Question by Samian’s 10th -Giuliani 2012: Why did Perestroika cause the Soviet Union to collapse, but economic restructing in China kept the Communists?
I was wondering this, since I know that in the 1980s both Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaopeng led some reform measures in Communist countries that were meant to liberalize their economies.
But Communism fell in Soviet Russia, yet it’s still strong in the People’s Republic of China.
Why did one stay strong, while the other collapsed?
Answers and Views:
Answer by dnldslk
Because of what each government did. The gov of the SU intentionally set about making internal changes, which wreaked much havoc. The Chinese were undoubtedly keen observers of that mess. The result–the chinese changed their economic system and made it much more capitalistic without changing their internal political system–which is still structured as it always was–around rigid communistic leadership.
The SU changed its politics AND its economic system; the Chinese changed ONLY their economic system, leaving the existing political system intact.
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
meg says
In the USSR they tried to privatizes the whole economy at the same time but in China they are doing it in pieces. You need more that private ownership to have a working free market economy, you also need an institutional framework and laws which Communist countries do not have and must be built over time..