ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an alternative historical “model” to that of capitalism socialist industrialization and details the history of the industrialization experiences in the Soviet Union and China after a brief examination of the idea of socialism. It then uses the historical approach to examine the social context in which industrialization occurred, paying particular attention to living standards, class and gender. Industrialization in Communist China has taken a similar form to that in the Soviet Union, but there have also been some important differences. Moreover, attempts to implement socialism in the workplace have often been limited by the continued dominance of the Communist Party, whose promotion of class struggle has often been rhetorical. The Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966 as an attempt by Mao and his followers to win mass support for eliminating “capitalist readers” from the Party.
