Unintended Crude Practice of Listian Strategies
The Communist victory in 1949 altered the whole course of events.The radical regime change meant not only a breakdown of the incrementally progressing modernization，but also a total discard of the theoretical sophistication and development experience so far accumulated.It is therefore no surprise that the new leadership was basically ignorant，and perhaps disdainful，of List ’s theory or indeed any other theories labeled“bourgeois”，even though a new translation of The National System of Political Economy appeared in 1961.But ironically，due to the overall “delink” from the capitalist world，the new regime quite unwittingly followed the Listian strategies of trade protection and state intervention for its catchup industrialization，though often carried to extremes.
If the previous approach to development harbored any risk of peripheralization，the Communists put an end to all this.In the meantime，their effective organization of the society gave observers an impression of a thorough clean-up in the national outlook.However，a radical revolution，though probably good at sweeping old barriers and creating new preconditions for modernization，cannot in itself ensure sustained modern economic growth.Development is understandably a comprehensive project of socioeconomic reengineering that demands more than what can be offered by class struggles，administrative orders or even sacrifices of the masses.
The Maoist system of mobilization，the deprivation of the peasants，the technical assistance from the Soviet bloc，etc.could make up for some gaps in development，even leading to impressive performance in areas like irrigation improvement，railway construction，industrial expansion，healthcare extension，etc.Yet，they could hardly lift industrialization and modernization to any substantially higher level.In fact，disasters were caused in economic and human terms when the leadership，with its power unchecked，engaged in wishful thinking as well as incessant infighting.This demonstrates，among others，that the loss of sound development strategies represented by List ’s theory could claim high prices.
For a fair assessment of the post-1949 performance，it should be acknowledged that China ’s economy experienced massive accumulation and remarkable growth led by a prioritized development of the heavy industries that formed backbones of the national economy.Breakthroughs were made in a handful of selected defense and industrial projects，and the basic welfare or human development of the people was to some extent improved on the basis of egalitarianism.But given the nature of the command （rather than planned） economic system，the development witnessed huge fluctuations.
Furthermore，those leverages，effective in pushing forward development within the socialist framework，proved obstructive to the sustained economic growth and dynamic social progress in the long run.Some salient problems were: repeated political campaigns abused social resources；political domination of the economy stifled entrepreneurial activities；removal of the market mechanism hampered social selforganization and economic self-balancing；a bloated sector of heavy industries crowded out the consumption of the people；political blunders in economic restructuring led to tragic famines，isolation from the developed world meant a lack of stimuli for progress；and underdevelopment of the agricultural sector hampered the growth of the domestic market.These problems，while common in the Stalinist model，became particularly acute in China.