Mao on Soviet Economics and Other Subjects

Abstract

Following are excerpts from A Critique of Soviet Economics, by Mao Tsetung, which was circulated in China in the late sixties, and which will soon be published by Monthly Review Press (for details, see the ad on p. 35 below). Subtitles are the titles of sections in the book, but not all the sections are here reproduced in full. The translation from the Chinese texts is by Moss Roberts. The book is provided with an introduction by James Peck. We are publishing these selections from A Critique of Soviet Economics in this form because we believe that the ideas and views expressed are at the center of the concerns of revolutionary Marxists everywhere and deserve to be widely known and discussed. This applies not only to Mao's assessments of developments in the Soviet Union—an aspect which is dominant in the book as a whole but which is secondary in these excerpts—but also to his opinions on the extraordinarily wide range of topics indicated by the various subtitles. The selections published here are from Reading Notes to the Soviet "Political Economy," in which Mao Tsetung comments on the official Soviet Political Economy: A Textbook. The page references are to the Chinese translation of the Soviet book. —The Editors

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