It is important to note that the very existence of the Soviet Union allowed the Chinese to experiment with alternative models of development to those undertaken in the Soviet Union. The Soviets had absolutely no option but to focus on heavy industry or they would have been crushed by the imperialists and would have lost World War II. If the Soviet’s had concentrated on light industry and consumer goods they would have simply been overrun by the Nazi’s. In Stalin's prescient words of February 1931 in response to the idea that the tempo of industrial production should be slowed down: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or they crush us." ( History of the CPSU p.314)

The Chinese revolution had slightly more leeway in terms of the pressure of external circumstances precisely due to the sacrifices made to build and re-build the USSR. It is this leeway which Mao (1) underestimates when he criticises the emphasis of the USSR on heavy industry and the 'soaking' of the peasantry. (Mao, p.12)

"The presence of millions of PLA soldiers ready to take on the tasks of production, management and political control, in addition to defence, was a major advantage for the Communists at the decisive moment when power was taken. They were thus able to dispense with the dilemma that faced Lenin in 1917: whether to withdraw the best workers from the factories at the risk of diminishing production or to show confidence in the old administration". (Chesneaux p.4.)

It is also pertinent to note that Chinese military strategy was different in that there were never any illusions that they could stop an imperialist invasion in a similar manner to the Soviet Union. The strategy was to let any invader take territory and to bog them down for years in guerrilla warfare thereby exacting a substantial price from the conquerors. Such a strategy did not require a substantial part of the economy to be devoted solely to military production. (Burchett &Alley, pp.155-172)

When considering the ‘two-line struggle’ that was to break out in the CCP it is important to note some of the tensions to which the party was subject when it came to power in 1949. The differing experience of party cadre in the cities and the red base areas. The eventual swiftness of the victory which meant that many officials from the old regime had to be kept even though there had been no opportunity to ideologically re-educate them. The unequal geographical development of China which meant that parts of the country were chronically backward and marred by feudalism and foreign domination. The destruction of the economy which meant massive inflation and substantial unemployment. (Chesneaux p.17)

Whether China should follow the Bolshevik model was an important focus of debate within the CCP. (Mao on Soviet Economics, p.8) At the beginning of the Chinese Revolution their first five year plan, despite reservations as to its applicability to Chinese conditions, reservations which would later explode into a protracted 'two line struggle', was closely modelled on the type of development which had taken place in the Soviet Union: a concentration on heavy industry, highly centralised and bureaucratic planning, the encouragement of material incentives, one-man management in the factories and highly paid bourgeois specialists, a secondary role for light industry and consumer goods. Liu Shao-ch'i was a major proponent of the orthodox Soviet view as opposed to the 'utopian' Maoist perspective. In this perspective as in the early USSR, the peasantry was considered a source of primitive accumulation. "The Soviet Union today is our tomorrow," was a popular Chinese slogan in the 1950's. (Mao TseTung, introduction by James Peck, p.10.)

The priority given to heavy industry during the first five year plan meant that, "between 1953 and 1955 industrial productivity increased 42 percent while the average salary increased 15 percent and the real salary (buying power) only 7 percent." (Chesneaux, p.66) Mao noted that such an imbalance had little regard for peoples lives. (Chesneaux, p.66)

In late 1957 and 1958 the five year plans were replaced by the Great Leap Forward. This can be seen as an attempt at a definitive break with the Soviet economic prototype. In particular it was an endeavour to harness the exertion’s, physical and mental, of the Chinese people themselves. In this sense the GLF was essentially a political experiment which was intended to have benign economic consequences. It was a criticism of the Soviet Union’s bureaucratic top down practices not only in theory, but also in practice. The criticisms noted were an over-concentration on heavy industry, excessive centralisation and bureaucratic implementation.

In line with its political impetus it is important to note that the GLF had important ideological ramifications. Graves were erased in the countryside to make cultivation easier, but also as an attack on superstition. Communal dining rooms were opened and women entered social production in large numbers a policy opposed by males even amongst the poor peasantry. (Chesneaux p.104)

Liu and Mao differed on the nature of the Communist party. Mao had a materialist view that understood that not everyone in the CP was a communist, and that far from being a fount of infallibility the CP had to intersect with the masses in order to gain knowledge through practice and to lead the revolution. (p.20, Mao on Soviet Economics) He realised that the Soviet party had no answer as to how to stop a powerful bureaucratic elite developing which ruled by ‘commandism’ and excluded the mass of the people from the political decision making process. (p.19, Mao on Soviet Economics) In essence the Yenan experience and the mass line were in opposition to the Soviet model. (Chesneaux, p.31)

By 1955, the Peoples Liberation Army was beginning to reject its democratic and egalitarian traditions with the introduction of ranks, differentiated pay scales, titles and the acquisition of the characterisation of a regular army. This was seen as ‘Sovietisation’ by some of the Chinese party leadership and they were sharply critical of it. It is important to note that the egalitarian tradition is a characteristic of Chinese communism much more so than the Bolshevik model. Despite Lenin sometimes describing the party as a "tribune of the people" there is nothing as explicit as the ‘Mass Line’, "from the masses, to the masses," in the original Leninist conception of the party. Many leading elements in the party, including Liu Shao-ch’i at this time, were also opposed to one-man management, bureaucratic planning and the concentration of centralised planning in ministries in Peking.

Mao argued that the attempt to encourage a revolutionary transformation of the countryside was in danger of failing due to the expanding gap between town and countryside which was reinforcing old habits of looking down on manual labour in general and the peasantry in particular. Bureaucratic and elitist methods of leadership were prominent and Mao argued that the growing reliance of industrial and technical development concentrated in the cities at the expense of expanding the social revolution in the rural areas would exacerbate the contradiction between town and country. (Mao, pp.11-12.)

The Chinese communists, then, had a more balanced view of economic development than did the Soviets. They saw town and country as intimately interrelated. To reiterate, they could do this because they had the power of the Soviet Union behind them enabling them to re-focus from an overwhelming stress on heavy industry.

In April 1956 Mao made a major speech called, "On the Ten Major Relationships" where he openly criticised the Soviet model. The concept of primitive socialist accumulation via soaking the peasantry was rejected as was draining surplus from rural areas. The concentration on heavy industry was rejected as a lopsided developmental approach. Mao argued that the only way forward was for the Chinese workforce, industrial and agricultural to vastly increase its labour productivity. It was hoped that in this way a clash between urban and rural interests could be avoided. Also avoided could be the repressive state apparatus, economically wasteful in itself and discordant with a socialist democratic method, which would be necessary to police a rural/urban split. By 1956, after Khruschev's secret speech the Chinese Communist Party had developed the notion that the bureaucratic nature of the Soviet CP and its tendency to rule by diktat, what Mao terms 'commandism', was alienating it from the masses as were the frequent negations of state and party democratic procedures.

(Mao, p.19.) Again Mao and Liu differed, with Liu having a more traditional line akin to the Soviet model and Mao adopting the position that the CP was interwoven with society rather than dominating it. (Mao pp.20-25.) 

As mentioned tirelessly in these two papers the ‘theory of productive forces’ lays all emphasis on an increase in productive forces and largely ignores productive relations. A growth in the productive forces is viewed as all that is necessary to create Communism. The fact that it is necessary to continually struggle for a continuing revolution in the ideological and political arenas, which is intended to reshape peoples worldview is ignored.

"It is a passive and ‘inevitablist’ theory in that, if socialism is inevitable, then why bothers to continue struggling for it? The potentially creative role of a mass input is excluded from productive forces theory, and there is a reliance on material incentives."

In productive forces theory the dictatorship of the proletariat is restricted to repressing the old ruling classes and guiding the development of the productive forces instead of operating as an instrument which can revolutionise all of society. The end of private property is viewed simplistically as the ending of exploitation and there is no recognition that work organisation which is essentially identical to that of capitalism, hierarchy, disciplining of the workforce, etc. will inevitably lead to capitalist methodologies and capitalist ideologies. Socialism is not something which you can have everywhere else but at work.

Whilst productive forces theory sees socialism as needing little more than political power which can ensure the public ownership of the means of production and a rise in productive forces, Maoism brings into the picture a reliance on the creative role of the masses with mass campaigns and a profound and ongoing struggle in the political and ideological arenas all with the intention of changing peoples world outlook.

Maoist thinking draws heavily on the time when the Chinese Communist Party had a liberated zone in Yenan and the principles developed there were: self-reliance, decentralisation, antagonism to bureaucracy and bureaucratic methods, opposition to elitism, a reliance on non-material incentives, collective goals and discipline, and the active intervention of the masses in all aspects of social and economic activity. When we talk of the Sinification of Marxism it is interesting to note how the Chinese Communists absorbed historic elements of Chinese culture, such as collective social activities and a high level of social conformity in terms of behaviour into the totality of their analysis. In the ideological sphere "materialism and the dialectic had for many centuries been part of Chinese cultural traditions" (Chesneaux p.7) thereby easing the assimilation of aspects of Marxist theory into a Chinese framework

Concerning the peasants, whereas the Soviets had sought to make agriculture into rural industry via the collectivisation process the Chinese took another route placing more emphasis on raising the class consciousness of the peasantry. Mao argued that "mechanisation first, co-operation later on" was to get the procedure the wrong way round and that in China the main productive force was people. Social transformation, which would prompt and allow technical innovation would release the productive forces and also reduce polarisation in the countryside. This approach was not upheld by a major section of the party. Liu Shao-ch’i, for example, condemned it as "utopian agrarian socialism" and there was a significant struggle within the party and wider Chinese society as to both the rate of change and the type of transformation which was necessary.

To present only one example, Wilfred Burchett and Rewi Alley detail the innovation present in Tachai, the 'something from nothing' township, which had literally been built up from scratch by an integrated and collective effort. The attitude to this success by the Liu Shao-ch'i faction to Tachai was initially one of disbelief and then one of open sabotage. (Burchett and Alley pp.134-35)

By 1958, the Peoples Commune movement was in full momentum. Each Commune encompassed several villages and placed genuine power into the hands of the peasantry to the extent of the Party viewing the peasantry as the motor force for socialist construction. If one recalls the tremendous disruption with which collectivisation occurred in the Soviet Union, Stalin actually admitted to Churchill that never had the USSR been so close to the brink of disaster, the Chinese events are truly remarkable. In four months, all of the 500 million farmers of China were organised into Peoples Communes with no loss of agricultural production. Obviously, this indicates that the move to Peoples Communes must have had real and active mass support. There was nothing like the peasant resistance, which had existed in the Soviet Union. In the Chinese case, the poor and middle peasantry overwhelmed the tiny majority of rich peasants and there was no strong Kulak class stratum.

At the Eighth Party Congress the resolution had been adopted that the basic contradiction in socialist society was between the "advanced social system" and the "backward social productive forces," but Mao came to criticise this formulation when he argued that:

"the basic contradictions in socialist society are still those between the relations of production and the productive forces, and between the superstructure and economic base…survivals of bourgeois ideology, bureaucratic ways of doing things in our state organs, and flaws in certain links of our state institutions stand in contrast to the economic base of socialism."

(CPC, 1959)

In short, Mao is noting that whilst the seizure of state power and the public ownership of the means of production are prerequisites for building socialism they are the beginning rather than the end, and that simply expanding the economy is absolutely no guarantee that peoples consciousness is going to be changed. The manner in which the social transformation is carried out is of immense importance. Without revolutionising the productive forces, without changing peoples ideas, attitude towards each other, without engaging the masses fully in social and political life rather than have it conducted on their behalf socialism could not be achieved.

Mao argued that at the centre of the Soviet theory of productive forces was a profound fear of the masses which inevitably meant the creation of a bureaucratic formation which could rule supposedly on their behalf, but from which the masses were effectively alienated. (One only has to note the material advantage in the Soviet Union of the bureaucratic stratum to reinforce what Mao is saying: special shops, access to travel, foreign currency, education, housing.) There is a total lack of interest in the transformation of an individuals worldview so emphasised in China via the re-education programmes.

Ironically, these questions had been reinforced by Khruschev’s ‘Secret Speech’ in February 1956 where he attacked Stalin. Whilst rejecting the untheorised and completely negative evaluation of Stalin the Chinese were by no means uncritical themselves. It was recognised that substantial negations of socialist democracy had occurred in the USSR,, Khruschev, however, was attempting to liquidate all the massive achievements that the USSR had made. The attack on Stalin, just as it is today, was a legitimation for an attack upon socialism. The Chinese noted that the somewhat imperious manner in which Khruschev had denounced Stalin had prompted uprisings in Poland and Hungary and took from this the lesson to reinforce the party apparatus. Chesneaux p.74

The CPC's own assessment of Stalin is dialectical: realising that he made both constructive and negative contributions to the process of socialist construction, but that "his merits outweighed his faults" (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.6) They also reject a personalist assessment of Stalin and realise that the real question is "…how to sum up the historical experience of and the international communist movement since Lenin's death." (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.2)

As regards their own struggle the Chinese had some serious criticisms of Stalin's role.

"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 1940’s, he even opposed the successful struggle for liberation. "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." (p.9 Mao, quoted by Stuart Schram)

"While defending Stalin, we do not defend his mistakes. Long ago the Chinese Communists had first-hand experience of some of his mistakes. Of the erroneous "Left" and Right opportunist lines which emerged in the Chinese Communist Party at one time or another, some arose under the influence of certain mistakes of Stalin's, in so far as their international sources were concerned. In the late twenties, the thirties and the early and middle forties, the Chinese Marxist-Leninists represented by Comrades Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi resisted the influence of Stalin's mistakes; they gradually overcame the erroneous lines of "Left" and Right opportunism and finally led the Chinese revolution to victory." (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.8)

Chesneaux puts some flesh on the bones of the CPC's abstract criticisms of Stalin, his "certain mistakes".

"The differences between these two major forces of world communism went very deep: in 1927 Stalin’s obstinate support of a revolutionary strategy that favoured an alliance with the Guomindang had left the Chinese Communists totally unprepared for Tchiang Kai-chek’s turnaround in April; in 1931-1935 Moscow had installed its team of "28 Bolsheviks," which replaced Mao and his friends at the helm of the CCP , and had led the "Chinese Soviets" to defeat; in August 1945 the Soviet Union had signed a friendship treaty with the Guomindang just at the moment when the CCP was in a position to take a leading role in China because of the part it had played in the defeat of Japan; and again in 1949 Stalin had shown open hostility to the CCP’s taking of power over the whole of China. He frankly discouraged Mao and would have preferred a compromise between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communists." (Chesneaux, p. 13)

The Chinese assessment of Stalin covers the gamut of his political work. Two major aspects can be summarised here.

Philosophy. "In his way of thinking, Stalin departed from dialectical materialism and fell into metaphysics and subjectivism on certain questions and consequently he was sometimes divorced from reality and from the masses." (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.5)

Stalin's philosophical conflation of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions had major harmful consequences in the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat especially in terms of serious negations of socialist democracy.

"In the work led by Stalin of suppressing the counter-revolution, many counter-revolutionaries deserving punishment were duly punished, but at the same time there were innocent people who were wrongly convicted; and in 1937 and 1938 there occurred the error of enlarging the scope of the suppression of counter-revolutionaries. In the matter of Party and government organization, he did not fully apply proletarian democratic centralism and, to some extent, violated it. In handling relations with fraternal Parties and countries, he made some mistakes. He also gave some bad counsel in the international communist movement. These mistakes caused some losses to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement." (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.5)

The CPC point out that far from providing an objective account of Stalin's role both in its positive and negative aspects, which would genuinely have been a useful tool of education to Marxists, the CPSU is prepared only to denigrate Stalin in the crudest possible manner and to elevate Khruschov to preposterous proportions.

"They have not made an overall historical and scientific analysis of his life and work but have completely negated him without any distinction between right and wrong.   They have treated Stalin not as a comrade but as an enemy. They have not adopted the method of criticism and self-criticism to sum up experience but have blamed Stalin for all errors, or ascribed to him the "mistakes" they have arbitrarily invented." (People's Daily/Red Flag 1963, p.)

In April 1956 the Chinese Communist Party reaffirmed the 'Mass Line' and warned of the dangers of bureaucratic practices within the party itself. Collective leadership was advocated as entirely necessary, commandism and violating party, and state democracy was condemned. In the battle in China over the nature of the Communist party there were two major perspectives. On the one side, the proponents of a monolithic party reminiscent of the Soviet model. Ideological orthodoxy, conformity, and devotion to the Communist cause were required to enable the party to act as a fount of all wisdom to the masses. In this exemplar, the party exists to some extent above the masses.

Mao identifies this conception as idealist; people do not become saints upon joining the Communist Party. Furthermore, knowledge is not the preserve of only the party elite. (The party is not always correct.). Mao calls for a dialectical appreciation of the party’s role where it is a part of the revolutionary process rather than acting as if it stands outside of it with some privileged access to the future. The party must be subject to input from and criticism by the masses. The party is not simply for the masses but of the masses. In practice, this meant that in China, unlike in the Soviet Union where party membership meant access to material privileges, party cadre often made a significant sacrifice in time and lifestyle to join the party. This was one significant way in which opportunists were kept out.

Mao recognised that there were contradictions between the party and the masses but, unlike the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, that are contradictions of an antagonistic nature, these were non-antagonistic contradictions. However, non-antagonistic contradictions if not recognised or mishandled could develop an antagonistic nature as indeed they had done in the Soviet Union at times.

Productive forces theory was, quite correctly, viewed as reductionist in that socialism is conceived of as political power exercised downwards plus the public ownership of the means of production. The role of ideological and cultural struggle to actively create a new socialist consciousness is radically downplayed. Productive forces theory ignores the fact that the socialist society is not a thing in itself existing for its own sake, but should be an instrument for the remoulding of human beings.

As John Gurley points out:

"The Maoist's disagreement with the capitalist view of economic development is profound. Their emphases, values and aspirations are quite different from those of capitalist economists. To begin with, Maoist economic development occurs within the context of central planning, public ownership of industries, and agricultural co-operatives or communes. While decision making is decentralised to some extent, decisions regarding investment vs. consumption, foreign trade, allocation of material inputs and some labour supply, prices of goods and factors- these and more are effectively in the hands of the state. The profit motive is officially discouraged from assuming an important role in the allocation of resources, and material incentives, while still prevalent are downgraded.

But perhaps the most striking difference between the capitalist and Maoist views is in regard to goals. Maoist believe that, while a principal aim of nations should be to raise the level of material welfare of the population this should be done only within the context of the development of human beings and of encouraging them to realise fully their manifold creative powers. And it should be done only on an egalitarian basis-that is, on the basis that development is not worth much unless everyone rises together. No one is to be left behind, either economically or culturally. Indeed, Maoists believe that rapid economic development is not likely to occur unless everyone rises together." (Gurley p.3)

We have already noted from Gurley the essential egalitarian tendency in Maoist economic thinking. In a socialist society, the goal should be to raise everyone culturally and economically on a roughly equal basis. So called ‘trickle-down’ theories of economics are decisively rejected and Maoists believe that really rapid economic development can only happen if everyone rises together. There should be no strong emphasis, therefore, on profit motives, so called efficiency criteria or material incentives. So called ‘socialist competition’ or Stakhanovite labour practices have no place in Chinese methods.

In the Maoist schema, the most important asset is people rather than machinery.

"In building up the country we – unlike the modern revisionists who one-sidedly stress the material factor, mechanisation, and modernisation - pay chief attention to the revolutionisation of man’s thinking and through this command, guide and promote the work of mechanisation and modernisation" (Peking Review, Nov 11, 1996)  

The following passage puts into colourful Chinese terms Marx's notion that when ideas are taken up by the masses they themselves become a material force. (Marx, p.137)

"Once Mao Tse-tung’s thought is grasped by the broad masses, it will become an inexhaustible source of strength and an infinitely powerful spiritual atom bomb." (Peking Review, March 10^th, 1967, p.22).

In short, Mao is pointing out that in the final analysis only by revolutionising the productive relationships can a socialist society hope to increase the productive forces. This is an important point in regard to the Soviet Union which, after immense early gains, had more and more difficulty in raising labour productivity.

The Chinese had some responses to this question..

Struggle: continuous struggle is essential in socialist transformation. Only by relentless class struggle can the bourgeoisie, and bourgeois ideas, be defeated and the dominated classes gain confidence to maintain state power.

Selflessness: each person should be devoted to the masses. Displays of individualism are discouraged and ideological orthodoxy and social conformity are highly regarded. These have anyway been constants in Chinese culture. Unity and discipline come from selflessness rather than from external restraints: secret police etc.

Active participation: this is essential to enable the masses to gain confidence and knowledge, socialism cannot be built for people by the party.

Non-specialisation: this is necessary in order to allow people to become fully fulfilled individuals and is drawn directly from Marx’s critique of alienation where bureaucracy and specialisation are seen as the enemy of developing an all round Communist person. Whereas capitalism strives only for economic efficiency in the production of goods, the Maoist project strives to pursue economic development without leaving anyone behind. This may in fact be less efficient in the short run using the crude instrumental criteria of capitalism, but in the long term only by genuinely drawing, the mass population into the process of socialist construction can a real socialist society be built.  

As noted the Chinese are by no means uncritical of the process of socialist construction in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Various problems and errors are noted. However, the Soviet attempt was the first attempt at socialist construction and serious mistakes would have been almost inevitable. The Chinese revolution had the advantage of being able to analyse the Soviet experience. As we have noted, they developed not simply a review of day to day Soviet practice, but additionally, at least the beginnings of a systematic theoretical analysis of Soviet methods: a critique of "the theory of productive forces". In an historical sense, then, the gradual disintegration of the Chinese revolution is of even greater concern than the demise of the Soviet Union because it implies that that Marxists are incapable of assimilating, or at a minimum learning quickly enough, from previous endeavours.

It is important to recall that the Maoist critique was by no means universally accepted by the Chinese communists and in the debate on socialist construction, and later on its implementation, the perspectives of the technological determinists ultimately prevailed. Voluntarist errors in the Great Leap Forward where much low grade and practically useless steel was produced appeared to give credence to the productive forces model. It is of little moment, either politically or economically, getting the masses involved in production if what they produce is of limited or no use. The Cultural Revolution certainly engaged sections of the masses in political life but often in a chaotic and negative manner and with confused and contradictory intentions. The integration of the mass of people into the process of socialist construction has to be an ongoing and deepening process and cannot be enforced as the Cultural Revolution often tended to do.