> In an overview table, I utilize S. Ishikawa “China’s Economic Growth Since
> 1949” (China Quarterly, June 1983) for annual rates of growth in the 1966-76
> period: national income--7 percent; industrial output--11.3 percent (heavy
> industry at 13.6 percent, and light industry at 8.5 percent); agricultural
> production--3.8 percent. Except for heavy industry, the 1966-76 performance
> exceeds the average annual growth rates for these categories during the
> 1952-66 period.
Many of the economic statistics from the pre-Deng period were distorted by political mandate. I'm relying on the more recent data, which by all accounts is more accurate.
> agriculture and industry. Grain production was emphasized (the “key link”),
> at the same time that crop diversification was encouraged. The state
> investment plan allocated resources to industries supplying inputs to
> agriculture, and substantial direct state investment was made in
> agricultural infrastructure, like water conservancy projects. Policies of
> rural industrialization led to a vast network of small and medium-sized
> factories producing light equipment and parts, fertilizer, etc.
That's the theory. The reality is that Maoist industrialization was very uneven, and relied on voluntarist mobilization ("learning from Dazhai"), as well as notably unsuccessful attempts at creating vast communal farms. True rural industrialization happened very slowly, and only took off during the Deng period, when peasants were given the go-ahead to accumulate on their own. William Hinton's sequel to Fanshen, namely Shenfan, is pretty clear about why this was so.
> Time ran out, so to speak: The capitalist roaders (the forces around Hua and
> Deng) seized power in 1976.
The Gang of Four were cretinous thugs who rose to power at Mao's behest, and who were simply out-flanked, out-fought and out-thought by Deng and the remaining Long March veterans -- an equally violent bunch, to be sure, but cadres who at least knew that it was time for Maoism to go.
> base. It had no foreign debt and no inflation. And it had broken the grip of
> imperialist domination. This was not autarchy: it was genuine socialism in a
> world dominated by imperialism.
It was most certainly autarky. Contact with the outside world was cut off, spy hysteria was rampant, and the peak of the Cultural Revolution meant the near-total cessation of schools, colleges, universities, etc. China involuted, and given its history, there were good reasons for this. But Marxism is not the celebration of historical necessity or its privileged agent in China, the one-party state, but rather the critical analysis of all these things.
-- Dennis