enterprise-oriented market economies embedded in a variety of noncommunist political and social systems. As indicated above, the Chinese redistributed income through a series of confiscatory measures which then gradually led to the virtual elimination of private property. To the extent that regional disparities in stages of development and per capita income levels were narrowed, this was achieved through a highly centralized fiscal system with vast resource-allocating powers.

Can inter-personal and inter-regional income inequalities in other developing economies be narrowed without these vast controls over resource allocation and without resorting to these confiscatory measures? Can status barriers between peasants, workers, and intellectuals be attacked on a purely voluntary basis without ideological indoctrination, peer pressure, and a vast organizational effort by a highly disciplined and dedicated political movement? Can the spirit and motivation for hard work, maximum effort, innovation, and selfabnegation be replicated in other developing economies?

There are a number of underdeveloped countries, including Asian countries (e.g., Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia) that have experienced rapid economic growth, marked structural transformation, and a gradual process of modernization since World War II. However, they have accomplished this through development strategies, policies, and instruments markedly different from those applied in China. Except for one or two countries (e.g., Taiwan), in most cases this development was not associated with improvements in the distribution of income. On the contrary, available evidence tends to suggest that growth was coupled with a widening of income inequalities in the lessdeveloped countries.3

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While it may not be too difficult to design redistributive tax or income-transfer policies for these developing economies, there are enormous political and administrative obstacles to implementing these. Tax morale in these countries tends to be low, the administrative capacity of the government bureaucracies tends to be limited, and last but not least, powerful vested interests can and do bar the implementation of such programs. It is also very doubtful that the kind of spirit, motivation, and social controls prevailing in China can be transferred to the entirely different systemic settings of other developing areas. In essence it is difficult to visualize how particular elements of the Chinese experience can be pulled out of their total context for possible inclusion in the development programs of other countries. The different facets of what may be termed the Chinese development model are quite interdependent and deeply imbedded in the economic, political, and social system as a whole. Therefore it is not at all clear how elements of the model or the model as a whole can be tranferred without adopting the essential features of this system as a whole.

PROSPECTS AND DILEMMAS

The year 1976 may present a particularly uncertain vantage point from which to forecast China's future course of development. With the passing of both Mao and Chou En-lai, it marks a major change in

20 See Hollis Chenery, ed., Redistribution with Growth, London, 1974, pp. 3-27; Simon Kuznets "Economic Growth and Income Inequality," American Economic Review, vol. XLV, No. 11, March 1955, pp. 1-28; Simon Kuznets, "Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations, Distribution of Income by Size," Economic Development and Cultural Change, January 1963, part. II.

China's top leadership. Nevertheless, even if the succession were marked by far-reaching political instability, it is improbable that this would lead to a major upheaval and breakup of the country. However, during this succession period and particularly in a postMao-Chou era, power struggles and policy disputes-including economic policy differences-could become seriously aggravated. Therefore, it may be particularly difficult to forecast the future course of China's economic policy. Nevertheless, barring a repetition of Great Leap Forward-or Cultural Revolution-type measures or China's involvement in a major international conflict, the country should be in a position to sustain over the coming decade approximately the same average rate of economic growth as in the past 25 years. This would mean that be the end of this century China's gross domestic product could be quadrupled. In terms of total size it would still lag far behind the United States and the Soviet Union, but could easily be among the five largest economies in the world.

Nevertheless, just as in the past, it will be no easy task to sustain a 6 percent rate of growth. Based on past performance, this will require a rise in farm production of about 2 to 3 percent a year assuming (1) a continued commitment to basic self-sufficiency in food supply, and (2) a rate of population growth of not less than 1.5 to 2 percent a year. This will necessarily pose a major challenge to Chinese agriculture. Over time it will require very large investments in the farm sector and its far-reaching technical transformation. It is far from clear whether such a major transformation can be accomplished within present patterns of economic organization and employment in agriculture. This range of issues will necessarily constitute one of the continuing problems facing the Chinese Communist leadership for the rest of this century and probably beyond.

The successor generation in China will also have to face up to the challenge of sustaining the Revolution, its values and spirit, in the face of rapid economic growth. As industrialization proceeds the processes of production are bound to become more complex. Technical training requirements may also be expected to grow, thus posing a number of dilemmas. Will the educational system as reorganized after the Cultural Revolution be capable of training the advanced engineering, scientific, and technical manpower required for an industrial society? If not, can that system be reshaped in such a way as to continue producing "reds" and "experts"? Can status and income differences be fairly narrowly confined in the face of the growing specialization, division of labor, and functional differentiation associated with industrialization?

Another and closely related range of questions revolves around consumer aspirations. With a fairly rapidly rising product, can househousehold purchasing power in the cities and in the countryside be kept stable or rise only quite slowly and gradually? Alternatively, will increasing product be gradually translated into increasing consumer appetites? Can consumerism be contained and the spirit of frugality and self-abnegation be preserved?

It is also very unclear whether China can maintain a 10 percent rate of industrial growth for several decades with a preponderantly rural population. This of course will crucially depend on the pattern of industrialization, that is, the technologies used, the scale of plant, and the degree of capital intensity. It may also depend on whether it

is possible to design a highly decentralized pattern of industrial development in China that would economize on transport and be partly regionally based. Such a pattern might slow down the rate of urbanization and at the same time alleviate some of the dilemmas posed above.

In essence, the fundamental challenge confronting China's leaders in the coming decades will be to maintain the tempo of economic growth, to build a strong and modernizing China, while preserving socialist values and not only socialist forms of organization. It remains to be seen whether China can become a modern industrial state without perpetuating the "new class" that has been gradually emerging since the 1950's and without following the "revisionist" road. If China's far-reaching experiment were to succeed, it would indeed be a historic contribution to the process of modern economic growth.

IV. Some recurring themes in the critique of e_onomic policies..

A. Mao-"The Economist"__

B. Absence of material incentives_

C. Deficiencies in planning and management..

D. Militarization of the economy

V. Performance of individual economic sectors..

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A. Politics and sinology-

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B. Strengths and weaknesses of contemporary China studies..

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VI. Interpretive inquiry into the state of Soviet sinology

I. INTRODUCTION AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES

It may seem strange to open with something considered a closinga bibloigraphic note. In this instance, however, there is a valid reason for such deviation: in order to understand the content and context of this paper, it seems especially important to appreciate the nature of the literature on which it is based. As the title indicates, the purpose of this study is to present the Soviet views and interpretations of China's economic development as expressed in their publications and to let the interested individuals decide for themselves just how valid or delusive Soviet perceptions of China might be. It must be admitted, however, that while 90 percent of the material presented represents Soviet sentiments, the author has found it impossible to keep his own "two cents" out of the analysis. Hopefully, such opinions and comments will be clearly apparent and therefore easily ignored by the reader looking for the unadulterated Soviet viewpoints.

*I would like to thank the following colleagues for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper: William R. Dodge, John P. Hardt, Howard Klein, Francis J. Romance, and Gilbert Rozman. I am especially grateful to Dorothy Clark who does not edit out all my idiosyncracies.

**Leo A. Orleans is a China Research Specialist in Research Services of the Library of Congress.

One learns to read Soviet publications on China just as one learns to read Chinese materials on the Soviet Union. In both countries there is certain prescribed rhetoric and there are standard views that find their way into all the writings. With a little experience one learns what to skip, what to skim, and what to focus on. The problem becomes more difficult when Soviet authors decide to discuss China in terms of Marxist-Leninist polemic. For example, in his Economic "Theories" of Maoism, Korbash writes that:

Development continues to be rooted in objective conditions, while socialist society merely has the opportunity to avoid the waste resulting from uncontrolled development by consciously directing social development in concert with the objective conditions and the economic and social laws of socialism.1 One can only hope that the comprehension of such statements, which are quite common in Soviet writings, is not vital to understanding Soviet perceptions of China's economic development.

There is a kind of sameness and dullness about the post-1960 Soviet publications on the People's Republic of China. In part, it is simply their physical similarity: most books are the same size, with dense print, small margins, few subheadings, minimal white space and, of course, no indexes. Anyone who relies on visual memory to help in identifying passages or bits of information for future retrieval, soon finds himself spending inordinate amounts of time shuffling books and leafing through pages in search of something that blends into a forest of words. Much more important, however, is the sameness of content. Soviet Sinologists have to contend not only with a paucity of data (a problem familiar to all China specialists), but also with the ideological and political constraints, which limit their freedom to deviate from the generally accepted opinions and conclusions-at least in open publications available for domestic and foreign consumption. But more about that later.

It is because of the consistency of both themes and economic evaluations that I decided against the standard footnoting procedures. Crediting a specific publication would imply that its author was saying something different or especially perceptive, or that the source has greater stature or authority, while actually the same information or view is available in any number of other sources which are just as official. Instead, I have listed below some of the more comprehensive and more useful publications, while limiting the footnoting essentially to commentary. Although statistics included in the tables are footnoted, in most cases the same or very similar figures could have been cited from other sources. The few differences that may exist between figures in individual sources were not considered to be significant enough to warrant a table of alternate estimates.

Had I completed this project a few months earlier, the commentary would have ended with the preceding paragraph. When I was well into the writing of the report, however, a new Soviet publication came into my possession: A. I. Petrov and L. I. Molodtsova, eds., Ekonomika KNR: vozmozhnosti i real'nost' (The Economy of the PRC: Possibilities

1 A similar evaluation is evident in Rozman's conclusion that "*** Soviet sinology should be amenable to a general overview which would be inconceivable for the more amorphous American sinology. Centralized control and coordination of training, employment, and publication produces unanimity on essential points, consistency on basic points, and disagreement within well-defined although by no means stationary perimeters." Gilbert Rozman, "Soviet Reinterpretations of Chinese Social History: The search for the origins of Maoism," Journal of Asian Studies, November 1974, p. 50.