A Critique of Soviet Economics

by Mao Zedong

English (translation)Original Chinese

Genres: Economics, Politics, China, Theory, Soviet Union, Nonfiction

157 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1977

About the author

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung, and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, statesman and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and later led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's KMT in the Chinese Civil War. Mao established political and military control over most of the territory formerly contained within the Chinese Empire and launched a campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries. He sent the Communist People's Liberation Army into Xinjiang and Tibet but was unable to oust the remnants of the Nationalist Party from Taiwan. He enacted sweeping land reform by using violence and terror to overthrow landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. The Communist Party's final victory came after decades of turmoil in China, which included the Great Depression, a brutal invasion by Japan and a protracted civil war. Mao's Communist Party ultimately achieved a measure of stability in China, though Mao's efforts to close China to trade and market commerce, and eradicate traditional Chinese culture, have been largely rejected by his successors.

Mao styled himself "The Great Helmsman" and supporters continue to contend that he was responsible for some positive changes which came to China during his three decade rule. These included doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. A cult of personality grew up around Mao, and community dissent was not permitted. His Communist Party still rules in mainland China, retains control of media and education there and officially celebrates his legacy. As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many Chinese as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, and anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.

Reviews

[Thomas]

nice job mao-kun

[Voyager · Rating 1 out of 5]

Consisting of three works by Mao - reading notes from a Soviet textbook on political economy and two articles "critiquing" Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. - Mao's writings from beginning to end offers not a contribution to but rather an all-out attack on Marxist theory. Undeniably siding with the Soviet revisionists who assassinated Stalin and began the restoration of capitalism in 1953, Mao essentially promotes the exact same views advocated by those revisionists who Mao's followers today portray Mao as the greatest fighter against, and there is definitely a reason why Mao felt the need to write several pieces so attacking Stalin's final major theoretical work and the history of socialism in the Soviet Union. Although Mao had done away with the Bolshevik opposition to Maoism in the 1920s and '30s led by Wang Ming, there still existed in the Communist Party of China a sizable Bolshevik section led chiefly by Gao Gang who were aware of Stalin's opposition to Maoism and stood for the defence of Marxism-Leninism against Mao's distortions.

The arguments presented by Mao herein can best be described as a justification for the preservation of capitalism in China and restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, calling for ownership of means of production by the peasantry (and praising Khrushchev for selling off the machine tractor stations in the Soviet Union), positing that certain means of production must be classed as commodities, demanding the maximisation of commodity production, and arguing for light industry to take importance over heavy industry, all the while attacking Stalin's line, a line the kulak Mao would naturally find quite appalling, as a "failure".

On the whole, this book offers a great value in understanding the development of capitalism in China, shattering the illusions of Maoists who argue that Deng had restored capitalism by demonstrating that Mao always preserved capitalism and that present-day China is the natural outcome of Mao's revisionism, but, naturally, this work contributes nothing more to Marxist theory than any work of Trotsky, Tito, Bukharin, Khrushchev, or others in this ilk which includes Mao do.