Question

Compare and contrast Mao's two major campaigns to industrialize China. How do they compare to Russia's?

Answer 1

China under Mao had two major attempts to industrialize and boost its economy in order to become a strong economic nation. Mao's policies though did not worked as planned at all, and they had the opposite effect, crumbling the economy instead of developing it. The planning of how the industrialization was supposed to happen, and the planning for the production of the raw materials for it, were totally misjudged and nothing turned out as projected.

Russia on the other hand had very old school industry, and it was modernizing very slowly. Despite having problems similar to those in China, still the industrialization was going much more smoothly. It was slow, step by step, not keeping up the pace of the Western World, but it was managing to develop nonetheless.