BEIJING: The former socialist superpower the Soviet Union (USSR) collapsed on December 25, 1991, while China, a major power which chose the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics different from that of the USSR, has become the biggest economy on a purchasing power parity basis. It is also the most powerful and successful socialist country en route to realize modernization and industrialization without choosing the Western capitalist model, as well as “the most important strategic competitor” in the eyes of the US.
Chinese people hold mixed feelings over the collapse 30 years ago, as they hold sympathy toward Russian people who consequently suffered a series of tragedies, but they also find that the collapse of the red giant is a significantly valuable lesson for China to keep developing and improving socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Just as discussions are rife among observers and scholars worldwide, there has been much debate appraising the legacy of the collapse of the USSR from Chinese experts, commentators and ordinary people on Chinese media and social media platforms in recent days, but their voices are quite different from the Western ones. Portraying the US as the “victor” of the Cold War, many media and scholars from the US and other Western countries are at pains to attribute the collapse of the USSR to its socialist path, claiming that its choice caused mistakes like military expansion, Great-Power chauvinism and failed economic reform.
But a mainstream view in China is that socialism is correct, and that it was effective in helping the Soviet Union defeat fascism and build a superpower. The error lay in that leaders of the USSR after Joseph Stalin deviated from the path of socialism, and even betrayed the path and the people of Soviet Union, said Chinese experts, stressing that the success of China today has further strengthened the correctness of this view.
Li Shenming, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that “there are many different explanations from around the world about why the Soviet Union collapsed, but the one which holds that ‘Stalinism,’ or ‘the socialist model of the Soviet Union,’ is the root cause continues to dominate.”
“But in China, we have reached common ground after much research and many discussions that Stalinism is not the root cause, and the real reason is that, from Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev, the leadership of the Soviet Union gradually deviated from and eventually betrayed Marxism, socialism and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people,” Li noted.
To blame Stalin, or the socialist model built by Lenin and Stalin, for the collapse of the Soviet Union is irresponsible, Li said.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
