The second interest [in this particular visit to China] came from the many discussions that I heard initially, and later participated in, d...
The second interest [in this particular visit to China] came from the many discussions that I heard initially, and later participated in, during my late teens and early twenties. These discussions in the early and mid-fifties focused on contemporary China, an Asian society and civilisation that had undergone a revolution with the promise of establishing a socialist society. Many were interested to see what would be the shape of this new society and how this would differ from the earlier attempts in the USSR.
This became a crucial discussion in the light of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, held in 1956, having revealed aspects of bureaucratic and political functioning in the USSR that had not been spoken of so far, and that were troubling those that had endorsed the revolution. Questions were raised as to whether the Soviet model, being so proximate to the Chinese, would become the earlier pattern to be repeated in the latter case.
