Lessons and Insights from the Failure of the Soviet Model of Socialist Modernization

From the perspective of world historical development, since the 16th century, and especially after the Industrial Revolution, modernization has become the main thread running through the development of both East and West. The means of achieving modernization exhibit different characteristics and forms in different countries, nations, or regions. Qian Chengdan believes that modernization has different "models," and that studying modernization requires studying the issue of "models." The American scholar Barrington Moore, based on the differing national conditions of various countries, sorted out three distinct models of modernization: the Western democratic model represented by Britain, the United States, and France; the fascist model represented by Germany, Italy, and Japan; and the socialist model represented by the Soviet Union and China. Barrington believed that these three models are not only sequentially connected in their developmental order but also progressively linked in a chain of causality. The Western democratic path opened the door for the fascist model of Germany, Italy, and Japan; the defeat of fascism in Russia and China directly triggered socialist revolution. There is no doubt that the Soviet model was the world's first socialist modernization model to explore transcending capitalism. During its 74 years of existence, it achieved remarkable successes that attracted worldwide attention. "In the 1950s and 1960s, many Third World countries praised the Soviet model as the best and fastest path to modernization and social justice." Looking at the entire process of Soviet socialist modernization, it can be said that it provided a complete template, from experience to lessons, for Chinese-path modernization. Of course, in evaluating the Soviet model of socialist modernization, one should not unilaterally negate it because of its failure, but rather dialectically draw on its experiences and lessons.

从世界历史发展来看，自16世纪特别是工业革命以来，现代化便成为贯穿东西方发展的主线。现代化的实现方式在不同的国家、民族或地区表现出不同的特征与形式，钱乘旦认为，现代化是具有不同“模式”的，研究现代化，需要研究“模式”问题。美国学者巴林顿·摩尔根据不同国家的国情差异梳理出三种不同的现代化模式：以英、美、法为代表的西方民主模式；以德、意、日为代表的法西斯主义模式；以苏联和中国为代表的社会主义模式。巴林顿认为，这三种模式不但在发展序列上相互接续，而且在因果链条上辗转递进。西方民主道路为德、意、日法西斯主义模式开启了大门，法西斯主义在俄国和中国失败，直接引爆了社会主义革命。毫无疑问，苏联模式是世界上第一个探索超越资本主义的社会主义现代化模式，在它存在的74年间，取得过令世界瞩目的巨大成就，“在50年代和60年代，许多第三世界国家赞颂苏联模式是现代化和社会正义的最佳最快的途径。”纵观苏联社会主义现代化建设的全过程，可以说，为中国式现代化建设提供了一个完整的从经验到教训的样板。当然，评析社会主义现代化的苏联模式，不能因其失败就片面地予以否定，而是应当辩证地汲取其经验教训。

I. Never Having Shaken Off the Shackles of Historical and Cultural Traditions

一、始终未能摆脱历史文化传统的桎梏

As the world's first socialist country, the Soviet Union engaged in arduous exploration in the transition to socialism and the construction of socialism, forming the first systematic plan for socialist modernization, namely the Soviet model. The Soviet model was a comprehensive political, economic, and social change implemented from the top down on the basis of successful political revolution. It was a catch-up model of modernization development, dominated by heavy industry, in which the state primarily allocated resources and distributed wealth through mandatory planning. Economically, the Soviet model was indeed different from the Western modernization model. However, if analyzed from a cultural perspective, as a link in the entire chain of Russian modernization, the Soviet model was never able to shake off the shackles of Russian historical and cultural traditions.

作为世界上第一个社会主义国家，苏联在向社会主义过渡和建设社会主义方面经过艰辛的探索，形成了第一个社会主义现代化建设的系统方案，即苏联模式。苏联模式是在政治革命取得成功的基础上自上而下推行的一种全面的政治、经济与社会变革，是一种国家主要通过指令性计划进行资源配置与财富分配，从而实现以重工业为主导的赶超型现代化发展模式。从经济上看，苏联模式的确与西方现代化模式不同，但如若从文化角度进行分析，作为俄罗斯整个现代化链条中的一环，苏联模式始终未能摆脱俄罗斯历史文化传统的桎梏。

Russia's pursuit of modernization began with the reforms of Peter I. Since then, the theme of Russian historical development has been catching up with Western developed countries, following a catch-up modernization path aimed at achieving the status of a military power. Great power status and expansion became the main axis of Russian modernization. According to statistics: from the end of the 13th century to the beginning of the 14th century, the initially formed Grand Duchy of Moscow had a land area of only 1,300 square kilometers. By 1457, when Ivan IV proclaimed himself Tsar, Russia's territory had reached 2.8 million square kilometers. In the 370 years from Ivan IV to the ascension of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, Russia's territory expanded from 2.8 million square kilometers to 22.8 million square kilometers, an increase of more than seven times, with an average annual expansion of 540,000 square kilometers. Stalin approved of the territorial expansion of successive tsars and expressed dissatisfaction with Marx and Engels, who criticized tsarist expansion. Molotov wrote in his memoirs: "As Foreign Minister, I considered my task to be to expand the territory of our motherland as much as possible. It seems that Stalin and I accomplished this task not badly."

俄罗斯对现代化的追求，始于彼得一世改革，此后，俄罗斯历史发展的主题一直是追赶西方发达国家，走的是以追求军事强国地位为目标的赶超型现代化道路。强国和扩张成为俄罗斯现代化的主轴，据统计：从13世纪末到14世纪初，最初形成的莫斯科公国，土地面积只有1300平方公里，到1457年伊凡四世称沙皇时，俄罗斯的版图已达280万平方公里。从伊凡四世到末代沙皇尼古拉二世登台的370年间，俄罗斯的版图从280万平方公里扩大到2280万平方公里，扩大土地7倍多，平均每年扩张达54万平方公里。对于历代沙皇的领土扩张，斯大林是持赞许态度的，对批判沙皇扩张的马克思、恩格斯则表现出不满。莫洛托夫在他的回忆录中这样写道：“作为外交部长，我认为自己的任务就是尽量扩大我们祖国的版图。看起来，这个任务我和斯大林完成得不坏。”

From Peter I, through Ivan III, and up to Brezhnev, the goal of Russian (Soviet) modernization, with great power status and expansion as its main axis, was not only inherited but also progressively deepened. According to Gorbachev's memoirs, the proportion of the Soviet military budget in the state budget was not the publicly announced 16%, but as high as 40%. The proportion of the output value of the military-industrial system in the total social product was not the publicly stated 6%, but 20%. Of the total scientific research expenditure of 25 billion rubles, nearly 20 billion rubles were used for the development of military equipment. [1]1 The original text cites a specific year (1945) for the US atomic bomb count; the source of this figure is not provided in the text. In 1945, the United States had 6 atomic bombs, while the Soviet Union had none. By 1978, the Soviet Union possessed 25,393 nuclear warheads and corresponding delivery vehicles, while the United States had only 24,424. Looking at the results of modernization, Russia indeed became a military power, but its foundation remained a backward and conservative way of life. Autocratic political systems, landlord land ownership, and peasant communes—none of these changed, and they precisely became important factors hindering the country's modernization development. In 1921, Lenin wrote emotionally in his article "On the Tax in Kind": "Look at the map of the Russian Federation. To the north of Vologda, to the southeast of Rostov-on-Don and Saratov, to the south of Orenburg and Omsk, to the north of Tomsk, there are vast, boundless expanses that could accommodate dozens of civilized great powers. Yet these expanses are dominated by the patriarchal system, semi-barbarism, and outright barbarism. And what about all the other remote backwaters in Russia? The villages are often dozens of versts away from the railway, that is, from the material arteries connecting civilization, capitalism, large-scale industry, and large cities, accessible only by narrow paths, or more precisely, with no roads at all. This is the case everywhere. Are not these places also dominated everywhere by the patriarchal system, Oblomovism, and semi-barbarism?" [2]2 "Oblomovism" refers to the state of apathy, inertia, and procrastination named after the protagonist of Ivan Goncharov's 1859 novel *Oblomov*, used here by Lenin to characterize Russian social backwardness. Consequently, when Russia entered the 20th century, it was not only backward but also uncertain about its future. Ultimately, the exploration of modernization entered a dead end in the form of radical political revolution.

从彼得一世开始，中间经过伊凡三世，直到勃列日涅夫，以强国和扩张为主轴的俄(苏)现代化目标，不仅一脉相承，而且步步加深。根据戈尔巴乔夫的回忆录，苏联军费开支占国家预算的比例并非是公开公布的16%,而是高达40%之多。军事工业系统的产值占社会生产总值的比例，也不是公开讲的6%,而是20%。250亿卢布的科研总经费中，将近200亿卢布都用于军事设备的研制。61945年，美国拥有6枚原子弹，苏联一枚也没有，而到了1978年，苏联拥有25393枚核弹头及相应的运载工具，而美国只有24424枚。从现代化的结果看，俄罗斯的确成了军事强国，但它的基础却仍然是落后守旧的生活方式，专制政制、地主土地所有制、农民村社，这一切都没有改变，而这些恰恰成为阻碍国家现代化发展的重要因素。1921年，列宁在《论粮食税》一文中感慨地写道：“看一下俄罗斯联邦的地图吧。在沃洛格达以北、顿河畔罗斯托夫及萨拉托夫东南、奥伦堡和鄂木斯克以南、托木斯克以北有一片片一望无际的空旷地带，可以容下几十个文明大国。然而主宰这一片片空旷地带的却是宗法制度、半野蛮状态和十足的野蛮状态。那么在俄国所有其余的穷乡僻壤又是怎样的呢?乡村同铁路，即同那连结文明、连结资本主义、连结大工业、连结大城市的物质脉络往往相隔几十俄里，而只有羊肠小道可通，确切些说，是无路可通。到处都是这样。这些地方不也是到处都是宗法制度、奥勃洛摩夫精神和半野蛮状态占优势吗?”8也因此，俄国在进入20世纪时，不仅落后，而且前途未卜。最终，以激进的政治革命的形式让现代化探索步入了死胡同。

The Soviet Union's socialist modernization construction had the same obvious catch-up and military-political character. Until its dissolution, it did not solve many problems left over from classical modernization, such as: failing to establish a fully-fledged commodity market, capital market, and labor market; failing to provide space for the free development of individuals, which is an important guarantee for achieving results; and failing to establish a self-development mechanism. Entering the 1970s, facing the challenge of the world's new technological revolution, the Soviet Union, like other socialist countries, faced the task of how to break free from the constraints of the traditional model and explore a new path of modernization. At almost the same time, China placed the focus of its policy response on solving the people's livelihood issues, while the Soviet Union chose to focus its policy on revitalizing national prestige, still placing the development of heavy industry and the military-industrial complex in the most important position. At this time, the inherent advantages of the Soviet model were gradually exhausted.

苏联的社会主义现代化建设，具有同样明显的赶超和军事—政治性质，直至解体，都没有解决古典现代化遗留的许多问题，比如：没有建立起完全意义的商品市场、资金市场和劳动力市场；没有给人以自由发展的空间，而人的自由发展是取得成绩的重要保证；没有建立起自我发展机制等。进入20世纪70年代，面对世界新技术革命的挑战，苏联同其他社会主义国家一样面临着如何摆脱传统模式的束缚、探索新的现代化之路的任务。几乎在同一时期，中国把应对挑战的政策重心放在解决民众的生活问题上，苏联则选择把政策重心放在重振国威上，依然把发展重工业和军工混和体摆在最重要的地位，而此时的苏联模式自身优势却逐渐消耗殆尽。

Medushevsky believes that the Soviet model of socialist modernization belongs to a conservative model, characterized by: the combination of modernization with military expansion, especially linked to the goal of maintaining a great power; modernization always linked to the main goal, while relatively neglecting the improvement of people's living standards; modernization primarily pursuing the superficial form of modernization, rather than the deep content of modernization. Taking military development as the goal often leads to economic imbalance; pursuing the goal of a great power often neglects the people's livelihood, and is even carried out through large-scale, ultra-coercive means, causing suffering for the people.

梅杜舍夫斯基认为，苏联的社会主义现代化属于保守主义模式，其特点是：现代化与军事扩张相结合，特别是与保持伟大国家的目标相联系；现代化总是与主要目标相联系，而相对忽视人民生活水平的提高；现代化主要是追求现代化的表面形式，而不是追求现代化的深层内容。以军事发展为目标往往导致经济不均衡；以追求伟大国家为目标，往往忽略人民生活，甚至通过大规模超强制的方式来进行，造成人民的苦难。

Looking at the entire process of Russian modernization from Peter I to Yeltsin, it can be found that development driven by internal economic factors has always been insufficient in Russia's modernization construction. This catch-up modernization was led by state power and directly promoted by coercive means. Therefore, progress in the superficial aspects of economic and social life was often achieved at the cost of stagnation in the political sphere and enormous social losses.

纵观从彼得一世到叶利钦的俄罗斯现代化进程，可以发现，俄罗斯的现代化建设，依靠内部经济因素促成的发展始终是不充分的。这种赶超型现代化是由国家政权主导并以强制手段直接推动的，因此，经济和社会表层生活中的进步经常是以政治生活领域的停滞以及巨大的社会损失为代价的。

In summary, the Soviet model of socialist modernization not only failed to shake off the shackles of historical and cultural traditions but was also deeply influenced by them. This manifested as follows: whenever a bottleneck in development was encountered during the modernization process, just like the Tsarist Russian Empire, it could not be solved through internal reform. Instead, it either resorted to external expansion or internal political change, but was never able to explore a gradual path of modernization construction.

总之，社会主义现代化的苏联模式不仅未能摆脱历史文化传统的桎梏，反而深受其影响，表现为在现代化建设过程中一旦遇到发展的瓶颈问题时，便同沙俄帝国一样，无法通过内部改革来解决，不是求救于外部的扩张，就是求救于内部的政治变革，却始终无法探索出一条渐进式的现代化建设道路。

II. Never Having Properly Resolved the Relationship Between Socialist Practice and Essence

二、始终未能解决好社会主义实践与本质的关系问题

“What is socialism, and how is socialism to be built?” This primary and fundamental question of socialism was one that the Soviet Union never fully clarified. As the first country in the world to explore a path of socialist modernization different from capitalism, the Soviet Union, from its very birth, was constrained by two important factors: first, the limitations of the era in which the theoretical level of scientific socialism was developing; second, the constraints imposed by the international struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie at the time, that is, the impact of the struggle between “socialism in one country” and the encirclement of capitalist powers on the domestic situation. Consequently, the Soviet Union’s socialist modernization construction was never able to properly handle the relationship between socialist practice and essence, manifesting prominently in the serious detachment of modernization construction from the actual conditions of Soviet economic and social development.

“什么是社会主义，如何建设社会主义?”这一社会主义首要的基本问题，对于苏联来说，是一个没有完全搞清楚的问题。作为世界上第一个探索不同于资本主义的社会主义现代化建设道路的国家，苏联甫一诞生，便存在着两个重要的制约因素，一是受制于科学社会主义理论发展水平的时代局限，二是受制于当时国际上无产阶级与资产阶级的斗争，即“一国社会主义”与资本主义列强包围圈的斗争对国内的影响，也因此，苏联的社会主义现代化建设始终未能处理好社会主义实践与本质的关系问题，突出表现为现代化建设严重脱离苏联经济社会发展的实际。

Deng Xiaoping once said: “What exactly socialism looks like, the Soviet Union worked on it for many years and still did not fully understand it. Perhaps Lenin’s line of thinking was relatively good; he introduced the New Economic Policy, but later the Soviet model became rigidified.” Why is it said that Lenin’s line of thinking was relatively good? Mainly because Lenin’s New Economic Policy line of thinking, integrating the then-backward national conditions of Russia, was the most appropriate exploration and attempt at a “socialist modernization model” in line with national conditions. This exploration, within a short period, underwent a transformation from “direct transition” to “indirect transition.”

邓小平曾经讲过：“社会主义究竟是个什么样子，苏联搞了很多年，也并没有完全搞清楚。可能列宁的思路比较好，搞了个新经济政策，但是后来苏联的模式僵化了。”为什么说列宁的思路比较好?主要是因为列宁的新经济政策思路，是结合当时俄国落后的国情，对“社会主义现代化模式”进行的最符合国情的探索和尝试，这种探索，在短期内经历了从“直接过渡”到“间接过渡”的转型。

From 1918 to 1921, the newborn Soviet regime was forced to adopt a series of extraordinary measures to cope with the war, namely the policy of War Communism. In terms of its theoretical origins, the policy of War Communism reflected the classical Marxist view that a socialist society is one without commodity production. Starting from this view, the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin sought to achieve communism in Russia through a method of direct transition. However, because it was seriously detached from national conditions, it encountered strong resistance from the peasants. Lenin quickly recognized the problems inherent in the policy itself, stating explicitly: “We planned (or perhaps it is more accurate to say we conceived without adequate planning) to adjust the production and distribution of the country’s products according to communist principles in a small-peasant country by means of direct orders from the proletarian state. Real life has shown us we were wrong.” In 1921, Lenin decisively ended the policy of War Communism and instead adopted the New Economic Policy, whose main content was the restoration of the market and commodity economy. This policy shift was made in response to changed circumstances, namely, no longer treating Marxist theory as dogma. Lenin emphasized: “We by no means regard the theory of Marx as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation of a science, and that socialists, if they do not want to lag behind actual life, must push this science forward in all directions.” In Lenin’s view, “the whole significance of the New Economic Policy lies and lies only in this: we have found the combination of the new economy we have built with great effort and the peasant economy.” From then on, Lenin’s thought on socialist modernization gradually developed through the implementation of the New Economic Policy, forming a model of socialist modernization construction based on the reality of Russia as a small-peasant country and promoting the worker-peasant alliance.

从1918年至1921年，新生的苏维埃政权为应付战争被迫采取了一系列非常措施，即军事共产主义政策。从理论渊源上讲，军事共产主义政策反映了经典马克思主义的观点，即社会主义社会是没有商品生产的观点。从这一观点出发，列宁领导的布尔什维克党力图通过直接过渡的办法在俄国实现共产主义，但因为严重脱离国情，遭到农民的强烈反抗。列宁很快认识到政策本身存在的问题，他明确指出：“我们计划(说我们计划欠周地设想也许较确切)用无产阶级国家直接下命令的办法在一个小农国家里按共产主义原则来调整国家的产品生产和分配。现实生活说明我们错了。”1921年，列宁果断结束军事共产主义政策，转而采取以恢复市场和商品经济为主要内容的新经济政策。政策的转变，是根据变化了的情况作出的，即不再把马克思主义理论当作教条。列宁强调：“我们决不把马克思的理论看作某种一成不变的和神圣不可侵犯的东西；恰恰相反，我们深信：它只是给一种科学奠定了基础，社会党人如果不愿落后于实际生活，就应当在各方面把这门科学推向前进。”在列宁看来，“新经济政策的全部意义就在于而且仅仅在于：找到了我们花很大力量所建立的新经济同农民经济的结合。”自此，列宁的社会主义现代化思想在新经济政策的实行中逐步发展，形成了基于俄国小农国家实际的、促进工农联盟的社会主义现代化建设模式。

Looking at it today, if the Soviet Union had continued along the path of Lenin’s New Economic Policy, it would have explored a socialist modernization construction model suited to Soviet national conditions, and socialist practice would have been better able to embody the essential requirements of socialism. Regrettably, this exploration faced a series of difficulties and challenges due to Lenin’s premature death. In the 1920s, fierce debates raged within the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) [3]3 The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was the name of the ruling party of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1952, led by Joseph Stalin during the period of the debates and the subsequent consolidation of the Stalinist model. centering on “whether and how socialism could be built in the Soviet Union,” with the issue of modernization at the heart of the struggle, although the parties involved in the debate were not aware of this at the time. After intense debate, the modernization thought represented by Stalin, which took high-speed heavy industrialization as the strategic focus, the full collectivization of agriculture as the strategic foundation, class struggle as the driving force for development, and a highly centralized political and cultural system as the strategic guarantee, gained the upper hand within the Party.

今天看，苏联如果沿着列宁的新经济政策的道路走下去，将探索出适合苏联国情的社会主义现代化建设模式，社会主义实践将能够更好地体现社会主义的本质要求。遗憾的是，这种探索因为列宁的过早逝世而面临着一系列的困难和挑战，20年代，联共(布)党内围绕着苏联“能否建成社会主义，怎样建设社会主义”进行了激烈的争论，现代化问题处于斗争的中心，尽管参与争论的各方当时并没有意识到这一点。经过激烈的争论，以斯大林为代表的主张以高速重工业化为战略重点，以农业全盘集体化为战略基础，以阶级斗争为发展动力，以高度集中的政治、文化体制为战略保障的现代化建设思想在党内占了上峰。

Compared with Lenin, who proceeded from the reality of a backward small-peasant country and advocated building socialism through the New Economic Policy, Stalin unilaterally proceeded from a great-power mindset, sacrificing rather than protecting the interests of the peasants to ensure the development of heavy industry. Starting with Stalin, the broad masses of peasants, who should have been the beneficiaries of socialist modernization, instead bore a heavy burden for the sake of realizing socialist modernization. By 1936, when Stalin declared that the Soviet Union had basically built socialism, the main criterion he relied on was not a criterion of productive forces, but a criterion of relations of production, namely, “the elimination of private ownership.” In Stalin’s view, building socialism meant “the most important thing is that capitalism has been completely expelled from the sphere of our industry, and the socialist form of production now reigns as the exclusive system in our industry”; in agriculture, “the kulaks have also been eliminated,” forming “an all-embracing system of collective farms and state farms,” with “the individual small-peasant economy occupying only a very small place.” “The exploitation of man by man has been eradicated and eliminated, and the socialist ownership of the means of production and instruments of production has been laid as the unshakable foundation of our Soviet society.” It was precisely on this basis that, in the process of leading the Soviet Union’s socialist modernization construction, Stalin often departed from the actual level of development of productive forces, unilaterally pursuing the realization of larger, more public, and purer socialist relations of production. As a result, many things that fettered the development of productive forces and did not possess the essential attributes of socialism were clung to as “socialist principles,” while many things that, under socialist conditions, were conducive to the development of productive forces and the commodification, socialization, and modernization of production were opposed as “capitalist restoration.”

与从落后的小农国家现实出发，主张以新经济政策的方式来建设社会主义的列宁相比，斯大林则片面地从强国思路出发，以牺牲而非保护农民的利益来保证重工业的发展。自斯大林始，本来应该是社会主义现代化受益者的广大农民，却为了实现社会主义现代化而背负上沉重的负担，到1936年斯大林宣布苏联已经基本上建成社会主义的时候，他所依据的主要标准，并不是生产力方面的标准，而是生产关系方面“消灭了私有制”的标准。在斯大林看来，建成社会主义“最主要的，就是资本主义已经从我国工业范围内完全驱逐出去了，社会主义的生产形式现在是在我国工业中独占统治的体系”;在农业方面，“富农也被消灭”,形成了“无所不包的集体农庄和国营农场体系”,“个体小农经济成分只占很小的地位”。“人剥削人的现象已被铲除和消灭，生产工具和生产资料的社会主义所有制已经作为我们苏联社会不可动摇的基础而奠定了”。正是以此为标准，斯大林在领导苏联社会主义现代化建设的过程中，往往离开生产力的实际发展水平，片面地追求实现更大更公更纯的社会主义生产关系，结果把许多束缚生产力发展、又不具有社会主义本质属性的东西，当作“社会主义原则”来固守，又把许多在社会主义条件下有利于生产力发展和生产商品化、社会化、现代化的东西当作“资本主义复辟”来加以反对。

In terms of outcomes, although Stalin’s great-power policy created a socialist superpower, the living conditions of the broad masses of working people did not fundamentally improve. This was manifested in: economically, the mandatory planned economic system suppressed people’s initiative and could not sustain healthy economic development in the long term; politically, power was excessively concentrated, and the legal system was undermined; culturally, the monolithic cultural system not only excluded diverse thought but also led to the prevalence of the cult of personality; in the social sphere, it deviated from people-centeredness, livelihood issues stagnated, and fairness and justice became unbalanced. All this caused a serious disconnect between socialist practice and theory.

从结果看，斯大林的强国政策虽然造就了一个社会主义大国，但是广大劳动人民的生活状况并没有得到根本的改善，表现在：经济上，指令性计划经济体制压抑了人的积极性，无法长期推动经济的健康发展；政治上，权力过度集中，法制受到破坏；文化上，单一的文化体制不仅排斥多元思想，而且导致个人崇拜盛行；在社会领域，背离以人为本，民生问题迟滞，公平正义失衡。这一切都使得社会主义实践与理论严重脱节。

After Stalin’s death in 1953, his successor Khrushchev began reforms, but right up to the early period of Gorbachev’s tenure, no matter how reforms were carried out, the Soviet Union’s modernization construction was never able to fundamentally break free from the shackles of the Stalinist model. The reason was that, to varying degrees, they all inherited Stalin’s metaphysical and dogmatic thinking of substituting the characteristics of socialism for the essence of socialism, and thus were never able to achieve a breakthrough in reform.

1953年斯大林去世，继任的赫鲁晓夫开始改革，但直到戈尔巴乔夫执政前期，无论如何改革，苏联的现代化建设始终未能从根本上摆脱斯大林模式的束缚，原因在于，他们都在一定程度上承袭了斯大林那种用社会主义特征取代社会主义本质的形而上学的教条主义思想，因而始终未能在改革上有所突破。

In summary, the Soviet Union’s modernization path was a completely new exploration begun within the context of the socialist system, pursuing a one-sided goal of modernization. This caused it to be unable for a long time to respond to the people’s aspirations for a better life, ultimately deviating from the essence of socialism and finally losing the people’s trust and support.

总之，苏联的现代化道路是在社会主义制度的背景下开始的全新探索，追求的是片面的现代化目标，这使其长期无法回应人民群众对美好生活的期盼，最终背离了社会主义本质，终致失去了人民的信任和支持。

III. The Failure to Properly Handle the Issue of Absorbing and Drawing Lessons from Capitalist Modern Civilization

三、始终未能处理好吸收借鉴资本主义现代文明的问题

Looking at the historical process of world modernization, it was the capitalist countries that first embarked on the path of modernization. According to Marxist theory, socialist modernization emerged in the course of the contradictory development of capitalist modernization. It is not only the antithesis of capitalism but also the inheritor of the modern civilization created by capitalism. Moreover, since socialism first emerged in countries with economically and culturally backward conditions, in the process of advancing and realizing socialist modernization, there has always been the issue of how to absorb, draw lessons from, and transform capitalist modern civilization. Whether this issue can be properly handled has, in a certain sense, become an important question determining whether socialist modernization construction can proceed steadily and far.

就世界现代化发展历程而言，率先开启现代化进程的是资本主义国家。根据马克思主义理论，社会主义现代化是在资本主义现代化矛盾发展中应运而生的，它不仅是资本主义的对立物，也是资本主义所创造的现代文明的继承物，更由于社会主义首先诞生于经济文化落后的国家，因此，在其推进实现社会主义现代化的进程中，始终存在着一个如何吸收、借鉴、改造资本主义现代文明的问题。能不能正确处理这一问题，在一定意义上成为决定社会主义现代化建设能否行稳致远的一个重要问题。

In fact, after the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin not only theoretically elucidated the necessity of opening up for a socialist state, emphasizing that “a socialist republic cannot survive without establishing relations with the world; under current circumstances, it must link its own survival to relations with capitalism,”[4]4 V. I. Lenin, *Collected Works*, Vol. 41, p. 167. [Translator’s note: This is a standard citation format for Lenin’s works; the specific edition is not provided in the original.] but also formulated a series of opening-up measures in policy, proposing the adoption of forms such as the concession system to develop state capitalism. Proceeding from the relatively backward economic and cultural realities of Russia, Lenin proposed to “absorb the good things from abroad: Soviet power + Prussian railway order + American technology and trusts + American national education, etc., etc. ++ = sum = socialism.” Lenin’s later reflections continued this line of thought, stressing that in the cultural revolution and institutional reform, it was necessary to learn from and utilize the modern civilizational achievements of capitalism, as well as its advanced technology and management experience.

实际上，十月革命胜利后，列宁就不仅从理论上阐明了社会主义国家对外开放的必要性，强调“社会主义共和国不同世界发生联系是不能生存下去的，在目前情况下应当把自己的生存同资本主义的关系联系起来”,8而且在政策上制订了一系列对外开放的措施，提出采取租让制等形式去发展国家资本主义。从相对落后的俄国经济文化实际出发，列宁提出要“吸取外国的好东西：苏维埃政权+普鲁士的铁路秩序+美国的技术和托拉斯组织+美国的国民教育等等等等++=总和=社会主义”。列宁的晚年思考延续了这一思想，强调在文化革命、机构改革中，都要学习利用资本主义的现代文明成果，利用其先进技术和管理经验。

In the early years of his rule, Stalin also placed great importance on utilizing advanced Western technology. During the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan, coinciding with the capitalist economic crisis of 1929–1933, the Soviet government seized this historical window to introduce a large amount of advanced technology, equipment, and personnel, while sending many people to the West to study. It can be said that the success of the Soviet Union’s two Five-Year Plans was inseparably linked to the active use of Western technology and talent.

斯大林在执政初期也十分重视利用西方的先进技术，在“一五计划”实施时期，恰逢资本主义发生1929至1933年的经济大危机，苏联政府利用这一历史窗口，引进了大量的先进技术、设备和人才，同时派出大量人员去西方学习。可以说，苏联两个五年计划的成功，与积极利用西方技术和人才有着密不可分的关系。

However, from the second half of the 1930s onward, Stalin believed that the Soviet Union had resolved the problems of cadres and technology, and that socialism had achieved victory in the USSR. He therefore began to curtail economic relations with the West. In 1939, the Soviet Union’s foreign trade volume fell from 1.643 billion rubles in 1930 to 270 million rubles. At the same time, foreign enterprises were gradually abolished, and foreign technical personnel returned to their home countries one after another. After the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union further reduced the economic ties with the West that had somewhat increased before the war. Soon, the Cold War, lasting more than four decades, began. Against this backdrop, Stalin put forward the theory of “two parallel world markets,” making a completely erroneous assessment of post-war capitalist and socialist economic development and their mutual relations. This was concentrated in Stalin’s 1952 book *Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR*, in which he argued that “the most important economic result of the Second World War and its economic consequences should be considered the disintegration of the single, all-embracing world market” and the formation of “two parallel, and mutually antagonistic, world markets”; that “the sphere for the major capitalist countries (the USA, Britain, France) to seize world resources will not expand but will shrink; the conditions of the world sales market for these countries will deteriorate, and the underutilization of capacity in these countries will increase”; conversely, socialist countries, “thanks to their high-speed industrial development, will soon not only have no need to import goods from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel compelled to export their surplus goods to other countries.”[5]5 J. V. Stalin, *Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR* (1952). [Translator’s note: This is a standard reference to Stalin’s late work, which formulated the “two parallel world markets” theory.] Stalin even mistakenly believed that the characteristic of modern bourgeois science was that its entire schools had become pseudoscience—for example, Weismann-Morganism eugenics, soil theory, and racial theory. Such erroneous cognition even extended to physics and chemistry. As late as 1953, cybernetics was still branded as serving the reactionary bourgeoisie and was categorically denied. Subsequent practice in socialist modernization proved that Stalin’s erroneous assessment led to the self-enclosure of the Soviet and Eastern European countries and their isolation from the capitalist world economy, which in turn caused these countries to blindly reject the scientific and technological developments of the capitalist countries.

但是，从20世纪30年代下半期开始，斯大林认为苏联已经解决了干部和技术问题，社会主义已经在苏联取得胜利，于是开始收缩与西方的经济关系。1939年，苏联的对外贸易额从1930年的16.43亿卢布降为2.7亿卢布，同时外资企业逐渐被取消，外国技术人员也纷纷回国。第二次世界大战结束后，苏联又压缩了在战前曾有所增加的与西方的经济联系。很快，长达四十多年的冷战开始了，在冷战背景下，斯大林提出“两个平行的世界市场”理论，对战后资本主义和社会主义经济发展以及它们之间的相互关系，作出了完全错误的估计，集中表现在斯大林于1952年发表的《苏联社会主义经济问题》一书当中，在这本书中，斯大林认为，“第二次世界大战及其经济影响在经济方面的最重要的结果，应当认为是统一的无所不包的世界市场的瓦解”以及“两个平行的也是互相对立的世界市场”的形成；“各主要资本主义国家(美、英、法)夺取世界资源的范围，将不会扩大而会缩小；世界销售市场的条件对于这些国家将会恶化，而这些国家的企业开工不足的现象将会增大”;反之，社会主义国家则由于“有了高速度的工业发展”,“很快就会使得这些国家不仅不需要从资本主义国家输入商品，而且它们自己还会感到必须把自己生产的多余商品输往他国”。16斯大林甚至错误地认为，现代资产阶级科学的特征就是其整个派系都成为伪科学，例如魏斯曼—摩尔根主义优生学、土壤论和种族论，这样的错误认知还触及了物理学和化学，直至1953年，控制论还被扣上为反动资产阶级服务的帽子而遭到断然否定。后来的社会主义国家现代化实践证明，斯大林的这种错误估计，导致苏东国家的自我封闭和同资本主义世界经济的隔绝，进而导致这些国家盲目排斥资本主义国家科学技术的发展。

Under the guidance of Stalin’s above-mentioned thinking, a notable feature of the modernization construction of the Soviet and Eastern European socialist countries was that they engaged in innovation behind closed doors. This not only led to the increasing closure and rigidity of the Soviet model, but also caused the socialist system to progressively lose its competitiveness and appeal. Especially from the 1950s and 1960s onward, with the rapid development of the world scientific and technological revolution and the accelerating integration of the world economy, a changing and pluralistic world increasingly refuted Stalin’s above-mentioned assertions. Yet successive leaders of the Soviet Communist Party continued to repeat these assertions out of inertia. Domestically, the Soviet Union persisted in adhering to the Soviet model and its development strategy, which had been formed and developed under the specific conditions of an era themed by war and revolution. This caused the reforms of successive leaders of the CPSU to focus only on perfecting the system. Externally, the Soviet Union still rejected openness and never managed to integrate with the development of the world economy. At the same time, it engaged in a massive arms race, competing with the United States for world hegemony. This made the imbalance in the Soviet economic structure increasingly severe. By the eve of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, among all sectors, only the military-industrial complex was thriving, while in the broad fields of civilian industry and civilian science and technology, the Soviet Union remained quite backward compared with Western countries.

在斯大林上述思想的指导下，苏联东欧社会主义国家现代化建设的一个明显特点，就是关起门来搞创新，这不仅导致苏联模式的日益封闭僵化，而且导致社会主义制度日益失去竞争力和吸引力，特别是从20世纪五六十年代开始，随着世界科技革命的迅猛发展，世界经济一体化日益加速，多变、多元的世界越来越明显地否证着斯大林的上述论断，但后继的苏联共产党领导人却仍在因循守旧地重复着这些论断。对内，苏联继续坚守着以战争与革命为时代主题的特定条件下形成和发展起来的苏联模式及其发展战略，导致苏共历届领导人的改革只是围绕完善体制而进行；对外，苏联仍然排斥开放，始终未能与世界经济的发展接轨。与此同时，大搞军备竞赛，同美国争霸世界，这使得苏联经济结构不平衡的问题愈来愈严重，到苏联解体前夕，在所有的部门中，只有军事工业综合体表现繁荣，而在广泛的民用工业、民用科技方面，同西方国家相比，苏联还是相当落后的。

Theoretically, socialism should be built on the basis of advanced capitalist countries. But history presented itself in the form of leaping over the “Caudine Forks of capitalism.”[6]6 “Leaping over the Caudine Forks of capitalism” is a metaphor derived from Marx’s later writings, referring to the possibility of a backward country bypassing the full stage of capitalist development to build socialism, based on specific historical conditions. The “Caudine Forks” alludes to a humiliating defeat of the Roman army in 321 BCE, used here to mean a difficult passage or ordeal. It was precisely this special historical background that determined that the Soviet model, from its birth, existed in a form antagonistic to the capitalist modernization model, exhibiting in its political design a firm value orientation of opposing capitalist ownership and the encirclement of international capital. Therefore, it is understandable that for a period it rejected learning from capitalism. The problem lay in the fact that the CPSU was trapped in this mode of thinking for a long time and could not extricate itself, even believing at one point that reform and socialism could not coexist. Consequently, in its modernization construction, it never properly handled its relationship with capitalist countries. As the process of world economic integration deepened, the contradiction between the singularity and uniformity of the Soviet economic model and the diversity and pluralism of economic globalization became increasingly prominent; the introversion and closure of the Soviet economic model became increasingly incompatible with the open environment required by economic globalization; and the war-preparedness nature of the Soviet model became increasingly discordant with the theme of peace and development in economic globalization. Ultimately, it was defeated in its contest with the capitalist modernization model. Deng Xiaoping once said, “If socialism is to gain an advantage over capitalism, it must boldly absorb and draw upon all the achievements of civilization created by human society, and absorb and draw upon the advanced modes of operation and management methods of all countries in the world today, including the developed capitalist countries, that reflect the laws of modern socialized production.” This is a profound summary of the lessons of Soviet socialist modernization.

从理论上讲，社会主义是应该建立在发达资本主义国家的基础之上的，但历史却以跨越“资本主义卡夫丁峡谷”的形式呈现出来，正是这一特殊的历史背景，决定了苏联模式一诞生就是以与资本主义现代化模式相对抗的形式而存在的，在政治设计上表现出坚定的反资本主义所有制、反国际资本包围的价值取向。因此，在一段时期内拒斥向资本主义学习是可以理解的。问题在于，苏共长期陷于这种思维模式中不能自拔，甚至一度认为改革与社会主义不能共存，因而在现代化建设中始终未能正确处理与资本主义国家的关系问题。随着世界经济一体化进程的不断深化，苏联经济模式的单一性、一元化与经济全球化的多样性、多元化的矛盾日益突出；苏联经济模式的内向性和封闭性与经济全球化所需要的开放环境日益不相适应；苏联模式的备战性与经济全球化和平与发展的主题日益不协调，最终，在与资本主义现代化模式较量中败下阵来。邓小平曾说，“社会主义要赢得与资本主义相比较的优势，就必须大胆吸收和借鉴人类社会创造的一切文明成果，吸收和借鉴当今世界各国，包括资本主义发达国家一切反映现代社会化生产规律的先进经营方式、管理方法”,这是对苏联社会主义现代化建设教训的深刻总结。

IV. Lessons from the Failure of the Soviet Model of Socialist Modernization

四、社会主义现代化苏联模式失败的启示

Indeed, both the “Soviet path” and the “Chinese path” are paths of socialist modernization, both presenting themselves as non-Western paths of modernization. As Lenin said, both are “using methods different from all other countries of Western Europe to create and develop civilization.” Although the Soviet exploration failed, it has left valuable experience, lessons, and insights for countries continuing to explore the path of socialist modernization.

诚然，“苏联道路”与“中国道路”都是社会主义现代化道路，都以一种非西方的现代化道路呈现出来，正如列宁所说，都是在“用与西欧其他一切国家不同的方法来创造发展文明”。苏联的探索虽然失败了，但它给继续在社会主义现代化道路探索的国家留下了宝贵的经验教训和启示。

First, the ruling party leading socialist modernization must always put the interests of the people first.

首先，领导社会主义现代化建设的执政党必须始终把人民利益放在首位。

The CPSU—a party with a history of 93 years, a membership of as many as 19 million, accounting for one-tenth of the total population of the Soviet Union, and a proletarian party—had overcome countless difficulties and created incomparable great achievements in the process of leading the Soviet people in socialist modernization. Yet it lost its ruling status overnight. There are many reasons for this, but the loss of the trust and support of the masses was the most fundamental. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Academy of Social Sciences conducted a questionnaire survey. Among the respondents, only 4% believed that the CPSU could still represent the workers, only 7% believed it could still represent the entire people, and as many as 85% believed it represented the bureaucrats, cadres, and office workers. A ruling party that no longer represents the interests of the people is doomed to be “scattered by wind and rain.”

苏共，这一已有93年的历史，党员人数达1900万之多，占全苏人口1/10的无产阶级政党，在领导苏联人民进行社会主义现代化建设过程中，曾克服无数困难，创造出无可比拟的丰功伟绩，却在一夕之间丧失执政地位，原因固然很多，但它失去群众的信任和支持是最根本的原因。在苏联解体前，苏联社会科学院做过一次问卷调查。调查者认为苏共仍能代表工人的占4%,仍能代表全体人民的仅占7%,认为代表官僚、干部和机关工作人员的却占85%。一个不再代表人民利益的执政党注定要“雨打风吹去”。

“Frost forms not in a single cold day” — the loss of the Soviet Communist Party’s popular trust and support was greatly related to the fact that the Party “long rested on its laurels” and neglected to strengthen its own building, and this, combined with “bureaucratism” and “corruption,” caused its core role to gradually dissipate, thereby planting the seeds of the Soviet Union’s dissolution and the drastic changes in Eastern Europe. The reason Chinese-path modernization has been able to proceed steadily and far is extremely closely related to our Party’s perpetual preservation of the spirit of self-revolution; self-revolution is our Party’s most distinctive quality and also the solid foundation of our Party’s struggle. At the opening session of the 20th National Congress of the CPC on 16 October 2022, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “The Party’s self-revolution is always on the march; there must be no laxity, no resting on one’s oars, no mood of fatigue or weariness. We must unswervingly advance comprehensive and strict governance of the Party, deeply advance the great new project of Party building in the New Era, and use the Party’s self-revolution to lead social revolution.” Therefore, the most fundamental lesson from the rise and fall of the Soviet Communist Party is that a communist party must always stand at the forefront of the times, realize its own modernization, and keep up with the demands of the times in terms of governing philosophy, intra-Party democracy, and institutional innovation, so as to be able to lead the cause of socialist modernization to comprehensive success.

冰冻三尺，非一日之寒，苏联共产党之所以失去人民的信任和支持，与这个党“长期躺在功劳薄上”且不重视加强自身建设有极大的关系，加之“官僚”与“腐败”,使其核心作用日渐丧失，从而为苏联解体和苏东剧变埋下了祸根。中国式现代化建设之所以能够行稳致远，与我们党永保自我革命的精神有着极其密切的关系，自我革命是我们党最鲜明的品格，也是我们党奋斗的雄厚底气。在2022年10月16日党的二十大开幕会中，习近平总书记指出：“党的自我革命永远在路上，决不能有松劲歇脚、疲劳厌战的情绪，必须持之以恒推进全面从严治党，深入推进新时代党的建设新的伟大工程，以党的自我革命引领社会革命。”因此，苏共兴亡的最根本教训，就是共产党要始终站在时代最前列，实现自身的现代化，在执政理念、党内民主、机制创新等方面跟上时代发展的要求，这样才能领导社会主义现代化事业取得全面成功。

In short, as a Marxist political party, if it consumes the relationship between the Party and the masses, and uses citizens’ trust and recognition as a cost, even if it achieves temporary economic development, this party will still find it difficult to avoid the fate of failure.

总之，作为马克思主义政党，如果用消耗党和人民群众的关系作为代价，用公民的信任和认同作为成本，即使换取到了经济的一时发展，这个党仍然难以避免失败的命运。

Second, socialist modernization cannot be divorced from national conditions.

其次，社会主义现代化建设不能脱离国情。

Engels pointed out: “People make their own history, but they do so in a given, conditioning environment, on the basis of existing real conditions.” Building socialism in a country with backward productive forces should, in principle, proceed from the actual backward national conditions. Yet the Soviet model of socialist modernization proceeded solely from Marx’s classical socialist principles, completely dogmatizing Marxism, and never truly understood the conditions under which these principles apply. Moreover, certain of Marx’s theses on future socialist construction were originally put forward by Marx and Engels for how to build socialism after the victory of revolution in developed capitalist countries; they cannot be simply copied by backward countries in their modernization. But from Stalin onward, successive Soviet leaders all failed to see the temporal-spatial dislocation between the actual Soviet society and the communist society described by Marx and Engels; instead, they were keen to copy certain theses, believing this to be upholding Marxism and socialism. Consequently, various problems of “not having fully understood” socialism emerged. This dogmatism divorced from national conditions not only made the Soviet model of socialist modernization difficult to reform, but also plunged the late Soviet Union into a severe ideological crisis, making it impossible either to solve theoretically the question of what socialism is, or to solve practically the question of how to build socialism.

恩格斯指出：“人们自己创造自己的历史，但他们是在既定的、制约着他们的一定环境中，在现有的现实基础上进行创造的。”在生产力落后的国家里建设社会主义，本应从落后的实际国情出发，但苏联模式的社会主义现代化建设仅仅从马克思的经典社会主义原则出发，完全将马克思主义教条化，并没有真正理解这些原则所适用的条件。而马克思关于未来社会主义建设的某些论断，是马克思恩格斯原先针对发达资本主义国家在革命胜利后关于如何建设社会主义所提出来的，是落后国家的现代化建设不能简单地予以照搬的，但从斯大林开始的苏联历届领导人均没有看清现实中的苏联社会与马克思恩格斯笔下的共产主义社会有时空上的错位，而是热衷于照搬某些论断，还认为这就是坚持马克思主义、坚持社会主义，于是出现了对社会主义“没有完全弄清楚”的种种问题。脱离国情的教条化不仅使社会主义现代化的苏联模式难以改革，而且使苏联后期陷入严重的意识形态危机，导致既无法在理论上解决什么是社会主义的问题，更无法在实践中解决如何建设社会主义的问题。

General Secretary Xi Jinping points out: “To uphold Marxism and uphold socialism, one must have a developmental perspective; one must take as the center the actual problems of our country’s reform and opening up and modernization, and what we are doing now; focus on the application of Marxist theory, on theoretical reflection on practical problems, and on new practice and new development.” Moreover, “the more the cause develops, the more new situations and new problems there will be, and the more we need to boldly explore in practice and continuously break through in theory.”

习近平总书记指出：“坚持马克思主义，坚持社会主义，一定要有发展的观点，一定要以我国改革开放和现代化建设的实际问题、以我们正在做的事情为中心，着眼于马克思主义理论的运用，着眼于对实际问题的理论思考，着眼于新的实践和新的发展。”而且“事业越发展新情况新问题就越多，也就越需要我们在实践上大胆探索、在理论上不断突破。”

In short, the principles of historical materialism and scientific socialism show that socialism cannot be built on the basis of small-scale production, but blindly leaping beyond the stage of small-scale production to build socialism also cannot succeed. The Soviet Union implemented a state-planned economic system on the basis of small-scale production, violating the law that relations of production must adapt to the level of development of the productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping points out that the Soviet model, “because it

总之，历史唯物主义和科学社会主义的原理表明，社会主义不能建立在小生产的基础上，但盲目超越小生产阶段搞社会主义也是不能成功的，苏联在小生产的基础上实行国家计划经济体制，违背了生产关系应适应生产力发展水平的规律。习近平总书记指出，苏联模式：“由于不尊重经济规律等，随着时间推移，其弊端日益暴露，成为经济社会发展的严重体制障碍。”

Finally, socialist modernization must be advanced through mutual learning among civilizations.

最后，社会主义现代化建设必须坚持在文明互鉴中推进。

In the course of modernization, socialism has in fact been quite viable. The key lies in the fact that socialist modernization must be integrated not only with the actual conditions of the country but also with the specific era. What is meant by integration with the era is to merge into the grand avenue of world civilizational development and actively draw on the outstanding achievements of human civilization, especially capitalist civilization. In reality, modernization, whether for society or for national development, is a historical process of progress with a very broad scope. It includes not only the modernization of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology but also the modernization of institutions and the spiritual realm. It is a process of progress and development that requires handling various complex relationships, such as those between workers and peasants, city and countryside, periphery and center, and upper and lower strata. The Soviet model of modernization, however, insisted on building behind closed doors on the basis of small-scale production. This meant that the state-planned economic system it adhered to was never able to bring vitality to the market, let alone drive the entire Soviet society toward modernization in accordance with the requirements of a market economy, such as equality and the rule of law. As a result, until the end of its model, the Soviet Union’s socialist modernization presented a picture that was always incongruous: on the one hand, a relatively developed level of heavy industry, whose degree of modernization could rival that of the most developed United States; on the other hand, a relatively backward standard of living for the people, whose degree of modernization was clearly lower than that of Western capitalist countries. Moreover, the development of Soviet heavy industry was built on the basis of underdeveloped agriculture. As early as the end of the 1920s, peasants’ contribution to national income was close to 50 percent.

在现代化的历程中，社会主义其实是相当具有生命力的，关键在于，社会主义现代化建设，既要和本国的实际相结合，也要与具体的时代相结合。所谓与时代相结合，就是要融入世界文明发展大道，积极借鉴人类文明，特别是资本主义文明的优秀成果。实际上，现代化无论对社会还是对国家发展来说，是一个涵盖面很广的历史进步过程，它既包括工业、农业、国防和科技的现代化，又包括制度和精神层面的现代化，是一个需要处理好工人与农民、城市和乡村、边缘和中心、上层和下层等等各种复杂关系的进步发展过程。而苏联模式的现代化，坚持在小生产基础上关起门来搞建设，使其所坚持的国家计划经济体制始终无法给市场带来活力，更不可能按照市场经济的平等、法治等要求去推动整个苏联社会走向现代化。结果，直至其模式终结，苏联的社会主义现代化建设呈现出的始终是一幅不相协调的图景：一方面是较为发达的重工业水平，其现代化程度可以比肩于最为发达的美国；另一方面则是相对落后的人民生活水平，其现代化程度明显低于西方资本主义国家。而且，苏联重工业的发达是依靠不发达的农业建立起来的，仅在20世纪20年代末，农民对国民收入的贡献就接近50%。

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, centering on the fundamental question of “what is socialist modernization and how to build it,” has organically unified idealistic guidance, critical reflection, and normative correction, achieving a series of fruitful innovative results in a more open and inclusive manner. Of course, while affirming our achievements, we must also soberly recognize that Chinese-path modernization and the Soviet model of socialist modernization are both catch-up types of modernization. Catch-up modernization itself contains various sharp contradictions and imbalances. How to resolve the problem of imbalance is one of the principal contradictions that must be addressed in the course of modernization.

党的十八大以来，以习近平同志为核心的党中央，围绕“什么是社会主义现代化，怎样建设社会主义现代化”这个基本问题，将理想性引导、批判性反思和规范性矫正有机统一起来，在更加开放包容中取得了一系列丰硕的创新成果。当然，我们在肯定成绩的同时，也必须清醒地认识到，中国式现代化与社会主义现代化的苏联模式，同样都是赶超型现代化，而赶超型现代化本身就包含着各种尖锐矛盾和不平衡，如何化解不平衡问题，则是现代化建设必须解决的主要矛盾之一。

(Author’s bio: Zhao Hong, Teaching and Research Department of Scientific Socialism, Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC [National Academy of Governance])

（作者简介：赵宏，中共中央党校(国家行政学院)科学社会主义教研部）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心