Stalinism, Maoism, and Socialism in Higher Education

Book excerpt: This book is a comparative study of the endeavors to create a socialist system of higher education in the Soviet Union under Stalin and in China under Mao. It is organized around three themes: the convergence of Maoism with Stalinism in the early 1950s, which induced the transnational transplantation of the Soviet model of higher education to China; historical convergence between Stalinism of the First Five-Year Plan period (1928–1932) and Maoism of the Great Leap period (1958–1960), which was prominently manifested in Soviet and Chinese higher education policies in these respective periods; the eventual divergence of Maoism from Stalinism on the definition of socialist society, which was evinced in the different final outcomes of the Maoist and Stalinist endeavors to create a socialist system of higher learning.