Socialism in one country

Transcription

1 GEOG November 2011 Socialism in One and a Half Countries: Russia and China Between the Wars Socialism in one country The need for international revolution? The failure of the German revolution Foreign invasion and counter-revolution The development of a socialist state A bourgeois and Tsarist hotch-potch The New Economic Policy (NEP) Stalin on socialism in one country First of all there is the question: Can socialism possibly be established in one country alone by that country s unaided strength? This question must be answered in the affirmative. Then there is the question: Can a country where the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established, regard itself as fully safeguarded against foreign intervention, and the consequent restoration of the old regime, unless the revolution has been victorious in a number of countries? This question must be answered in the negative. 1

2 Development of Stalinism The socialist state vs. the peasantry The war over grain Targeting kulaks Collective farms Rapid industrialization High modernism? Preparation for war Social transformation Changing class structures? Improvements in health and educational outcomes Average Decadal Rates of Per Capita Industrial Growth, Selected Countries Germany, % Japan, % Soviet Union, % China, % Source: Meisner, The Deng Xiaoping Era (Hill and Wang, 1996: 191) Country Human development indicators, various countries and regions Percent of Adults Literate Percent in Cities over 20,000 Percent in Secondary and Higher Education Electricity Generation per capita (kwh) Physicians per 100,000 population Soviet Central Asia, Soviet Central Asia, Columbia, India, Turkey, Iran, Source: L. S. Stavrianos, Global Rift (New York: Morrow, 1981), p

3 Assessing the Soviet Union Actually existing socialism? State capitalism? A unique social/class system? A semi-peripheral country within a capitalist world system? Nehru on the Russian Revolution (1930s) While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backwards in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In particular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Central Asia under the Soviet regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favor of Russia, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world. Goldman on the USSR The hideous sores on revolutionary Russia could not long be ignored It was forcible tax-collection at the point of guns, with its devastating effects on villages and towns. It was the elimination of responsible positions of everyone who dared think aloud, and the spiritual death of the most militant elements whose intelligence, faith, and courage had really enabled the Bolsheviki to achieve their power. The anarchists and Left Socialist Revolutionists had been used as pawns by Lenin in the October days and were now doomed to extinction by his creed and policies. (Living My Life, pp ) 3

4 From Germany to Russia to China: Marxism, Leninism, Maoism Marx: revolution to be carried forward by industrial workers in core countries Lenin: revolution to be carried forward by industrial workers at weakest link in the imperial chain Mao: revolution to be carried forward by popular forces--including peasants--in the imperial periphery Social Imperialism (Adapted from Peter Taylor and Colin Flint, Political Geography, 2000) Collaboration between dominant classes in core and periphery Periphery A Core A Surplus Transfer from Periphery to Core Repression Social Imperialism B B Division between subordinate classes in core and periphery A = dominant classes; B = dominated (subordinate) classes Three geographies of revolution Gender relations in China Scales: body, household, and community Issues: power and gender identities Urban-rural relations in China Scales: national and regional (sub-national) Issues: power and agents of social change China in the world system Scales: global and national Issues: power and national independence 4

5 The Yan an Way Peasants as revolutionaries: land reform Popular coalitions: resistance to imperialism Voluntarism: large developmental changes can be produced in a short period of time through hard work and strong will Conventional rural gender relations? Deaths and Casualties from 1938 North China Flood Henan Anhui Jiangsu Total Dead 325, , ,498 Refugees 1,172, ,470 4,840,460 Dead/Refugees 2,980,303 2,980,303 Source: Diana Lary, The Waters Covered the Earth, in Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So, eds. War & State Terrorism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004): 152 War and Revolution Membership in the Chinese Communist Party 1927: 58, : 40, : 800, : 1.2 million 1949: 4.5 million 5

6 Sources W. Hinton, Fanshen (1967) J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1967) E. Goldman, Living my Life (1970) M. Selden, Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (1971) L. Stavrianos, Global Rift (1981) J. Spence, The Search for Modern China (1990) A. Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (1991) C. Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution (1995) J. Scott, Seeing Like a State (1998) M. Meisner, Mao s China and After (1999) P. Short, Mao (1999) J. Spence, Mao Zedong (1999) P. Lescot, Before Mao (2004) M. Selden and A. Y. So, eds., War & State Terrorism (2004) G. Kolko, After Socialism (2006) M. Meisner, Mao Zedong (2007) 6