ABSTRACT
Introduction Economics was the touchstone of the Chinese revolution: the substructure that, according to Karl Marx, determines not only the government but all else as well. Industrialization was a major priority for the new government in order to bring the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the ranks of the world’s most advanced nations and to provide better living standards for the people of the country. However, party and government also wished to avoid many of the problems that have been associated with industrialization. In other countries, this process had frequently exacerbated the differences between rich and poor. In the Western world, it was only after the industrial revolution had taken place that serious efforts were made to correct extreme inequities. Moreover, progress toward industrialization is rarely smooth: Historical experience indicates that the more rapid the progress, the greater the strains that are generated within a society. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) desire for social stability, albeit with certain salient exceptions such as the Cultural Revolution, was thus also a constraint on rapid industrialization.
