Why was China able to successfully reform its economy starting in 1978...

Why was China able to successfully reform its economy starting in 1978, but the USSR just fell to pieces in 1989 instead of doing the same thing?

Because the Russians killed their Deng Xiaoping.

Socialism....

with Chinese Characteristics.

Because the Chinese are really good at numbers fuckery while Russia is under so much scrutiny that a single missed decimal point will have foreign watchdogs screeching from the rooftops.

Except that it was because of the fudged numbers that nobody realized the USSR was falling apart, until it did.

>Except that it was because of the fudged numbers that nobody realized the USSR was falling apart, until it did
They knew it was falling apart.

Really different scenarios and they went about it in completely different ways. They are not similar phenomenon in any way really.

Because China was able to come to an uneasy peace with the capitalist world whilst the USSR was still viewed as an existential threat that sooner or later would have to be destroyed.

It also helped that Deng Xiaoping was smart enough to realize that liberalizing the economy would go much smoother if the state retained their powers to dispose of or silence whoever they like. Whilst Gorbachev stripped away at those powers like a useful idiot hoping to turn the USSR into a giant-Sweden.

China betrayed its convictions but managed it well enough to help most people, while also preserving elements of a planned economy to stop the far-left rural masses from revolting or starving.

The Soviet Union was unwilling to compromise their socialism but also insisted on trying to be a global hegemon. Their two goals were difficult to reconcile, and once the US outpaced them their economy could not sustain itself.

I think one factor of many was that Deng was smart in the way that he maintained a sense of continuity with Mao's regime, even though he obviously broke with Maoism entirely.

One (of many) ways Mao fucked up hard was trying to separate China from its past (all of the "down with Confucianism and religion" stuff during the cultural revolution). Obviously this was a bad idea, as anybody who knows any chinese people knows that they can't fucking shut up about muh 5000 years of history and culture.

Deng didn't make the same mistake, both with regard to china's ancient culture and with the preceding regime. So Mao pictures everywhere still, Mao on the money, Communist Party, etc. Deng understood that after about 200 years of instability, violence, revolution and foreign oppression, China needed a sense of stability and continuity, even if the previous regime was borderline retarded.

Yeltsin together with Larry Summers parceled out the industry and wealth to the oligarchs, many who were not Russian (wink wink nudge nudge).
Deng on the other hand was actually invested in his country, that and the plan was to send manufacturing to China.

Because since Reform and Opening Up began, the Chinese leadership has had a consistent policy of slowly implementing reforms so that the system doesn't collapse from suddenly undergoing radical change. They call it "crossing the river by feeling the stones".

Gorbachev on the other hand, tried to implement radical reforms all at once, and thus the USSR collapsed since it couldn't handly such drastic change. And then Yelstin further fucked up by forcing the Russian economy to undergo "shock therapy" rather than gradual liberalization.

Russians can't reform their country without bringing it to the brink of collapse evidently.

>Obviously this was a bad idea, as anybody who knows any chinese people knows that they can't fucking shut up about muh 5000 years of history and culture.
I dunno, they seemed enthusiastic enough about smashing all that old shit.

because they dropped the retarded communist shit and embraced capitalism

Those 2 look gay AF desu

Because China's too autistic to ever admit they're collapsing while Russia's depressive enough to just fall apart instead of working extra-hard to fake their way through it.

>equating the right opposition to capitalist roaders

Because the Kremlin depended a lot on tribute extracted from the other soviet member states. Russia was essentially thriving off of the collective economic output of the union, but as soon as that union collapsed, so did Russia's prosperity.

Can you imagine a Roman Empire where Rome was suddenly denied access to its provinces and colonies?

To make matters worse, Russia was now in a situation where they needed to get back to work and yet most Russians were still fresh off the soviet mindset and still depended on the state to support their lazy asses.

Middle class russians don't have the proper work ethic and motivation. Period. This is what gave rise to the 'gopnik' subculture, where thievery and criminal behavior became socially acceptable. This kind of trend only happens when you have millions of people in densely populated urban centers who are also lazy and suddenly expected to work for a living.

In contrast, China was already a singular cohesive nation and it has been so for thousands of years.

And if there is one thing that the Chinese didn't forget after thousands of years, its their work ethic.

>China was already a singular cohesive nation and it has been so for thousands of years.

>being this retarded

Seems like they did the right thing

some good threads in Veeky Forums today

>Russians were still fresh off the soviet mindset and still depended on the state to support their lazy asses.
>lazy asses

the people were working in all kinds of work