>>2577896reminder that he surmised that socialism will likely come about in advance western countries because they had the most advance productive forces and he was writing the communist manifesto with that in mind.
he even says
>These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.this means that the development of the socialist project in a post colonial agrarian countries will not be the same as socialist development in advance western countries. marx's view is not actually rigid as often claim, he mainly gives direction and a method call dialectical materialism. by the end of his life, he even allows for different starting points and uneven development, with his writings in his letters on russia.
when china established a dotp with the founding of the PRC in 1949, it was still agrarian and technologically backwards and far behind the west. its industrial output was tiny and like 1% of its population would even be considered proletariats in the marxist sense. so mao's central goal was to build a strong industrial base that is necessary for socialism in marxist theory as well as modernize society by improving living standards and urbanization.
by the late 1970s, the prc did achieve some basic industrialization and improved the quality of life for its people with a dramatic increase in life expectancy and literacy. however, china still remained overwhelmingly rural with subsistence farming being the norm. there was still limited connectivity between rural areas and industrial centers. most people were living in extreme poverty and they were far behind in living standards to the west as many did not have access to electricity, running water, or modern healthcare.
according to historical materialism, the capitalist phase is considered necessary before socialism. marx even admired capitalism, not morally, but as a historical force in its ability to revolutionize the productive faster than previous modes of production. he also says,
>The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism.so when the khmer rouge claimed it established communism, that would b
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