From Aisa Times:
In a report to the eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets in 1920, Vladimir Lenin famously said: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” Only with modern large-scale production, he argued, could the economic institutions of
Russia’s smallholder economy be eliminated. Electricity, by providing the basis for industrialization, would make possible a society free of capitalist oppression. Every electric-power station would become a “stronghold of enlightenment”.
In today’s China, however, weak oversight of the state-owned electricity transmission and distribution monopoly has allowed its employees to use the threat of power disruption for intimidation and extortion. Rather than being strongholds of enlightenment, some local power bureaus have become more like minor fiefdoms, where the local “electric tiger” (dian lao hu) maintains his authority not by force of arms but with the flick of a switch. Contrary to Lenin‘s expectation, the socialist electric-power sector seems to be leading the way backward into feudalism.[Full Text]
