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Economic Development and Political Change in Communist Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Alexander Eckstein
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Extract

In the field of comparative Communist studies theory seems to have lagged behind reality. Until a few years ago we tended to think of Communist polities in terms of uniformities oriented around the concept of a totalitarian model that permeated all Communist systems more or less the same way and to the same degree. Although it was recognized that there were cultural differences and variations in the levels of development, these factors were not assigned great weight in modifying and transforming Communist polities. On the contrary, the very possibility of a transformation was assigned a low probability.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , July 1970 , pp. 475 - 495
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1970

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References

1 Economic backwardness can of course be described or defined in terms of a number of interrelated criteria such as GNP per head, share of labor force in agriculture, average product per worker, etc. For internationally comparable measures of structural change associated with economic growth, see Kuznets, Simon, Modern Economic Growth, Rate, Structure and Spread (New Haven and London 1966), particularly chap. 3Google Scholar.

2 There are various ways in which the scope and extent of internal trade could be measured. In this context I am thinking of the share of output entering marketing channels, and within this share the proportion sold in local as compared to regional or national markets.

3 Thus a premodern polity such as that of Imperial China, embedded in a premodern economy based on traditional techniques of production, could exert far-reaching control over a vast area but minimal penetration at the sub-hsien level.

4 In this context the ceteris paribus assumption must be strongly underlined. Therefore it would be erroneous to jump to the conclusion that economic and political mobilization would be impossible. In fact, as both Soviet and Chinese examples illustrate, ideology and organization can, at least up to a point, compensate for technical backwardness.

5 In thinking through these definitions of needs and demands I have been greatly influenced by, and have profited from, studying the burgeoning literature in the field of political development. I am referring to the first five symposia sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Politics and published by the Princeton University Press, to Apter's, DavidThe Politics of Modernization (Chicago 1965)Google Scholar and to Comparative Politics, A Developmental Approach by Almond, Gabriel and Powell, G. Bingham Jr. (Boston 1966)Google Scholar. In working on this paper I have particularly benefited from reading Lucian Pye's most stimulating essay, Aspects of Political Development (Boston 1966)Google Scholar.

6 Mobilization is of course very closely associated with industrialization. I am treating it here as a separate concept since mobilization may be directed toward not only economic growth but political development as well. Moreover, it may go beyond that and serve as a means of sustaining a permanent revolution.

7 Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, A Book, of Essays (Cambridge, Mass. 1962), 24. (Italics added.)Google Scholar

8 For instance, this was most apparent in Communist China during the Great Leap Forward (1958–59) when the whole state and economic management apparatus became highly politicized, with numerous tasks and responsibilities transferred to direct Party control. At the same time, ideological exhortation and indoctrination was greatly stepped up and the Party, with its cadres, was mobilized to a fever pitch. In turn, it was the task of the cadres thus imbued to mobilize the masses. See Schurmann, Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1966), xlii and xlv, and 1–9Google Scholar.

9 Freud, Sigmund, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (New York 1967)Google Scholar.

10 I am indebted to Professor Gregory Grossman for calling this to my attention. In considering this problem it may be important to bear in mind that the leaders' ideal is a Communist man who is both red and expert. However, particularly in underdeveloped Communist countries such as China, where technical and skilled manpower is very scarce and where technical backwardness itself severely limits the technical learning opportunities, such an ideal may be unattainable.

11 In introducing this notion of degree of "potency," I of course recognize the obstacles to translating it into measurable magnitudes. Theoretically, i.e., provided that the data are available, rising input applications and input productivities can be measured. If more intensive ideological indoctrination were the only instrument to be used in inducing input changes, the measurement problem would be fairly simple. However if, as is more probable, ideology is used in combination with other instruments, it may be extremely difficult—if not impossible—to separate the effects of the former from those of the latter. This difficulty arises both because ideological and other inputs may be intercorrelated and because applications of ideology can hardly be quantified. We can of course count the number of workers engaged in indoctrination (i.e., party cadres engaged in ideological work), but this can not serve as an adequate measure of the factor mobilization or factor productivity effects of ideology. It would be even more difficult to measure the degree to which input mobilization and productivity effects are traceable to spontaneous rather than to coercive adherence.

13 Marx, Karl, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago 1911), 11Google Scholar. (Italics added.)

13 For instance, in discussing the role of primitive accumulation in the development or rise of early capitalism, Marx states that “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power” (Italics added.) Capital (Chicago1921), 824Google Scholar.

14 This ambiguity was clearly recognized by Engels in his much-referred-to four letters written after Marx's death in response to the critics of Marxist theory. In these letters he reiterates the role that ideology, religion, and philosophy may play in a society's economic development. At the same time he re-emphasizes that the interaction between cultural elements and production forces is "on the basis of economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself." Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Selected Correspondence, 1846–1895, translated by Torr, Dona (New York 1942), 475–518Google Scholar.

15 “Of all things in the world, people are the most precious” Tsc-tung, Mao, Selected Works, vol. 4 (Peking 1961), 454Google Scholar. (Italics added.)

16 In Lifton's words, there are certain psychological assumptions long prominent in Mao's thought but never so overtly insisted upon as during the Cultural Revolution. One of these assumptions is an image of the human mind as infinitely malleable, capable of being reformed, transformed, and rectified without limit. Another is a related vision of the will as all-powerful, even to the extent that in Mao's own words, “the subjective creates the objective.” That is, man's capacity for both undergoing change and changing his environment is unlimited; once he makes the decision for change, the entire universe can be bent to his will. Lifton, Robert J., Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York 1968), 70–71Google Scholar.

17 This point was most dramatically driven home during the Great Leap of 1958–59.

18 See Etzioni, Amitai, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations (New York 1961), 66Google Scholar.

19 I am indebted to Professor Richard Lowenthal for this particular way of formulating the problem.

20 Professor Skinner goes well beyond this in his most suggestive cyclical policy theory based on shift patterns of this appeals mix in different phases of the cycle. See Skinner, G. W. and Winckler, E. A., “Compliance Succession in Rural Communist China: A Cyclical Theory,” in Etzioni, Amitai, ed., Complex Organizations (New York 1969), 410Google Scholar–38.

21 See Neuberger, Egon: “Libermanism, Computopia, and Visible Hand,” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings (May 1966), 131Google Scholar–44.

22 See Selznick, Philip, TV A and the Grass Roots (Berkeley 1949Google Scholar).

23 Something like this seems to have taken place in Czechoslovakia between January and August, 1968.

24 In no sense does this, however, imply a unilinear pattern of devolopment or an inevitable line of progression. Clearly, at any one point the process is reversible provided the Communist leadership is prepared to pay the price for such reversals.