• Rev [none/use name]
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    4 years ago

    Saying "it is just a matter of political struggle within the party" is like saying: yeah you could totally just flap your hands and fly, it's just a small matter of gravity. It is an immense obstacle. If China can build a more successful version of capitalism, if their bureaucracy are invested in having such a capitalism enable their affluence where's the impetus for change gonna come from?

    It's also very disingenuous to compare the 40 (40!) years of Dengism to the NEP, which was much more limited both in time and scope. How come the USSR managed to create their semiconductor and other industries, that rivalled anything the West had to offer, from scratch without resorting to restoring capitalist rule?

    • PhaseFour [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Saying “it is just a matter of political struggle within the party” is like saying: yeah you could totally just wave your hands up and down and fly, it’s just the small matter of gravity.

      You are saying a change in a political line is impossible. That is a lie. Obviously, political struggles are hard. However, the forces in favor of transition toward socialism have significantly more power under Xi's leadership. Right-wing deviations are possible. Stalin was followed by Khrushchev. Left-wing deviations are possible. The 16th Party Congress saw the end of the NEP and a transition to collectivization. As China's productive base exceeds and becomes independent from western capitalists, the left-wing deviation becomes the correct political line.

      It’s also very disingenuous to compare the 40 (40!) years of Dengism to the NEP, which was much more limited both in time and scope

      Not really. The idea that 1910's Russia was 10 years behind the capitalist west & 1970's China was 50 years behind the capitalist west is not a far stretch.

      How come the USSR managed to create their semiconductor and other industries, that rivalled anything the West had to offer, from scratch without resorting to restoring capitalist rule?

      Because they were leading the West? There was not much to learn. Free exchange of information between the capitalist west and the USSR would have been advantageous for the capitalist west.

      • Rev [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        Anything is possible. Maybe aliens will save us all tomorrow. We're not talking about the possible but the probable.

        And as for your last point that is simply not true. The RSFSR was certainly not leading in more than a tiny handful of niche areas of research. They had huge geographical disparity to boot. Maybe you should look up the drive towards a new science-enabling organisation of connected research institutes to see where the later scientific lead came from.

      • Rev [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        What? You mean like the Elbrus that introduced superscalar architecture almost a decade before Intel (which Intel probably just bought for cheap after the collapse) and one of whose chief designers then lead the Intel team that developed the Pentium III processor? The Elbrus which in its second iteration performed on par with its contemporary Cray supercomputer competitor while running at one fifth the clock frequency and that in its third iteration outperformed its contemporary Cray supercomputer competitor by a factor of 2, that semiconductor industry?