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Soviet textbook and political economy in the PRC in the second half of the 1950s: From propaganda to critique


TERRA ECONOMICUS, Vol. 24, No 2

Citation: Borokh O.N. (2026). Soviet textbook and political economy in the PRC in the second half of the 1950s: From propaganda to critique. Terra Economicus 24(2), 41–56 (in Russian). DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2026-24-2-41-56


Soviet political economy profoundly impacted the study of this discipline in China in the 1950s. “Textbook on Political Economy” prepared by the USSR Academy of Sciences (1954) contributed significantly to broad dissemination of Soviet theoretical approaches in China. Drawing on Chinese-language sources and materials, the article reconstructs the evolution of the textbook’s reception in China from the enthusiastic assessments of the mid-1950s to its critical rethinking at the end of the decade. The ability of Chinese Marxists to evaluate objectively the originality of the textbook was based on the experience of studying Soviet political economy since the 1930s. The article investigates the approaches of Chinese scholars to the content of the third edition of the textbook in the context of transformations of Soviet interpretations of socialism. I demonstrate that the discussion on the textbook organized by Mao Zedong in 1959 was aimed at outlining the limitations of the applicability of the Soviet model to solving China’s problems and at justifying the need to develop domestic theoretical concepts. The conclusion is that the topic of the perception of Soviet political economy in the mid20th century became relevant in the PRC against the backdrop of official demands to build social sciences with Chinese characteristics. The postulates and schemes of the 1954 textbook cannot be ignored when developing the political economy of Chinese socialism. The problem has expanded beyond the study of the history of Marxist economic thought and has become part of theoretical explorations in contemporary China.

Keywords: China; political economy of socialism; Marxism; Soviet influence; Mao Zedong; Communist Party of China
JEL codes: B2, B24, A2



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Publisher: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606












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