The NEP and the New Democracy

Abstract

N examining recent developments within the Chinese People's ReI public, the Western observer is tempted to compare the domestic policies of the new regime with the programs and institutions characteristic of various stages in Soviet Russian history. Generally such a comparison is likely to reveal more differences than similarities, but there are certain features of the present Chinese Communist program that bear rather striking resemblance to the New Economic Policy (NEP) which Lenin inaugurated in Russia in i92i. Like the NEP, current Chinese Communist policy calls for important concessions to the peasantry and for moderation in other spheres of political and economic activity. And, like Lenin in I92I, the Chinese Communist leaders of today are using certain capitalist incentives and institutions in order to move toward the eventual destruction of all capitalist incentives and institutions. There are, of course, a number of equally striking differences which come immediately to mind: the environment of the NEP was Russian, while that of Mao Tse-tung's New Democracy is Chinese; the Bolsheviks of 1921 were charting a totally new course, while Chinese Communist leaders today can benefit from the early mistakes of their Russian allies and from the long history of Red Chinese regional governments; the world context of i95i is far different from that of i92i, and so on. But, despite these differences, there seem to be similarities enough to warrant further analysis. Throughout the period of War Communism (I9I8-2I) the Russian Bolsheviks, while prosecuting the Civil War and resisting Allied invasions, sought to socialize their entire economy as a stage in the transformation of Russia into a truly Communist state. In this direction, industrial production became a state monopoly; government agencies requisitioned peasant grain; and attempts were made to abolish the money economy.'