Joining the Socialist Camp } 49
Mao subsequently stated how deeply impressed he was by the Short Course’s
profound Marxist-Leninist analysis. Scholar Hua-yu Li noted the irony that
Mao, who frequently differed with Stalin over policy during the pre-1949
period, accepted uncritically Stalin’s grossly inaccurate and distorted account
of Soviet history in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Short Course described how Stalin had struggled against a series of
“incorrect” “anti-party groups” that had (putatively) represented the bour-
geoisie and other class enemies within the CPSU. By defeating these succes-
sive “incorrect and anti-party groups” within the party, Stalin had pushed the
revolution forward to final victory of socialism over capitalism. According to
the Short Course, Stalin, with profound insight, realized in the mid-1920s that
the parallel existence of a state-planned sector and a private capitalist sector
left open the question of “who will win, socialism or capitalism, the prole-
tariat or the bourgeoisie?” He concluded that definitive victory for social-
ism and the proletariat required the complete destruction of capitalism, and
moved the Soviet Union in that direction from around 1926 on. An attack on
the rich peasants (known in Russia as kulaks) overcame their resistance to
socialism, specifically to collective farming, and brought the agricultural sec-
tor into socialism. Three Five Year Plans fueled by extractions from agricul-
ture then generated rapid socialist industrialization. By 1937, proclaimed the
Short Course, the construction of socialism was basically complete, and the
USSR had become a highly industrialized country with first-rate technology.
Mao’s 1949–1950 travels through the USSR had confirmed this conclusion for
him. During those travels, Mao was shown the most modern Soviet factories
and farms. Mao (unlike other top CCP leaders) had seen no capitalist country
that might provide a comparison, and was very impressed by what he saw in
the Soviet Union.^38
Some of Mao’s comrades on the Politburo who had themselves absorbed
the Short Course accepted Stalin’s model of socialist construction, but felt
that a ten- to fifteen-year preparatory period of continued market devel-
opment was necessary before China pushed ahead into the socialist stage.
Ironically, Stalin himself shared this view and warned Liu Shaoqi and other
CCP leaders against the abrupt expropriation of rich peasants and China’s
capitalist class. Stalin, after all, probably knew quite well just how far the
reality of the Soviet economy differed from the rosy propaganda depicting
it. During 1948–1951, Liu Shaoqi, CCP economic czar Vice Premier Chen
Yun, and economic planner Bo Yibo shared Stalin’s doubts about the swift
destruction of capitalism in China. But the expansion of China’s state sector
because of Soviet assistance in industrial production in China’s Northeast
between 1946 and 1950 convinced Mao that the balance between the state
sector and the market sector had shifted sufficiently to create the necessary
industrial base for transition to socialism in China. Liu, Chen, and Bo were
shocked by Mao’s startling and bold conclusion, but once instructed directly