By that measure, the Soviet Union was still growing up to 1986, when Gorbachev launched his perestroika, and would not have been considered in economic crisis either
Likewise, it is probably far-fetched to fault Khrushchev for not reforming Gosplan on time, leaving it to fossilize over the next twenty years.
China presents itself as a power that commendably eschews hegemonism, but the form its abstinence most frequently takes is either compliance with the existing hegemon—over the Iraq war, to take but one example—or pursuit of narrow self-interest—as with Sudan—and its relations with Third World countries remain strictly instrumental.
[...] Since the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, we have not seen any comparable movements of working-class political militancy. Labour protests have not disappeared, but their aims are usually limited: defending wage levels or social benefits, without any horizon of political t…
On the other hand, the two World Wars pushed both parties to recognize the appeal of nationalism. For the CCP, that meant adaptation to the social realities of local society, and protection of its own national independence within an internationally bonded alliance. For the CPSU, fighting Hitler und…
