China
China ascribes to its own form of communism, Maoism (as opposed to the Soviet Marxist model). It also has many characterists that distinguish it from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and make any sort of economic comparison difficult, to say the least. As much as the socialist economic model remained similar between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, there were key economic and political differences that make any analysis of relationships between Chinese communism and Soviet communism difficult.A socialist economy has many failings, and both China and the Soviet Union emphasized these. There was no incentive to work hard, or even to work at all. Indeed, there was a saying in Russia (loosely translated) "We pretend to work, and they'll pretend to pay us." An economy planned by economists would not have succeeded, but if you consider that a communist economy is planned by politicians with ulterior motives and hidden agendas, the problem amplifies. At a time when being a member of The Party was the only route to success in Russia, those same people were called stukach by their fellow Russians, informers. Indeed, a communist society is often forced to rule by terror. In Russia the Red Army
Had a capitalist infrastructure been developed, things might have gone better, but the shift could not be made immediately to capitalism, instead they should have attempted to set up governemnt-controlled parallels to every industry in the American capitalist system, then privatized each one. In addition, much of food production was centred around the Ukraine, and the breaking off of that state put a serious dent in the Russian ability to feed its population. A shift towards the Free Market is deceptive. The attempts by the Russian government to oppress the Black-Marketeers (or entrepreneurs, as they are called in the west) during the transition was a key element in their downfall, again this illustrates that while there was a willingness to move to capitalism, the Soviets didn't do it intelligently. On the flip side, if we move further into China, into the heart of the rural areas, and away from the urban areas of the East, we come to see the squalid living conditions associated with the former USSR. China's communist policies were no better than the USSRs, just slightly different. Over the last half-century, China's population has increased by 50%, and this is a large factor as to why people are living in such poverty despite a socialist system. There is no actual change in China's economic stance, it's just providing an elaborate front to attempt to gain a more powerful economy, but as long as the central regions stay socialist, there will be no improvement, China will just separate into two smaller countries, when the residents of Shanghai realize they don't want to support the rest of China anymore. Within the country migration laws keep the poor from flocking to the Cities, and the half-and half free market/communist model employed by the Chinese government are not helping things, but worsening them. But now they have a per capita income of $1,200 a year and the national GNP has increased by $2,400. As identified in the article, after the initial communist revolution in the 50s, China stagnated. Russia's shift to capitalism failed not because it was sudden, but because the Russians had no plan in place to shift to Capitalism. For example, the Greater Shanghai Industrial Region, containing only 8% of China's population, produced 23 percent of China's GDP, at least 30 percent of the country's industrial production, and over one-third of China's machine tool and electronics production in 2001. While living conditions are improving in the free-market areas of Shanghai and Bo-Hai, things are unchanged, if not worsened in central China.
Common topics in this essay:
Soviet Union,
Shanghai Bo-Hai,
Free Market,
USSR Socialist,
Square PLA,
Network Chinese,
Tiananmen Square,
China's GDP,
Republic China,
Army KGB,
free market,
food production,
economic model,
soviet union,
towards free,
towards free market,
capitalist system,
free market system,
china's population,
chinese economic,
living conditions,
economy planned,
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Acceptance Essays
