Building Friendship: Soviet Influence, Socialist Modernity, and Chinese Cityscape in the 1950s

This city was intimately related to cotton . . . With the help of the Soviet big brother, the city built nearly ten textile factories all at once in the 1950s ... In these factories, not only were the equipment, workshops, and techniques provided by the Soviets, even the living quarters were designed by Soviet experts ... [In each apartment building] there is a well-maintained garden and a workers' club for residents .. . This is a city filled up by textile workers, a city topped with Soviet-style buildings. An Delie2 was bom into this city.... An Delie was bom around March 1954. His father named him, and the name itself was a reflection of Sino-Soviet at the time. Responding to the call of the government, An Delie's parents moved from Shanghai to support this city's development; they were both middle school teachers. His father used to wear colorful shirts made of Soviet print cotton, and his mother had Soviet-style bulaji.3 Back then they both yearned for the wonderful life of the Soviet big brother, and they also hoped little An Delie would study in the Soviet Union when he grew up (Tie 2005, p. 1-2).These paragraphs from Tie Ning's fictional short story exemplify the deep involvement between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. Today, many Chinese cities that developed in the fifties, like the one Tie Ning portrayed, still have areas that remain reminiscent of Soviet input into China's urban planning and reveal the extent to which Soviet culture was assimilated into everyday life. At that time, cities underwent modernization based on the Soviet model. Chinese city planners turned to Soviet urban planning for ideas and inspirations, and frequently they renamed streets and roads to make reference to Sino-Soviet friendship. Fashion was affected as well, when modified Soviet-style clothing such as Lenin jackets and bib-and-brace overalls became city people's proud attire. Bulaji, bowknots, and colorful waistbands - typical summer ensemble for Soviet women - were chic among fashionable Chinese women. Like An Delie's parents in the story, young parents would adopt pleasant-sounding Russian names for their children or name them after Soviet heroes. Whenever possible, people avidly learned Russian and aspired to study in the Soviet Union; even those with low levels of literacy were able to put some pidgin Russian words into daily practice, fancying their newness. The transnational practices that enabled the migration of Soviet experience, personnel, and culture into China constituted the focal point of China's quest for modernity.In this article, the type of that the nascent People's Republic of China (PRC) chose to embrace is defined as socialist This terminology seeks to emphasize that the early PRC government did not modernize blindly, but instead pragmatically sought a particular type of that could effectively establish China in the Cold War polarization abroad and among the Chinese populace at home. Indeed, it was not just or that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wanted to establish, but an international modernity. The intention in constructing a new society was to create a culture that, while still Chinese, was integrated with the larger global society, thus stronger and more resilient in its interactions on the international scene. The international chosen, as the result of a divided world and the exigencies of the time, was that of the Soviet Union; the effects of this choice were directly manifested across China, particularly in cities.4This article examines how the Chinese urban landscape was transformed by a national urge to modernize the country based on Soviet blueprints. It begins with an introduction to the CCP's friendship acclaiming the achievements of Soviet modernization, and goes on to discuss how physical constmction was used to substantiate the language of modernity in the rhetoric and to provide a controlled inspiration to the general populace, thus altering the appearance of Chinese cities and the lifestyle of city dwellers. …