The Study Of The Soviet Union-to-China Economic Assistance Model

After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, China and the Soviet Union, the two socialist countries, forged a strategic alliance. Out of the domestic and international political necessity, the Soviet Union provided a large scale of economic assistance, among which the construction assistance to the "156 Projects" was the main way. As the first and largest automobile manufacturing factory, First Automobile Works, established in 1950s, was one of the 156 major projects the Soviet Union helped China build in the first five-year plan, and was also a successful model of the Soviet Union’s assistance to China’s industry. As a symbol of the Soviet Union’s construction assistance, First Automobile Works was established in a way which mainly reflected how the Soviet Union-to-China economic assistance was carried out:the funds of construction and equipment purchase were low-interest loans provided by the Soviet Union, the production technology and management methods drew support from technical data and experts’ direction of the Soviet Union, and a large group of experts on automobile industry were nourished with the aid of the Soviet Union.This paper starts from the domestic and international grounds of the construction assistance to First Automobile Works by the Soviet Union experts:first, this paper presents an introduction of the weak industry in the early stage of the PRC and the formulation of the "156 Projects"; second, this paper gives a general review of the international grounds of the Soviet Union’s assistance to China, namely, the China-Soviet Union relationship and the China-Western World relationship in 1950s, because the international environment in the early stage of the PRC decided that only by virtue of the aid of the Soviet Union could the newly founded PRC develop its economy. The second part of this paper presents the decision-making process related to the Soviet Union-to China assistance to First Automobile Works and the execution of contracts in relation to the assistance. The third part of this paper demonstrates the process of the construction assistance to First Automobile Works by the Soviet Union’s experts, which will be divided into three stages, i.e. the preparation and design of First Automobile Works (1949-1953), foundation and formal production (1953-1958), and the effect of the Soviet Union’s assistance in the Great Leap Forward period (1958-1960). The fourth part of this paper focuses on a concentrated summary of the model of the assistance by the Soviet Union’s experts to First Automobile Works, on the basis of which an approach will be made for the fundamental features of the Soviet Union-to-China economic assistance. Such features will be put into in a comparative analysis of the Soviet Union’s assistance model to other socialist countries at that time and the United States of America’s assistance model to the Europe through Marshall Plan. The last part of this paper will first summarize and evaluate the Soviet Union’s assistance to First Automobile Works and then on such basis an analysis will be made of what positive influence we learn from it to benefit China’s current economic introduction.