Failures and Successes: Soviet and Chinese State-Socialist Reforms in the Face of Global Capitalism

The demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 when viewed alongside the seeming success of the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) reforms since the 1980s is a study in contrasts. This chapter compares the approaches adopted by the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties to the reform of state socialism and considers why one ended in collapse and the other in resurgence. The chapter considers the specific challenges each state faced, international and domestic, in the context of neoliberal capitalism; the intellectual compasses that guided their respective party leaderships; the roles played by domestic forces in the reforms; and what light all these considerations cast on the role of the state in socialist reform.