Foundations: The 156 Soviet Aid Projects in China, Their Origins and End (Two-Volume Set)

From 1953 to 1957, the People's Republic of China carried out its First Five-Year Plan. During this period, the Soviet Union helped China build 156 industrial projects, filling enormous gaps in the country's industrial base. For the first time in its history, China began to form an independent industrial system, establishing the foundations of a relatively complete basic industrial and defense-industrial system and laying a solid foundation for socialist industrialization.

The 156 projects marked the historical starting point of China's comprehensive industrialization. They were the New China's first large-scale industrial construction effort to use foreign funds, technology, and equipment. Research into this major historical event, and the lessons drawn from it, remain highly relevant today.

Laying the Foundation: The 156 Soviet-Aided Projects in China, from Beginning to End consists of five parts: an overview, thematic studies, memoirs, a chronology, and documentary materials. Clearly organized and rigorously structured, it provides a detailed account of the projects' approval, distribution, and implementation, as well as their enormous impact on the economic development of the New China. It is a work of considerable historical value.