Industrialization in Russia and China

[DiggerII]

I've often wondered why Mao and Stalin placed such a huge emphasis on the rapid industrialization of their countries. They were primarily agrarian societies before the revolutions so what's wrong with continuing the already strong agrarian culture and distributing it's products in a more egalitarian manner? Or were Stalin and Mao simply trying to make their states into world powers?

[CNT-FAI]

The ideologies of both men had Western roots & they were looking to Europe & the US as models. We see this continued today in Stalinist China where the state capitalist warlords have bought completely into the Western model of consumerism & "development", with a total disregard for the environment & health & welfare of the workers. A small bourgeosie is benefitting from this new "Great Leap Forward".

As an important side note, it's a little known (& suppressed) fact that the early Soviet industrial infrastructure was actually built by the US (with some help from the UK & other nations). Like the US companies that collaborated with Hitler, US capital had no qualms about collaborating with Lenin. See WESTERN TECHNOLOGY & SOVIET ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 1, by Anthony Sutton. A meticulously documented book that changes our view of 2oth century history.

[Matty_UK]

I think it's pretty obvious that they needed to be industrialised; the role of imperialism in shaping the history of the last century is seriously underplayed, it is easier for bourgeois media and academics to reduce China or Russia's "socialist" past to a mere random consumer choice, rather than something necassary for the development of their economies in the face of imperialist competition.

Goods from an industrialised country are both of a higher quality and of a lower price, so petty artisans from Russia and China stood no chance of competing with the imperialist bourgeosie.
In addition to that, it was necassary in order to be able to militarily defend against the imperialists attempting to force open markets again. (which had to be closed in order to keep control of resources necassary for industrialisation)

And lastly, it was a damn good thing for the people even if the actual process was painful. It's pretty obvious that industrialisation is a good thing. More wealth=good. How can you be a Marxist without seeing that industrialisation is something incredibly progressive? Communism cannot work unless supply exceeds demand and this can only work with industrialisation. That capitalism continually revolutionises the means of production is perhaps the most important reason why Marx said it paved the way to communism.

[CNT-FAI]

The pain is still going on, & it's the same pain we denounce in capitalism. You can Google search China in Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch for any given year.

Sorry, i see a double standard here, & communism as Marx outlined it has never even come close to being. Of course there are always excuses for why the repression has to continue....all the same sort of rationales can be made for capitalist crimes.

But since i see that this is more a Marxist-Leninist forum than anything else, i think we'll probably have to just agree to disagree.

[The Author]

Originally posted by DiggerII@ March 1, 2007, 03:57 am
I've often wondered why Mao and Stalin placed such a huge emphasis on the rapid industrialization of their countries. They were primarily agrarian societies before the revolutions so what's wrong with continuing the already strong agrarian culture and distributing it's products in a more egalitarian manner? Or were Stalin and Mao simply trying to make their states into world powers?

Large-scale production is a necessary prerequisite for a society to become capitalist, and then socialist and communist. Take a look at England, for instance. Before the Industrial Revolution, it was mostly an agrarian society. But once industry started to develop in England throughout the eighteenth century, the conditions in society began to change, and slowly there was a transformation from feudalism into capitalism. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie emerged as classes as a result of the development of the productive forces (means of production, means of distribution), and a new political and cultural superstructure developed on top of these new relations of production. Once England developed capitalism, it had the technology and the resources to go further, to go into socialism and then communism. Countries like Russia and China did not have large-scale production and thus had to fulfill programs to build up large-scale production. Otherwise, the slogan "to each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" would be impossible if society did not have the resources and technical means necessary to satisfy the needs of everybody. That is why large-scale production is important for a society to successfully transition through capitalism, socialism, and communism.