Commanding heights of the economy

Part of a series on
Marxism–Leninism
Concepts Administrative-command system Anti-imperialism Anti-revisionism Central planning Soviet-type economic planning Collective farming Collective leadership Commanding heights of the economy Democratic centralism Dialectical logic Dialectical materialism Foco Intensification of the class struggle under socialism Labor aristocracy Marxist–Leninist atheism New Soviet man One-party state Partiinost' People's democracy Popular front Proletarian internationalism Protracted people's war Self-criticism Social fascism Socialism in one country Socialist patriotism Soviet Yugoslav State Socialist Theory of the productive forces Third Period Vanguardism Wars of national liberation Unified power
Variants Fidelismo Guevarism Ho Chi Minh Thought Hoxhaism Husakism Kádárism Khrushchevism Maoism Socialism with Chinese characteristics Stalinism Titoism
People Vladimir Lenin Joseph Stalin Mao Zedong Ernst Thälmann Khorloogiin Choibalsan Ehmetjan Qasim José Díaz Maurice Thorez Palmiro Togliatti Ho Chi Minh Võ Nguyên Giáp Earl Browder Nikita Khrushchev Walter Ulbricht Josip Broz Tito Mátyás Rákosi Lazar Kaganovich Georgi Dimitrov Bolesław Bierut Valko Chervenkov Klement Gottwald Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Enver Hoxha Kaysone Phomvihane Khalid Bakdash Leonid Brezhnev Deng Xiaoping Pol Pot Nikos Zachariadis Che Guevara Fidel Castro Agostinho Neto Lúcio Lara Mengistu Haile Mariam Kim Il Sung Chin Peng Hardial Bains Sanzō Nosaka Nicolae Ceaușescu Gustáv Husák János Kádár Erich Honecker Władysław Gomułka Samora Machel Thomas Sankara Mathieu Kérékou Siad Barre Nur Muhammad Taraki Alfonso Cano Rohana Wijeweera Gus Hall Harry Pollitt Harpal Brar Gennady Zyuganov Xi Jinping Wojciech Jaruzelski Todor Zhivkov
Theoretical works Foundations of Leninism Dialectical and Historical Materialism The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR A Critique of Soviet Economics Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism Guerrilla Warfare Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung President Ho Chi Minh's Testament The Governance of China
History Soviet Union 1927–1953 1953–1964 1964–1982 1982–1991 Great Break Collectivization in the Soviet Union Industrialization in the Soviet Union Great Purge Spanish Civil War World War II Great Patriotic War Greek Civil War Cold War Eastern Bloc Chinese Revolution China 1949–1976 1976–1989 1989–2002 2002–present Korean War Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution De-Stalinization Warsaw Pact Non-Aligned Movement Vietnam War Sino-Soviet split Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Great Leap Forward Portuguese Colonial War Black power movement Nicaraguan Revolution Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Naxalite insurgency Revolutions of 1989 Nepalese Civil War
By country Afghanistan Albania Angola Benin Bulgaria Cambodia 1975–79 1979–92 China Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia Czechia Slovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland Romania Somalia South Yemen Soviet Union Armenia Azerbaijan Byelarus Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Moldova Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Vietnam Yugoslavia Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Macedonia Montenegro Serbia Slovenia
Organizations Comecon Comintern Chinese Communist Party Communist Party of Cuba Communist Party of India Communist Party of Kampuchea Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of the Soviet Union Communist Party of Vietnam French Communist Party Indochinese Communist Party Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party Lao People's Revolutionary Party Nepal Communist Party Party of Labour of Albania Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Sandinista National Liberation Front Workers' Party of Korea
Related topics Bolshevism All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Anti-communism Mass killings Crimes against humanity under communist regimes Mass killings Criticism of communist party rule Cult of personality Leninism Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Marxist schools of thought National Bolshevism New class Post-communism Red fascism Red Scare Second Second World State capitalism State socialism Trotskyism State ideology of China State ideology of the Soviet Union Third-Worldism Totalitarianism
Communism portal Politics portal Socialism portal
v t e

In Marxian economics, the "commanding heights of the economy" are certain strategically important economic sectors. Some examples of industries considered to be part of the commanding heights include public utilities, natural resources, and sectors relating to both foreign trade and domestic trade.

This phrase emerged from a branch of modern political philosophy concerned with organising society. According to Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, a Bolshevik economist, control over the commanding heights of the economy would ensure primitive socialist accumulation.^[1] The phrase can be traced back to Vladimir Lenin's defense of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which saw market-oriented reforms while the state retained control of the commanding heights. Lenin used the military metaphor to justify NEP, proposing that free markets could be permitted so as long as the government retained control of certain commanding heights like heavy industry and transport.^[2]

China retains state control over the commanding heights of the economy in key industries like infrastructure, telecommunications, and finance despite significant marketization of the economy since reform and opening up.^[3]: 20 Specific mechanisms implementing its control of the commanding heights in these areas include public property rights, pervasive administrative involvement, and Communist Party supervision of senior managers.^[3]: 20

For an example from socialism with Chinese characteristics, while the Chinese economic reform has generally shifted funding sources for higher education from the government to individual students, the Chinese Communist Party also organized projects like Project 985 and Project 211 to retain government funding and therefore influence over certain elite institutions.^[4]

The second of the Five-Year Plans of India, overseen by Jawaharlal Nehru, was an attempt to industrialize India through state control of the commanding heights.^[5]

The phrase "commanding heights" often occurs in modern political commentary outside of Marxist connotations.^[6]

In service economies, where the relative importance of industry has decreased, Arnold Kling posited in 2011 that healthcare and education are the new commanding heights. The two sectors are central to employment and consumption, and in the United States are driven primarily by government intervention.^[7] In the ten years preceding 2011, employment in education and healthcare in the United States increased by 16%, despite employment in other sectors decreasing.^[8]

Other commentators have identified digital platforms and the internet as the new commanding heights of the economy.^[9][10]

Look up commanding heights in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Commanding Heights

• Bonner, Stephen Eric (2013). Socialism Unbound: Principles, Practices, and Prospects. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231527354.
• Wesson, Robert G. (1978). Lenin's Legacy: The Story of the CPSU. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0817969226.
• Nove, Alec; Nove, Alexander (1969). An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. IICA. p. 83-86.