Compare and Contrast Russia and China

Both China and Russia began the 20th century as a pawn of foreign powers. While the leaders of Russia’s revolution focused on ending Western domination by armed rebellion, China instead initially concentrated on adopting ‘foreign ways’. Both movements emphasized industrialization greatly. By the middle of the 20th century, both Russia and China experienced political success, but differed in their degree of economic independence. One difference between the two was who the revolution focused on. The Chinese focused on the peasants, because there were the outstanding majority in China. The Russians focused on the proletariat, or working class, like Karl Marx had called for in the Communist Manifesto. The Russian revolution was characterized by a revolt against a ruling tsar and was brought on by the end of WWI. The Chinese Revolution was more of a civil war with Mao’s peasant army fighting Chiang-Kai's nationalist army. Lenin and Mao were both able to rally the populace into revolutionaries. Both revolutions were aimed at wiping out monarchy. Lenin pulled Russia out of WWI, and then centralized his communist government. He also began to take steps to eliminate any resistance. Lenin’s steps in his communist takeover assured a long-lasting regime. This shows that eliminating resistance helps to create an effective government after a revolution. This is something that Sun Yat-sen did not do, a factor which led to the quick end of his new government. Differences between the outcomes of the two revolutions were that following the decline of Russia’s tsarist government, they experienced stable times devoted to education and public works. During this period literacy rate in Russia increased. China, on the other fell behind. China, following the decline of Sun Yat-sen’s republic, underwent difficult times with unsteadiness and turmoil. Both nations experienced a spurt of nationalism and tried to minimize outside influences, leaving greater focus upon their own nation’s