A Critique of Soviet Economics

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A Critique of Soviet Economics is a work of Marxist-Leninist Political Economy written by Mao Zedong. It was written between 1958 and 1959 and includes a critique of two Soviet works: Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, a short 1951 work by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and Political Economy: A Textbook, an official publication of Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR published in 1957. First published in 1967, the book is regarded as an early polemic of the Sino-Soviet split which emerged in the late 1950s and the 1960s.

History

Content

In A Critique of Soviet Economics, Chinese leader Mao Zedong sharply criticizes the economic views of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, arguing that the Soviet Union's collectivization of agriculture by means of state expropriation represented a "rightist deviation" by substituting the action of the state for the grass-roots action of the peasant masses.[1] Mao additionally criticized Stalin for making the assumption that socialist industrialization was a necessary precondition for the collectivization of agriculture and consequently over-prioritizing the development heavy industry in an unbalanced way.[2]

Mao also challenged the division between People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism) and Soviet Democracy.

Publication

Although written over a period of time from 1958 to 1960, A Critique of Soviet Economics was only first published in 1967, by which time the Sino-Soviet split had fully erupted.[1]

The book was reissued in English translation by Monthly Review Press in 1977.[3]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978-1985. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987; pg. 145.
  2. ↑ Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, pp. 145-146.
  3. ↑ Mao Tse-tung, A Critique of Soviet Economics. Moss Roberts, trans. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977 (157 pages).

Further reading

  • Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978-1985. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
  • Lynn Turgeon, "A Critique of Soviet Economics, by Mao Tse-tung," Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 16, no. 4 (Dec. 1978), pp. 1445–1447. In JSTOR
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