The collapse of the Soviet Union raises a central question: could reform have preserved it? Interpreted on China’s terms, the contrast is clear. China survived prolonged upheaval by undertaking systemic transformations that built not only industrial capacity but a resilient industrial ecosystem, balanced authority with internal checks, and fostered strategic autonomy. These foundations allowed later reform and opening up to succeed, combining unity with diversity and integration with flexibility. The Soviet Union, by contrast, relied on a rigid, centralized economy, fragmented industries, and unchecked bureaucratic privilege, leaving it unable to absorb political or economic shocks. This comparison underscores a broader lesson: durable societies function as integrated ecologies, where systemic coherence, diversity, and dynamic governance determine survival.
I. The Key Question: Was Soviet Reform Possible Without Collapse?
The breakup of the Soviet Union prompts a critical inquiry: could significant reforms in its final years have averted its disintegration? Looking at China’s historical experience—especially its two so-called “Long Marches”—provides a lens to understand why China withstood systemic crises that ultimately overwhelmed the Soviet state.
II. China’s First Long March (1934–1936): Defeat That Became Victory
1. Enduring Significance Amid Enormous Losses
The Long March of 1934–1936 stands as a historical episode defined by staggering human cost and remarkable resilience. When it began, the Red Army—comprising the First, Second, and Fourth Front Armies along with the Twenty-Fifth Army—numbered approximately 200,000 troops. By the end of the march, after catastrophic losses including the near-total destruction of the Western Route Army, only around 30,000 remained. Viewed solely through the lens of numbers, the campaign seems like a devastating defeat.
Yet the Long March’s significance extends far beyond casualties. Despite the overwhelming losses, it established a foundation for future revolutionary success, unifying scattered forces under cohesive leadership and forging the first generation of Chinese revolutionary leaders. It provided a secure base for continued operations and became a powerful symbol of perseverance and political legitimacy. The march demonstrates that historical outcomes are best measured by long-term impact rather than immediate human or material costs, illustrating how enormous losses can coincide with enduring significance.
2. The Enduring Triumph of the Long March
The Long March, often remembered for its staggering hardships, was in fact a decisive victory that reshaped China’s revolutionary trajectory. Beyond the immediate human cost, it achieved critical foundational outcomes that would determine the future of the Communist movement. One of its most significant accomplishments was the formation of core leadership: the march forged the first generation of Chinese revolutionary leaders and established a decisive break from Soviet influence, initiating a uniquely Chinese adaptation of Marxism.
Equally important was the establishment of a secure and lasting base. Yan’an emerged as a revolutionary center that provided political stability, strategic shelter, and a platform for long-term planning, allowing the movement to survive and grow despite earlier defeats. The Long March also unified scattered Red Army units under a single command structure, preventing the fragmentation that had previously threatened their cohesion and enabling coordinated military and political action in subsequent years.
The symbolic and political dimensions of the march were no less crucial. It served simultaneously as a manifesto, a propaganda instrument, and a rallying point for revolutionary activity, instilling resilience and morale among troops and supporters alike. Observers such as Zhang Xueliang noted that maintaining cohesion under such extreme conditions would have been nearly impossible for any commander. The enduring lesson of the Long March is that true victories are measured not by immediate losses, but by the long-term structural, political, and symbolic foundations they establish.
III. China’s Second Long March (1958–1978): A Twenty-Year Systemic Transformation
1. An Overlooked March
While the first Long March is universally celebrated, China’s second “Long March” is rarely acknowledged. From 1958 to 1978, China undertook a prolonged and painful transformation that reshaped its political and economic foundations.
2. Four Foundational Achievements of China’s Second Long March
China’s second “Long March” produced a set of profound structural transformations that reshaped the country’s political economy and strategic position. Far from a single reform episode, this period generated four interrelated achievements that together altered China’s developmental trajectory and capacity for survival.
The first achievement was the decisive break from dependence on the Soviet economic model. China pursued an independent path of development, constructing not only an industrial system but also a broader industrial ecosystem capable of sustaining long-term growth. This shift laid the material foundation for future reform by reducing vulnerability to external control and systemic rigidity.
Second, China achieved strategic autonomy on the global stage. By resisting pressure from both the Soviet Union and the United States, it positioned itself as a leader within the developing world and ultimately regained its legitimate seat at the United Nations. This autonomy strengthened China’s diplomatic standing and expanded its strategic options.
The third breakthrough involved geopolitical realignment. China extricated itself from the Soviet bloc, reduced tensions with the United States, and gradually moved toward engagement with the West. Parallel to this external shift, a fourth achievement emerged in the political sphere: entrenched privileges were challenged, and a system combining centralized integration with internal checks and balances began to form. While contemporary narratives often emphasize rapprochement with the West and UN restoration, the broader costs and necessity of anti-hegemonic struggle, foreign aid, and revolutionary diplomacy remain underappreciated, despite their central role in enabling these achievements.
IV. Rethinking the Origins of China’s Reform and Opening
A common misunderstanding holds that China’s industrial strength and global integration emerged smoothly and almost spontaneously after the launch of reform and opening up. Such interpretations overlook the profound transformations undertaken in the preceding decades, without which later reforms would have lacked both material and institutional foundations.
China’s eventual success rested on a set of interdependent pillars: a functioning industrial system, a diversified industrial ecosystem, mechanisms of integration and coordination, and a balance between authority and internal checks. These elements evolved gradually and in tandem, creating resilience and adaptability rather than relying on a single reform lever.
By contrast, the Soviet Union possessed only a partial and fragile version of this structure. It emphasized an industrial system in isolation, without the supporting ecosystem or governance mechanisms needed to sustain reform. This imbalance helps explain why reform in China led to consolidation and growth, while similar efforts in the Soviet Union accelerated fragmentation and collapse.
V. Inherent Fragilities of the Soviet Industrial Model
The Soviet industrial model was marked by deep structural weaknesses that limited its capacity for adaptation and long-term stability. At its core was an excessive reliance on a highly centralized planned economy, which compressed nearly all economic activity into a single, rigid framework. This singularity left little room for flexibility, innovation, or local adjustment when conditions changed.
Compounding this rigidity was a severe structural imbalance. The prioritization of heavy industry and the military came at the expense of civilian and light industries, weakening consumer sectors and undermining the overall vitality of the economy. As a result, economic development became lopsided, with strength concentrated in areas that were poorly suited to supporting broad-based growth or social resilience.
A further vulnerability lay in the fragmentation of industrial capacity across Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. Key sectors were geographically dispersed and dependent on inter-republic coordination, so the dissolution of the Union shattered production networks and supply chains. Russia, as the successor state, inherited only fragments of this system, leaving its industrial base severely impaired.
Taken together, these weaknesses point to a fundamental absence: the Soviet Union lacked a true industrial ecosystem—a dense web of interconnected institutions, incentives, and human capital capable of absorbing shocks. Without such an ecosystem, the industrial system itself proved brittle, accelerating economic disintegration once political cohesion collapsed.
VI. Political Failure and the Lack of Dynamic Governance
A central political weakness of the Soviet Union lay in its failure to develop a system of dynamic governance capable of balancing authority with restraint. By contrast, China emphasized integration under unified leadership while maintaining internal mechanisms of supervision and correction, often described as democratic centralism. This combination allowed authority to be consolidated without becoming entirely static or self-serving.
The Soviet experience followed a different trajectory. Under Stalin, power was highly centralized but largely unchecked, maintained through coercion and purges rather than institutional balance. After Stalin’s death, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction: central authority eroded, while bureaucratic privilege expanded and hardened, creating a self-protective elite resistant to meaningful reform.
Lacking mechanisms to discipline power or renew leadership, the Soviet political system stagnated. Faced with reform that threatened entrenched interests, bureaucratic elites chose fragmentation over transformation, ultimately opting to divide the state rather than risk losing privilege. This absence of dynamic governance proved decisive, turning reform into dissolution rather than renewal.
VII. The Missing Economic Ecosystem
Following reform and opening up, China witnessed the rapid expansion of township and village enterprises, which ultimately numbered in the tens of millions. These firms evolved from commune-based workshops, local government initiatives, and collective and state-owned enterprises, drawing on existing organizational and human resources.
Together, they created a broad social and economic base of enterprises, workers, engineers, and managers that underpinned the transition toward a commodity and market-oriented economy. The Soviet Union developed no comparable economic ecosystem; consequently, when political reforms were introduced, it lacked the structural resilience needed to absorb the resulting shocks.
VIII. Fragmentation Across Borders: Soviet Union vs. Modern U.S.
1. Soviet Union (pre-1991)
The industrial structure of the Soviet Union was characterized by uneven geographic distribution across its constituent republics, including Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, and Central Asia. Key sectors were deliberately dispersed, creating a system that depended heavily on inter-republic coordination for normal operation. While this arrangement functioned under a unified political framework, it left the economy highly vulnerable to institutional rupture.
With the dissolution of the USSR, these integrated industrial networks rapidly fragmented. Russia, as the successor state, inherited only portions of the former industrial base, while supply chains, skilled labor pools, and critical infrastructure were abruptly severed. The resulting dislocation contributed to economic collapse, undermined military-industrial capacity, and generated widespread social instability, revealing the structural fragility embedded in the Soviet system.
2. Modern United States
U.S. industrial production is deeply embedded in global supply chains, with critical inputs such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, rare earth elements, and automotive components sourced from East Asia, Mexico, and Europe. This international integration has enhanced efficiency and reduced costs, but it has also shifted key segments of production beyond national borders.
Unlike the former Soviet Union, the United States retains full political sovereignty; however, its economic and strategic vulnerability has increased. Disruptions caused by war, trade conflicts, or pandemics can propagate rapidly through global supply networks, producing cascading effects across multiple industries.
The concentration of advanced semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan and South Korea illustrates this risk. Shortages in these hubs can quickly impair U.S. technology sectors and defense-related production, underscoring that national economic and security resilience now depends not only on domestic capacity but also on the reliability and stability of external partners.
3. Parallel Insight
The experiences of both the Soviet Union and the United States illustrate a fundamental systemic principle: industrial strength depends not merely on aggregate capacity, but on the coherence and resilience of underlying networks. Fragmentation can improve short-term efficiency or exploit cost advantages, yet it simultaneously increases exposure to disruption and external shocks.
In the Soviet case, industrial fragmentation was intertwined with political disintegration, accelerating economic collapse once central coordination disappeared. In the United States, fragmentation does not threaten immediate political breakdown, but it generates significant strategic risk by tying critical industries to external supply chains. In both cases, the absence of a tightly integrated industrial ecosystem limits the ability to absorb crises.
China presents a contrasting model. Its industrial system emphasizes internal unity, while its industrial ecosystem is characterized by diversity and dense interaction among firms, regions, and institutions. This combination of cohesion and multiplicity enhances resilience, enabling the system to withstand shocks without sacrificing long-term stability.
IX. Divergent Outcomes: Why China Endured While the Soviet Union Collapsed
The contrasting fates of the Soviet Union and China can be traced to fundamental differences in their structural foundations. The Soviet system entered reform without the institutional and economic buffers needed to manage transformation, whereas China pursued systemic change before liberalization, reshaping the conditions under which reform would later unfold.
Two factors were especially decisive. First, China worked to build a comprehensive industrial ecosystem rather than relying solely on an industrial system, creating dense linkages among production, labor, and institutions. Second, it sought to restrain bureaucratic privilege through a dynamic balance between centralized authority and internal mechanisms of supervision, preventing elites from monopolizing power during periods of change.
These objectives guided China’s departure from the Soviet model and framed its approach to political and economic restructuring. Without such prior transformations, China’s reform and opening up would likely have triggered fragmentation rather than consolidation, potentially resulting in outcomes as severe—or worse—than those experienced in post-Soviet Russia.
Summary & Implications
The broader lesson of these historical contrasts is fundamentally systemic: societies function as ecologies, not machines. While industrial systems require unity, true resilience depends on industrial ecosystems that combine diversity with interaction. Similarly, effective governance balances centralized integration with multidimensional checks. This ecological perspective—prioritizing interconnected structures over rigid rules—helps explain why China survived decades of upheaval intact, while the Soviet Union collapsed under the strain of its own structural and institutional weaknesses.