Similarities

Rise of Communist PartySoviet Union China

Pavel Milyukov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government, confirmed that Russia would remain in WWI, sparking outrage in soldiers and workers, losing support for the Provisional Government and allowing the Bolshevik Party to take over.

Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Guomindang, attempted to modernize China, improving life in the cities but not in the countryside, giving it a narrow base of support that led to its defeat by the more popular CCP.

Similarities

Dissatisfaction with Previous Rulers

FeminismSoviet Union China

In the 1930s, many women entered the workforce, such as the two women in this picture learning how to drive a tractor in a collective farm.

A “happy marriage” in 1953 after the New Marriage Law of 1950 that allowed women to have free choice in marriage, attacking old Confucian /patriarchal traditions.

Similarities

More Gender Equality

Land RedistributionSoviet Union China

Lenin’s Decree on Land in 1917 abolished private property and redistributed landed estates amongst the peasantry.

CCP cadres redistributed land under the Agrarian Reform Law in 1950, which gave land to all —peasant or landowner—on an equitable basis.

Similarities

End of Private Ownership by Landlords

Environmental Consequences

Soviet Union China

Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world, the Aral Sea has been shrinking ever since the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects.

In Mao’s Great Leap Forward, many farmers moved from agricultural to industrial work, causing a famine that killed 20 million Chinese in 3 years.

Similarities

Harming the Environment

“Enemies” and “Conspiracies”

Soviet Union China

The White Sea-Baltic Canal was the first major construction project of the Soviet Union using forced labor in gulags that “enemies of the people” were sent to.

Mao’s Red Guards set out to get rid of those in the CCP whom Mao thought were taking the capitalist road.

Similarities

Battling Counterrevolutionary Conspiracies with Violence

Differences

Social ChangesSoviet Union China

The nomenklatura were the small privileged elite group within the USSR that held various key positions, abandoning the earlier commitment to egalitarianism.

This propaganda poster depicts Mao Zedong over the People’s Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution in which Mao removed capitalist, traditional, and cultural elements from society, accusing those with high positions.

Differences

Stalin Accepted, Mao did not

Collective FarmingSoviet Union China

Away with Kulaks! While collectivizing agriculture, millions of rich peasants were killed because they were unwilling to give up their land, a much more violent process than in China where the CCP had good relations with peasants.

China pushed collectivization further than the Soviet Union did with its People’s Commune in which everything was shared, moving closer to a communist society.

DIfferences

Violence and Extensiveness

Roots of CommunismSoviet Union China

This propaganda poster depicts a city in the USSR where workers control factories, illustrating their focus and roots in the city, mostly supported by industrial workers.

This propaganda poster shows peasants in the countryside happy with their work and holding Mao’s Little Red Book, demonstrating that his support was rooted in the peasantry.

Differences

Cities vs. Countryside

Foreign SupportSoviet Union China

In the early stages of its communism, the USSR faced the hostile capitalist world alone.

Since its revolution was much later, the Chinese Communist Party had the Soviet Union as its ally in its fight against capitalism.

Differences

Alone vs Allies

Sino-Soviet SplitSoviet Union China

Mao no longer trusted the USSR after Khrushchev’s meeting with Eisenhower to decrease Soviet-American tensions, thinking that they were not aggressive enough in their reaction to the U-2 spy plane incident.

Backyard steel furnaces during the Great Leap Forward and aggressive actions shocked Khrushchev, who considered them offensive and did not help China in nuclear development.

Differences

Marxism-Leninism vs. Maoism