What do you think?
Rate this book
China's Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practices
The accumulated achievements of China since its revolution of 1949 are so great that they have now not only changed the world but must lead every socialist and progressive person to think about their relation to them. This is a situation only comparable to the way Russia's 1917 revolution transformed the world. China, after its revolution, has achieved the greatest improvement in life of by far the largest proportion of humanity of any country in human history. China's Great Road explains how China achieved this enormous step forward for humanity. The unequivocal answer the book gives is that socialism achieved this huge advance. It analyses this at numerous different levels. If the international left does not raise itself to understanding China's successful socialist development then it is lagging in understanding one of the most enormous facts in human history. China's Great Road both analyses China's reality and shows how socialists in other countries can and should learn from China.
266 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2021
9 people are currently reading
538 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 10, 2021
British economist John Ross provides a detailed description of China’s rise, the strategy that has made it possible, and the lessons that can be learned for the rest of the world.
In the 71 years since the founding of the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949, China has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world, with the vast bulk of the population enduring abject poverty, to the brink of becoming a ‘high-income’ country. “It has achieved total elimination of absolute poverty and the world’s fastest rise in average living standards.”
Such is the human reality behind the abstract notion of China’s rise. China’s life expectancy in 1949 was around 35; now it is 77. Illiteracy, malnutrition and homelessness were endemic; now they have been eliminated.
Ross makes it very clear that China’s successes are the successes of socialism.
Western economists have long insisted that any ‘China miracle’ exists within a framework of capitalism. In this version of events, China dropped socialism in the late 1970s, adopted capitalism, and let the neoliberal magic do its work.
The reasons for ascribing China’s rise to capitalist economics are clear enough: “if it acknowledged that the socialist path of development was proven to be superior to capitalism then the Western system would lose its legitimacy both internationally and domestically."
However, what this narrative cannot explain is how China in the pre-reform period was able to achieve unprecedented progress in every area of life. In the period from 1949 to 1978, “life expectancy increased by more than a year for every chronological year that passed”, reaching 67 at the time of Mao’s death in 1976. Education and healthcare were extended throughout the country. People were poor, but everybody had food, clothing and a roof over their heads - no small feat for an enormous developing country recovering from a century of imperialist domination.
Furthermore, although the reform period from 1978 marked a significant break with the highly egalitarian policies of the Mao era, an analysis of the structure of the modern Chinese economy reveals that it is fundamentally different from capitalism. As Xi Jinping put it in 2019, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ism.”
Even with the huge quantities of private capital and the presence of foreign investment, even with the existence of stock exchanges and billionaires, the Chinese government maintains a dominating role in the economy via its ownership of the major banks and the state-owned enterprises. Planning continues to be a core element of the economic system.
Deng Xiaoping’s theoretical innovation was to define China’s stage of development as being that of the primary, underdeveloped stage of socialism. Progress towards a more advanced stage of socialism necessitated development of the productive forces. This required an influx of capital, and it required learning from the technical developments of the advanced capitalist countries. This in turn meant attracting foreign investment and opening to an increasingly globalised market.
As Ross points out, Deng’s strategy was in line with Marx, who wrote in ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’ that, “in a higher phase of communist society… after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of common wealth flow more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”
Ross explains that the state-driven nature of the economy allowed China to successfully ride the wave of the 2007-09 financial crisis. Currently it is enabling China to lead the way in containing the pandemic and combating climate change.
Socialist countries led by China are responsible for the bulk of global GDP growth and poverty alleviation in recent decades. They have developed a state-driven mixed-economy model which provides an attractive alternative to the so-called Washington Consensus free market dogma. Furthermore they provide a crucial source of investment and trade for the entire Global South. As such, the world has a huge amount to learn from China, and a huge amount to benefit from continued engagement with it.
Agnes Smedley’s biography of Zhu De, ‘The Great Road’, provided an indispensable insight into the development of the Chinese Revolution in the 1930s. John Ross’s ‘China’s Great Road’ provides a similarly indispensable insight into the ongoing development of the Chinese Revolution in the modern era.
In the 71 years since the founding of the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949, China has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world, with the vast bulk of the population enduring abject poverty, to the brink of becoming a ‘high-income’ country. “It has achieved total elimination of absolute poverty and the world’s fastest rise in average living standards.”
Such is the human reality behind the abstract notion of China’s rise. China’s life expectancy in 1949 was around 35; now it is 77. Illiteracy, malnutrition and homelessness were endemic; now they have been eliminated.
Ross makes it very clear that China’s successes are the successes of socialism.
Western economists have long insisted that any ‘China miracle’ exists within a framework of capitalism. In this version of events, China dropped socialism in the late 1970s, adopted capitalism, and let the neoliberal magic do its work.
The reasons for ascribing China’s rise to capitalist economics are clear enough: “if it acknowledged that the socialist path of development was proven to be superior to capitalism then the Western system would lose its legitimacy both internationally and domestically."
However, what this narrative cannot explain is how China in the pre-reform period was able to achieve unprecedented progress in every area of life. In the period from 1949 to 1978, “life expectancy increased by more than a year for every chronological year that passed”, reaching 67 at the time of Mao’s death in 1976. Education and healthcare were extended throughout the country. People were poor, but everybody had food, clothing and a roof over their heads - no small feat for an enormous developing country recovering from a century of imperialist domination.
Furthermore, although the reform period from 1978 marked a significant break with the highly egalitarian policies of the Mao era, an analysis of the structure of the modern Chinese economy reveals that it is fundamentally different from capitalism. As Xi Jinping put it in 2019, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ism.”
Even with the huge quantities of private capital and the presence of foreign investment, even with the existence of stock exchanges and billionaires, the Chinese government maintains a dominating role in the economy via its ownership of the major banks and the state-owned enterprises. Planning continues to be a core element of the economic system.
Deng Xiaoping’s theoretical innovation was to define China’s stage of development as being that of the primary, underdeveloped stage of socialism. Progress towards a more advanced stage of socialism necessitated development of the productive forces. This required an influx of capital, and it required learning from the technical developments of the advanced capitalist countries. This in turn meant attracting foreign investment and opening to an increasingly globalised market.
As Ross points out, Deng’s strategy was in line with Marx, who wrote in ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’ that, “in a higher phase of communist society… after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of common wealth flow more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”
Ross explains that the state-driven nature of the economy allowed China to successfully ride the wave of the 2007-09 financial crisis. Currently it is enabling China to lead the way in containing the pandemic and combating climate change.
Socialist countries led by China are responsible for the bulk of global GDP growth and poverty alleviation in recent decades. They have developed a state-driven mixed-economy model which provides an attractive alternative to the so-called Washington Consensus free market dogma. Furthermore they provide a crucial source of investment and trade for the entire Global South. As such, the world has a huge amount to learn from China, and a huge amount to benefit from continued engagement with it.
Agnes Smedley’s biography of Zhu De, ‘The Great Road’, provided an indispensable insight into the development of the Chinese Revolution in the 1930s. John Ross’s ‘China’s Great Road’ provides a similarly indispensable insight into the ongoing development of the Chinese Revolution in the modern era.
June 7, 2024
I've never read a book with as many colourful graphs as this one. In over 50 red figures, economist John Ross quantifies China's ascent in not only raw GDP but every possible human development index. It doesn't give too much insight in the concrete policy decisions that led to this success -- his numbers serve more to give a soundbyte overview of how well China has been doing since 1949 rather than reflect the historical balance of political forces in the Chinee government, and hence the roads (not) taken. Mapping the Mao/Deng eras on the Lenin/Stalin episodes are as far as he comes here, but these were at the same time very specific periods containing internal political zig-zags. Taking the 'averages' of these doesn't give much insight into the full spectrum of potential policies at the time, or the socio-economic constraints limiting these.
I would rather he committed more space to an exploration of this question than in the ultimately silly philological debate whether China's market embrace can be justified in Marxist (or Keynesian, or neoliberal) terms. The concrete policies that have been historically implemented, associated with these thinkers, are in any case a variegated collection of ad hoc responses to historical challenges, not an attempt to fulfil clear-cut prophecies. Many governments have idealized development along the lines sketched out here (strong public sector? Disciplining influence of the market? Strong consumer demand growth? As much investment as possible, both public and private?) but few have managed to combine these sustainably. Figuring out the necessary political constellation is where the real challenge lies.
Especially interesting is the plotting of China's economic rise side-by-side with countries as Mozambique, Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia and Rwanda; nations which seldom garner much interest in leftist circles (understandably, given the opaque human rights record in some of these).
I've devoted most of this review to qualitative nitpicking, but that's just because one can only give so much praise to the quantitative wealth contained in this very readable book. To do justice to Ross' achievements:
wisdom quotient: 15% YoY growth
easy to share graphs: 54 specimens, 7 colours, innumerable data points
stars: 4
consumer satisfaction: 85%
mental space previously occupied by economic fog of war freed up to focus on political matters: 20%
I would rather he committed more space to an exploration of this question than in the ultimately silly philological debate whether China's market embrace can be justified in Marxist (or Keynesian, or neoliberal) terms. The concrete policies that have been historically implemented, associated with these thinkers, are in any case a variegated collection of ad hoc responses to historical challenges, not an attempt to fulfil clear-cut prophecies. Many governments have idealized development along the lines sketched out here (strong public sector? Disciplining influence of the market? Strong consumer demand growth? As much investment as possible, both public and private?) but few have managed to combine these sustainably. Figuring out the necessary political constellation is where the real challenge lies.
Especially interesting is the plotting of China's economic rise side-by-side with countries as Mozambique, Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia and Rwanda; nations which seldom garner much interest in leftist circles (understandably, given the opaque human rights record in some of these).
I've devoted most of this review to qualitative nitpicking, but that's just because one can only give so much praise to the quantitative wealth contained in this very readable book. To do justice to Ross' achievements:
wisdom quotient: 15% YoY growth
easy to share graphs: 54 specimens, 7 colours, innumerable data points
stars: 4
consumer satisfaction: 85%
mental space previously occupied by economic fog of war freed up to focus on political matters: 20%
June 3, 2022
Under Mao China stood up. Under Deng China became rich. Under Xi China has become powerful.
In 72 years China has gone from one of the poorest countries in the world to a superpower, very soon a high-income economy and a life expectancy of 77 years in 2022. In this book John Ross shows that China's success is due to its socialist system. Many people in the West - and even some in China - say that China turned to capitalism under Deng Xiaoping (including myself a few years back), but John Ross shows that this is not the case. Instead he shows in detail that Deng's reforms were in line with Marx's writings and that China's socialist market economy is different from capitalist economies (the main differences are that China uses direct state methods to alter its investment level, in addition to fiscal and monetary policy, whereas most countries reject state control/organization of investment. In order to do this China has a large state sector unlike most other countries and even its private sector works towards social ends and the needs of the society as a whole. This prevents China from having serious economic and financial crises like most other countries.)
It was under Mao's leadership that China was liberated and the People's Republic was formed. This was in 1949. At that time China's life expectancy was 35. By 1978, the last year of pre-reform China, China's life expectancy was 67. China's rate of increase of life expectancy in the three decades after 1949 was the fastest ever recorded in a major country in human history. Indeed this is the greatest social achievement by any country ever and one of the many reasons why Mao is beloved and admired in China more than any other leader in its history. It was also from 1949-1978 that initial industrial bases were created. They were the basis for reform and opening up.
In 1978 Deng Xiaoping starts China's reform and opening up. It slowly opened itself ever more to international markets, trade and investment with the capitalist countries, especially with the US. At the same time China began to introduce more and more market mechanisms, de-centralization, privatization of smaller industries (letting go of the small) and the household responsibility system in agriculture, but the state kept firm control over the major industries (commanding heights of the economy) and most importantly the banks. This transition wasn't actually abrupt as it is often portrayed but the de-centralization had already begun under Mao during/after the Great Leap Forward.
Post-1978 period China's economic growth is the fastest in human history. Between 1978 and 2017 China's economy expanded at an annual average 9,5% growth rate. Thanks to this it has lifted over 850 million people out of poverty according to World Bank standards. This in the biggest country on the planet. Of course this brought many problems to China: corruption, environmental degradation, inequality and foreign interference just to name a few. Indeed the 1990's in China is called the 'wild 90's', because of the rampant corruption and 'dog eat dog' reality of that time. However raising the country out of poverty with this turbo development and lifting people's living standards was necessary. It was the basis for the next phase. In the 2010's Xi Jinping has started to tackle the problems of corruption, inequality, environmental degradation, revisionism in the ideology of the party and indeed is the most popular leader of the country since Mao. John Ross presents in the book how social indicators (specifically life expectancy) show that China's social conditions are actually better than its economic conditions. GDP per capita accounts for 71 per cent of life expectancy in a given country. In some countries like the US people live two years less than what is to be expected from the level of its economic development and GDP per capita, but in China people live three years more than is to be expected from its economic development!
China's journey has been incredible and it continues on, for example with its Belt and Road Initiative, which is the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history that is already lifting millions of people out of poverty outside of China.
2020's will be a difficult decade since the US will try to do everything to prevent China's further rise and the inevitable surpassing of the US. A direct war is not so likely, because China is a nuclear-weapon state (though the psycho neocons in Washington might not care), but a proxy war through Taiwan and Washington's Asian allies looks extremely likely in the next few years. This will wreak havoc on the global economy in a terrifying way. John Ross does touch upon this in the book how US is building coalitions to counter China, but shows that China's close ties with the Global South countries will work well for it. Ross doesn't really touch upon it in his book, but of course the Russia-China strategic partnership is extremely important in these times. It's basically China bringing the economic power to challenge US unipolarity and western hegemony while Russia brings the military power. And as of this year BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) is soon going to grow to become BRICSA when Argentina joins in close cooperation with these countries. If Lula gets elected in Brazil (which he will if the US doesn't intervene again like in 2018) then Brazil will work again more closely with China. Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are of course also important countries to look to with their relationships with China. For a long time Pakistan has been China's most important ally. For example, The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative / New Silk Roads.
I have some disagreements with John Ross. I don't entirely agree with his assessment of Donald Trump and Joe Biden when he writes about them in the context of China-US relations. I also do not agree with Ross' analysis that the post-1929 USSR economy under Stalin was an ultra-leftist deviation (superstructure imposing on the base), although his critique of the Soviet economy is an honest and good one.
'China's Great Road' is a very good book specifically about the economics of China and comparing it to the West and other countries in general. It includes a lot of data and evidence (from World Bank, IMF etc. mind you very anti-communist sources) to support its conclusions. It shows that socialists and Marxists need to seriously study and learn from China to understand socialism in the 21st century, rather than degrade China because western corporate media propaganda does so 24/7.
John Ross is certainly one of the most important economists in the world right now alongside Michael Hudson, Sergey Glaziev, Yanis Varoufakis, Justin Yifu Lin and others.
a link to John's website here: https://www.learningfromchina.net/
Ben Norton's interview with John Ross about 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics':
https://youtu.be/2wJwhkRz4Lk
John Ross introduces his book: https://youtu.be/co41hOdrGVc
Understanding and engaging China from the left (includes John Ross): https://youtu.be/jaAbNu0-ALA
In 72 years China has gone from one of the poorest countries in the world to a superpower, very soon a high-income economy and a life expectancy of 77 years in 2022. In this book John Ross shows that China's success is due to its socialist system. Many people in the West - and even some in China - say that China turned to capitalism under Deng Xiaoping (including myself a few years back), but John Ross shows that this is not the case. Instead he shows in detail that Deng's reforms were in line with Marx's writings and that China's socialist market economy is different from capitalist economies (the main differences are that China uses direct state methods to alter its investment level, in addition to fiscal and monetary policy, whereas most countries reject state control/organization of investment. In order to do this China has a large state sector unlike most other countries and even its private sector works towards social ends and the needs of the society as a whole. This prevents China from having serious economic and financial crises like most other countries.)
It was under Mao's leadership that China was liberated and the People's Republic was formed. This was in 1949. At that time China's life expectancy was 35. By 1978, the last year of pre-reform China, China's life expectancy was 67. China's rate of increase of life expectancy in the three decades after 1949 was the fastest ever recorded in a major country in human history. Indeed this is the greatest social achievement by any country ever and one of the many reasons why Mao is beloved and admired in China more than any other leader in its history. It was also from 1949-1978 that initial industrial bases were created. They were the basis for reform and opening up.
In 1978 Deng Xiaoping starts China's reform and opening up. It slowly opened itself ever more to international markets, trade and investment with the capitalist countries, especially with the US. At the same time China began to introduce more and more market mechanisms, de-centralization, privatization of smaller industries (letting go of the small) and the household responsibility system in agriculture, but the state kept firm control over the major industries (commanding heights of the economy) and most importantly the banks. This transition wasn't actually abrupt as it is often portrayed but the de-centralization had already begun under Mao during/after the Great Leap Forward.
Post-1978 period China's economic growth is the fastest in human history. Between 1978 and 2017 China's economy expanded at an annual average 9,5% growth rate. Thanks to this it has lifted over 850 million people out of poverty according to World Bank standards. This in the biggest country on the planet. Of course this brought many problems to China: corruption, environmental degradation, inequality and foreign interference just to name a few. Indeed the 1990's in China is called the 'wild 90's', because of the rampant corruption and 'dog eat dog' reality of that time. However raising the country out of poverty with this turbo development and lifting people's living standards was necessary. It was the basis for the next phase. In the 2010's Xi Jinping has started to tackle the problems of corruption, inequality, environmental degradation, revisionism in the ideology of the party and indeed is the most popular leader of the country since Mao. John Ross presents in the book how social indicators (specifically life expectancy) show that China's social conditions are actually better than its economic conditions. GDP per capita accounts for 71 per cent of life expectancy in a given country. In some countries like the US people live two years less than what is to be expected from the level of its economic development and GDP per capita, but in China people live three years more than is to be expected from its economic development!
China's journey has been incredible and it continues on, for example with its Belt and Road Initiative, which is the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history that is already lifting millions of people out of poverty outside of China.
2020's will be a difficult decade since the US will try to do everything to prevent China's further rise and the inevitable surpassing of the US. A direct war is not so likely, because China is a nuclear-weapon state (though the psycho neocons in Washington might not care), but a proxy war through Taiwan and Washington's Asian allies looks extremely likely in the next few years. This will wreak havoc on the global economy in a terrifying way. John Ross does touch upon this in the book how US is building coalitions to counter China, but shows that China's close ties with the Global South countries will work well for it. Ross doesn't really touch upon it in his book, but of course the Russia-China strategic partnership is extremely important in these times. It's basically China bringing the economic power to challenge US unipolarity and western hegemony while Russia brings the military power. And as of this year BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) is soon going to grow to become BRICSA when Argentina joins in close cooperation with these countries. If Lula gets elected in Brazil (which he will if the US doesn't intervene again like in 2018) then Brazil will work again more closely with China. Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are of course also important countries to look to with their relationships with China. For a long time Pakistan has been China's most important ally. For example, The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative / New Silk Roads.
I have some disagreements with John Ross. I don't entirely agree with his assessment of Donald Trump and Joe Biden when he writes about them in the context of China-US relations. I also do not agree with Ross' analysis that the post-1929 USSR economy under Stalin was an ultra-leftist deviation (superstructure imposing on the base), although his critique of the Soviet economy is an honest and good one.
'China's Great Road' is a very good book specifically about the economics of China and comparing it to the West and other countries in general. It includes a lot of data and evidence (from World Bank, IMF etc. mind you very anti-communist sources) to support its conclusions. It shows that socialists and Marxists need to seriously study and learn from China to understand socialism in the 21st century, rather than degrade China because western corporate media propaganda does so 24/7.
John Ross is certainly one of the most important economists in the world right now alongside Michael Hudson, Sergey Glaziev, Yanis Varoufakis, Justin Yifu Lin and others.
a link to John's website here: https://www.learningfromchina.net/
Ben Norton's interview with John Ross about 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics':
https://youtu.be/2wJwhkRz4Lk
John Ross introduces his book: https://youtu.be/co41hOdrGVc
Understanding and engaging China from the left (includes John Ross): https://youtu.be/jaAbNu0-ALA
October 24, 2022
A really interesting collection of articles diving into the economics of China's Reform and Opening Up period. Ross does a good job confronting many myths about China's economy and demonstrates conclusively how their incredibly rapid economic growth and massive improvement in the lives of the Chinese people have been driven by the country's socialist foundation.
A bit repetitive in parts since it's a collection of articles rather than being written directly as a book, but not overly so. One critique i would have of these articles specifically (I haven't read more of Ross's work which may counter this) is that Ross's analysis, while based on data and being very compelling, feels a bit narrow. As an economist, he focuses almost entirely on macroeconomic data, leaving aside really any discussion of class struggle, alienation, and very few mentions of exploitation. I still think overall this is great work, but I think for a more holistic picture of China you'd need to bring those elements in.
A bit repetitive in parts since it's a collection of articles rather than being written directly as a book, but not overly so. One critique i would have of these articles specifically (I haven't read more of Ross's work which may counter this) is that Ross's analysis, while based on data and being very compelling, feels a bit narrow. As an economist, he focuses almost entirely on macroeconomic data, leaving aside really any discussion of class struggle, alienation, and very few mentions of exploitation. I still think overall this is great work, but I think for a more holistic picture of China you'd need to bring those elements in.
November 2, 2022
good read. I understand china's economy and Deng much more now. it was a bit heavy on the economic jargon at some points for someone who isn't familiar with it. but I was able to stick it out
July 18, 2021
Sehr gutes Buch, dass eine Menge empirischer Daten aus dem Bereich der Ökonomie nutzt. Man merkt aber, dass es eine Sammlung von Texten ist, weil einige Dinge sich mehrfach wiederholen. Dennoch unbedingt lesenswert.
August 27, 2021
Using World Bank and IMF data, John Ross has provided a clear explanation for his assessment that China has improved the position of by far the largest proportion of humanity in human history. He goes on to explain that China's economic success has not departed from Marx but is due to a systematic application of Marx's theories. He examines the relationship of the current Chinese leadership to Mao Zedong Thought. He further examines the reasons for which the United States will continue its aggressive policies against China while falling further and further behind. He also points out the value of China's experience and development for countries in the Global South.
This is a work full of much technical detail, which will not be meaningful to all, but it is accompanied by explanations that clarify the meaning of the data, in both Chinese and Western economic terms. A valuable contribution to scholars and lay people wishing to understand the enigma that China currently poses for the West.
This is a work full of much technical detail, which will not be meaningful to all, but it is accompanied by explanations that clarify the meaning of the data, in both Chinese and Western economic terms. A valuable contribution to scholars and lay people wishing to understand the enigma that China currently poses for the West.
August 19, 2021
Extremely factual, endless informative examples about the global situation of the 21 century and what came before. Politically and economically. I’d recommend everyone, who cares about reality and who is tired of the media’s distortion of numbers and reality, to read this book.
July 5, 2021
A really informative and approachable text full of persuasive economic data on China’s successes. However, this book was badly in need of more thorough editing. Many of the pieces are redundant and repeat themselves using the exact same language. Furthermore, the book is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, which might be due to translation from Chinese. Still, the information contained within is important enough to be worth dealing with the frequent stylistic errors.
December 27, 2021
Excellent, clear-headed study of China’s remarkable accomplishments, both economic and humanitarian. This book factually proves the superiority of socialism over capitalism (using data taken directly from the World Bank and IMF). The often repeated line that “socialism only works in theory” is just ahistorical nonsense, and this book proves it.
May 15, 2023
Clear and repetitive, feels propagandist but think critically and look up info along the way. Source are often cited within the text and supported by reliable Western sources such as the World Bank, WHO, Oxford, or the Wall street journal.
February 27, 2025
Great book. Demonstrates both the unprecedented success of socialism with Chinese characteristics and
how it aligns with Marx.
how it aligns with Marx.
January 6, 2023
Good book! Very interesting.
I don't entirely agree with the author's assessment of post-1929 USSR, however, he raises some valid points to think about. Other than that, the book is somewhat repetitive as it is a collection of articles. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about post-1978 China and Deng. Would recommend it!
I don't entirely agree with the author's assessment of post-1929 USSR, however, he raises some valid points to think about. Other than that, the book is somewhat repetitive as it is a collection of articles. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about post-1978 China and Deng. Would recommend it!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews