The Russian Revolution followed the lack of success during World War I; Russia had not been colonized by a European power. China had been exposed to Western imperialism. Lenin had imposed a system of revolution based on an urban proletariat; Chinese communists, especially Mao, emphasized the peasantry. Both countries had an insubstantial middle class to support liberal democratic experiments; both collectivized agriculture early in their revolutionary development. Both also had five-year industrialization plans, although Russia's was much more successful than China's. Mao, through his opposition to a technocratic elite, introduced programs aimed at destroying urbanized industrialization; the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution retarded
