Soviet and Chinese Economic Reform

When historians look back on the twentieth century, they will note that the first three-quarters of the century were marked by extreme and violent revolutions on both the right and the left. They may be even more intrigued, however, by the fact that in the last quarter of the century, the governments established by those revolutions shifted to considerably more moderate positions and they did so in a nonviolent manner.

The two most notable examples of this phenomenon are in China and the Soviet Union, where Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev are engaged in trying to turn their countries away from what has been called the Stalinist model, with its emphasis on heavy industry, centralized planning and authority, and political and cultural repression. There have been previous efforts to reform the Stalinist model, but what makes Deng and Gorbachev different is that they not only acknowledge the need to change, but seek to implement changes that challenge the vested interests of their own communist parties. Most of their colleagues, whether high officials or middle-level bureaucrats, seem willing to recognize the shortcomings of the existing system, but they oppose with all their being its reform—if the reform threatens their existing status.

What has made both leaders deviate so sharply from the path of their predecessors? Why at this time? What is their attitude toward each other’s efforts? How do their efforts compare? And what are their chances of success?

II

To understand what both leaders must overcome, it is necessary to recollect what each found when he assumed power. In some ways their situations were similar. At the time of Deng’s return to power at the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in December 1978, and Gorbachev’s selection as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1985, both were confronted with stagnant economies that were based on state ownership of the means of production, centralized planning and collectivization of agriculture. Each man led one-party states that emphasized democratic centralism, meaning that all decisions and administrative appointments flowed from the top down.