The Chinese economy really wasn’t planned in any but the broadest and fuzziest terms, if only because the central government simply lacked the material ability to plan out production and logistics directly on the scale of the entire Chinese economy. That left individual regions highly autarkic and free to experiment: the model of the Great Leap Forward came out of the experiments of individual rural communes, for example, and the central government only popularized it after the supposed success it was having (to mixed results that varied heavily by region, with it doing ok in some places and proving catastrophic in others). For urban factories, the organization ranged from traditional strict management-led patterns that any capitalist would expect of a business, to radical worker-led systems where individual workers had considerable leeway to set their own pace and procure their own tools and materials on behalf of the factory - both models functioned about as well as the other, and both ran into the single biggest problem China faced which was the crushing lack of industrial capital.
That last point is really the core of the whole issue: China as of the revolution was one of the most underdeveloped places on earth, with less total industrial output in 1949 than Russia had in 1917, and that problem was a heavy influence on every decision the CPC made since. They received an influx of industrial capital from the Soviets, but then Khrushchev happened and the USSR shifted its focus from producing industrial capital to further industrialize towards producing consumer treats since the left-liberal bloc with Khrushchev thought that was better (it wasn’t and it led to stagnation and increasing dissatisfaction from the liberal bloc who wanted treats and couldn’t understand why they weren’t getting as many treats as white americans were and this led to Gorbachev and Yeltsin), and with the Sino-Soviet split that potential solution ended entirely. Ultimately their revisionist cooperation with the US solved that problem: they got the industrial capital they needed to actually develop their economy and they got a flow of resources in exchange for the industrial output of their large and well educated labor pool - by solving the need of American Capitalists for ever larger labor pools and a market to sell lots of brand new industrial capital in, they solved their own problem.
And now they have their own modern struggle in the CPC between the communists who want ever more aggressive reforms and a move towards socialism with their now-developed economy and the liberal opportunists who will maybe concede to some socdem style regulations and welfare programs but mostly want to keep the status quo and keep lining their own pockets. From afar it seems like the left is winning that, and things like the massive infrastructure projects and anti-poverty campaigns of the past decade shows that at the very least they’re to the left of any modern socdem party which would clutch pearls over the cost and then surrender to liberal demands for austerity instead.
The clearest thing I can remember is that Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union despite mostly being a blow-by-blow of the reforms and political situation of the 80s talks a bit about the further-industrialization vs consumer-goods camps in the 50s. I haven’t come across anything that goes into the same sort of detail about what the actual material policies and conditions at any given point in the USSR were as, say, Sorghum and Steel does for China up to the 70s (caveat for Sorghum and Steel: it was written by ultras who are vocally anti-CPC, but it’s still the most nuanced and sympathetic piece I’ve ever seen about China because of how much it goes into detail about why this or that decision was made and what the material conditions behind it were).
The Chinese economy really wasn’t planned in any but the broadest and fuzziest terms, if only because the central government simply lacked the material ability to plan out production and logistics directly on the scale of the entire Chinese economy. That left individual regions highly autarkic and free to experiment: the model of the Great Leap Forward came out of the experiments of individual rural communes, for example, and the central government only popularized it after the supposed success it was having (to mixed results that varied heavily by region, with it doing ok in some places and proving catastrophic in others). For urban factories, the organization ranged from traditional strict management-led patterns that any capitalist would expect of a business, to radical worker-led systems where individual workers had considerable leeway to set their own pace and procure their own tools and materials on behalf of the factory - both models functioned about as well as the other, and both ran into the single biggest problem China faced which was the crushing lack of industrial capital.
That last point is really the core of the whole issue: China as of the revolution was one of the most underdeveloped places on earth, with less total industrial output in 1949 than Russia had in 1917, and that problem was a heavy influence on every decision the CPC made since. They received an influx of industrial capital from the Soviets, but then Khrushchev happened and the USSR shifted its focus from producing industrial capital to further industrialize towards producing consumer treats since the left-liberal bloc with Khrushchev thought that was better (it wasn’t and it led to stagnation and increasing dissatisfaction from the liberal bloc who wanted treats and couldn’t understand why they weren’t getting as many treats as white americans were and this led to Gorbachev and Yeltsin), and with the Sino-Soviet split that potential solution ended entirely. Ultimately their revisionist cooperation with the US solved that problem: they got the industrial capital they needed to actually develop their economy and they got a flow of resources in exchange for the industrial output of their large and well educated labor pool - by solving the need of American Capitalists for ever larger labor pools and a market to sell lots of brand new industrial capital in, they solved their own problem.
And now they have their own modern struggle in the CPC between the communists who want ever more aggressive reforms and a move towards socialism with their now-developed economy and the liberal opportunists who will maybe concede to some socdem style regulations and welfare programs but mostly want to keep the status quo and keep lining their own pockets. From afar it seems like the left is winning that, and things like the massive infrastructure projects and anti-poverty campaigns of the past decade shows that at the very least they’re to the left of any modern socdem party which would clutch pearls over the cost and then surrender to liberal demands for austerity instead.
GOOD post
Do you have any good sources for reading more on this part (the transition away from industry)?
The clearest thing I can remember is that Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union despite mostly being a blow-by-blow of the reforms and political situation of the 80s talks a bit about the further-industrialization vs consumer-goods camps in the 50s. I haven’t come across anything that goes into the same sort of detail about what the actual material policies and conditions at any given point in the USSR were as, say, Sorghum and Steel does for China up to the 70s (caveat for Sorghum and Steel: it was written by ultras who are vocally anti-CPC, but it’s still the most nuanced and sympathetic piece I’ve ever seen about China because of how much it goes into detail about why this or that decision was made and what the material conditions behind it were).