTENTS: Reading notes on the Soviet text Political
Economy.—Concerning Economic Problems of Socialism in
the Soviet Union.—Critique of Stalin’s Economic
Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union.
1. Economics—Russia 2. Akademiia nauk SSSR.
Institut ékonomiki. Politicheskaia ékonomiia
3. Stalin, Iosif, 1879-1953. Ékonomicheskie problemy
sotsializma v SSSR. 4. Russia—Economic policy—
1917- 5. China—Economic policy. I. Title.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Introduction 7
Notes on the Texts 30
Reading Notes on the Soviet Text
Political Economy 33
Concerning Economic Problems of Socialism
in the USSR 129
Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR 135
Notes 149
Introduction
These writings of Mao Tsetung, brought together here under
the tide A Critique of Soviet Economics, date from the period
during and immediately after the Great Leap Forward, a time
when the Chinese Revolution began to break decisively with
the Soviet Union and its model of development. With the
Great Leap, a distinctive Chinese road to socialism emerged.
But it was a road paved with a decade of controversy over the
course of China’s socialist development. At the heart of many
of those disputes within the Chinese Communist Party was
the question of the applicability of the Russian experience to
building socialism in China.
In analyzing their own society, the Chinese Communists
have long studied the Russian Revolution for inspiration and
practical suggestions, as well as for a general perspective on
the course of their own revolution. To them, the Soviet Union
is a model from which both negative and positive lessons can
be drawn. Thus it is not surprising to find Mao, at such a
pivotal stage in the Chinese Revolution as the Great Leap,
once again turning to a study of Soviet experience. This time
he did so through a critique of two Soviet books, Political
Economy: A Textbook and Joseph Stalin’s Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR. By the time Mao wrote his critique,
however, he had moved away from trying to adapt Soviet
methods, as he and other party leaders had sought to do in
the early 1950s, and instead began to advocate strongly a
wide range of alternatives.
7
8 Introduction
A Critique of Soviet Economics can usefully be read from
several, closely interwoven perspectives: (1) as a crucial ini
tial summing up by Mao of what the Soviet model was and
what it implied for China; (2) as a strong defense of the Great
Leap Forward from the perspective of uninterrupted revolu
tion; (3) as a pathbreaking examination of the principles of
Soviet political economy and of several key aspects of the
Russian revolutionary experience, particularly the years
under Stalin’s leadership.
The texts translated in this volume include a critique of
the Soviet work, Political Economy: A Textbook, along with a
supplement Mao wrote to his own critique, a talk on Stalin’s
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, and a critique
of the Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR. Mao’s
consideration of Stalin’s Economic Problems together with
the Russian political economy text is quite appropriate, as
Stalin’s work was itself written as a series of comments for
the draft textbook on political economy, which was finished
and released only after his death. This Russian text in its
various Russian/Chinese editions circulated in China from
the mid-1950s on. After the Lushan Conference in 1959,
Mao called upon party members to critically study the third
edition. This was the edition upon which his critique is
based.
THE SOVIET MODEL______________________
Throughout most of the history of the Chinese Communist
Party, controversy over how to deal with the experience of
the Russian Revolution has been at the heart of what the
Chinese call the “two-line struggle.” From its founding in
1921, conflicts within the party have in one way or another
been linked to individuals who favored the orthodox Russian
conception of revolution. The defeat of Li Li-san in the
1930s, Wang Ming in the 1940s, Kao Kang (Gau Gang) and
P’eng Teh-huai (Peng Deh-huai) in the 1950s, and Liu
Shao-ch’i (Liu Shau-qi) in the 1960s have all entailed con
Introduction 9
troversies over the nature and applicability of the Soviet
model.
Until 1949, these disputes in China focused on the appro
priate strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle for
power, the nature of the mass line, and the correct way to
apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of China.
Stalin only reluctantly tolerated the methods and innovations
associated with Mao and his followers, especially as they
were worked out during the years in Yenan (1937-1945). In
the 1940s, he even opposed the successful struggle for libera
tion. “The Chinese revolution won victory,” Mao later said,
“by acting contrary to Stalin’s will. . . . If we had followed
Wang Ming’s, or in other words, Stalin’s, method the
Chinese revolution couldn’t have succeeded.”1
With Liberation, however, the Chinese saw the Soviet
Union as the model for socialist development. Mao had
warned his colleagues in 1949 that “our past work is only the
first step in a long march of 10,000 li”—“a brief prologue to a
long drama.”2 Yet in these early days, there was no model of
socialist development other than the Russian, with its reli
ance on elite-planned and bureaucratically administered pro
grams of economic development which unduly subordinate
the needs of the countryside to the demands of heavy indus
try. The Soviet Union, despite all, was a society which had
achieved industrialization and collectivization, key goals of all
the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. The Soviet vic
tory over fascism in the Second World War was to many
Chinese leaders proof of the success of that society. And at a
time of intense American government hostility, a U.S.-
backed blockade and bombings of its coast, and later a world
wide economic embargo, it was quite natural that China
leaned toward the Soviet Union in its defense and economic
policies.
“In the early stages of Liberation,” Mao writes in this vol
ume, “we had no experience of managing the economy of the
entire nation. So in the period of the first five-year plan we
could do no more than copy the Soviet Union’s methods, al
though we never felt altogether satisfied about it.”3 This
10 Introduction
growing dissatisfaction focused around three main aspects of
the Soviet model: (1) “primitive socialist accumulation”4 at
the expense of the peasantry; (2) a theory of productive
forces and the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) a conception
of the Communist Party in China.
Primitive Socialist Accumulation at
the Expense of the Peasantry
A Chinese slogan of the early 1950s, “the Soviet Union today
is our tomorrow,” captures the spirit with which many Chi
nese undertook to copy Soviet methods. China’s first five-year
plan was notable for its almost exclusive reliance on heavy
industry; highly centralized, bureaucratic methods of planning;
and little emphasis on light industry and the production of
consumer goods. The peasantry was considered largely as a
source of savings. Powerful, centralized economic ministries
were established in Peking. They introduced rigid hierarchi
cal systems of control and “one-man management” in the
factories, and relied on highly paid specialists alone to direct
them. To stimulate productive activity and monitor enteiprise
performance, material incentives were widely promoted.
The Soviet Union actively encouraged such develop
ments. And China’s relations with the socialist world after
1949 quite naturally entailed giving a priority to those areas
where cooperation was easiest and most meaningful: heavy
industry, an educational system designed to train profession
als and technicians to administer the Soviet-style five-year
plan; the spread of professionalization in the armed forces.
Indeed, what was happening in the People’s Liberation
Army symbolizes what was happening throughout the urban
areas of China. With the adoption in February 1955 of the
“Regulations on the Service of Officers,” the Chinese officer
corps acquired the trappings of a regular army. And in in
troducing a system of ranks, tides, and widely divergent pay
scales for officers and enlisted personnel, the PLA was turn
ing its back on the informal, egalitarian, and democratic
character which had been molded in years of revolutionary
warfare.
