Chinese vs. Russian Communism: Which was more Marxist?

While Soviet and Chinese communism were both rooted in the ideas of Marxism, neither one of them was an accurate representation of true Marxism. In comparing the two different systems, we see that there are many differences between the Soviet idea of communism and the Chinese idea of communism. The first difference between these two systems has to do with the Land distribution. In the Soviet system, land was organized by collectivization. Stalin replaced the …

…Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and ended up starving 20 million people, and cut off aid from the Soviet Union. In China, four classes as well as non-communist parties were allowed to coexist, while in Russia only one class and party was permitted. Essentially, the most significant difference between Mao’s system and the ideal Marxist theory was that Mao’s revolution had the rural peasantry as its basis rather than the urban proletariat.