General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Comrade Mao Zedong's most outstanding and greatest contribution in his life is to lead our party and the people to find the correct path of the new democratic revolution, complete the task of anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, establish the People's Republic of China, establish the basic socialist system, and achieve the basic achievements of socialist construction, and accumulate experience and provide conditions for us to explore the path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics." Mao Zedong was a pioneer of the path of Chinese modernization. His profound theoretical thinking and superb leadership art have pointed out the direction, drawn a blueprint, and laid the foundation for China's modernization.
The direction of China's modernization is socialist
China's modernization is born with imperialist aggression. It is in the "learning from the barbarians' strengths to control the barbarians" that "modernization" is the fundamental reason for saving the nation. Modernization originated in the West, but there is neither a modernization model set in one place nor a universal modernization standard. What is the modernization path that conforms to my country's historical and cultural traditions and actual national conditions? Countless patriots and kind-hearted people continued to explore and unremittingly, but they ended with regret for a long time. Various plans such as peasant uprisings, constitutional monarchy, and bourgeois republic have failed one after another.
Learn from the West, the road to catching up with the trend of world modernization is tortuous and full of tragedy. Why do "teachers" always beat students? In this regard, Mao Zedong pointed out incisively: "The history of imperialism invading China, opposing China's independence, and opposing China's development of capitalism is the modern history of China. The failures of the Chinese revolution have been strangled by imperialism." In the mixed foreign thoughts, after repeated comparisons and identifications, Mao Zedong resolutely chose Marxism-Leninism and firmly pointed out that "socialism is China's only way out." After deeply analyzing the special national conditions of peasants accounting for the vast majority of the population, the backward and scattered small peasant economy, small production and social influences, and being deeply rooted, and being invaded and oppressed by Western powers and being very backward in the economy and culture, Mao Zedong believed that "the historical process of the Chinese revolution must be divided into two steps. The first step is the democratic revolution and the second step is the socialist revolution. These are two revolutionary processes of different natures." After the practice of revolutionary struggle and systematic and in-depth thinking, in January 1940, Mao Zedong systematically answered the historical question of "Where is China going" in " New Democracy" ", which brought a successful end to the "travel of the road" that lasted for a century.
In January 11940, Mao Zedong published the "On New Democracy" to answer the question of where China is heading.
After the test of Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, our party’s program not only received support from the broad masses of people, but also the majority of people who have sincerely fought for the plan for the bourgeois republic and for the " intermediate route " or "third road", have also changed their positions and followed the path of people's democratic dictatorship, becoming the common proposition of the people of the whole country, the parties of all ethnic groups, and the democrats of . In October 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded. "The civilization of the West, the democracy of the bourgeoisie, and the plan of the bourgeois republic were broken together in the minds of the Chinese people. The bourgeois democracy gave way to the people's democracy of the working class, and the bourgeois republic gave way to the people's republic." The Chinese people began to continue their struggle under the banner of socialism to "build a new society and new country of the Chinese nation."
consolidates the system and material foundation for modernization construction
The founding of the People's Republic of China declares the successful completion of the first historical task of striving for national independence and people's liberation in modern times, and creates fundamental social conditions for the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.The Chinese people already have their own people's government, "it will lead the people of the whole country to overcome all difficulties, carry out large-scale economic and cultural construction, eliminate the poverty and ignorance left by old China, and gradually improve the people's material life and improve the people's cultural life."
After the victory of the new democratic revolution, how can China move towards socialism and how to build modernization? As early as March 1949, when the national revolution was about to be won, Mao Zedong issued a call to "rapidly restore and develop production, deal with foreign imperialism, steadily transform China from an agricultural country to an industrial country, and build China into a great socialist country." However, due to years of war destruction and imperialist exploitation and destruction, compared with the general developing countries, our country's economic foundation, technical foundation and talent strength were very weak in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of my country. The socialist China, established on the basis of poverty and backwardness, must accelerate the pace of completing the second historical task of prosperity and people's happiness.
After the founding of New China, the first generation of the Party’s central leadership group with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core led the people to quickly heal the trauma of war and restore the national economy. In 1952, my country's industrial and agricultural production exceeded the historical highest level, and fiscal revenue reached 22.286 billion yuan in 1953, accounting for 30.1% of the entire country's revenue. It not only far exceeded any historical period before the founding of New China, but also far higher than most developing countries during the same period. At the same time, our country has already had a relatively strong and rapidly developing state-owned economy, and the public-private joint venture and agricultural mutual aid cooperation movement have also shown incomparable advantages. The abundance of material wealth, the increase in fiscal strength and the maturity of production forms have provided a solid material foundation for the transition to socialism, and have also created prerequisites for establishing a strong government and effectively mobilizing the modernization of social resource construction.
11956, Shanghai held a public-private partnership meeting on Sino-Soviet Friendship Building .
In June 11953, Mao Zedong proposed the general line of the transition period of , and led the whole party and the people of the whole country to successfully turn the policy of "implementing redemption for the bourgeoisie under certain conditions" into reality. This not only avoids the destruction of productivity and promotes the sustainable development of social production, but also mobilizes the enthusiasm of the national bourgeoisie, so that it can serve socialist construction. Under Mao Zedong's leadership, our party creatively completed the transformation from the new democratic revolution to the socialist revolution, allowing China, an oriental power that accounts for one-quarter of the world's population, to enter the socialist society, and successfully achieved the most profound and greatest social change in Chinese history, laying the fundamental political premise and institutional foundation for the great stride of the cause of modernization.
Preliminary exploration of the modernization path that is suitable for national conditions
After the establishment of the basic socialist system, comprehensive and large-scale socialist construction began immediately. How to build socialism in China is a brand new proposition. Mao Zedong once called on the whole party to pay attention to the experience of "learning from the Soviet Union". This has its historical necessity and has achieved positive results.
With the emergence of the drawbacks of " Soviet model ", Mao Zedong promptly proposed "learning from the Soviet Union" and began to lead the whole party to explore the path of socialist modernization that is suitable for China's situation. He demanded that new theories be created, new works be written, the "second combination" of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism with China's reality, and find out the correct path to carry out socialist revolution and construction in China. Since 1956, Mao Zedong has successively published important articles such as "On the Ten Major Relationships" and "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People", systematically elaborating on the preliminary concept of the Chinese-style modernization path.
Mao Zedong creatively proposed the "two types of contradictions of different natures in socialist society" and emphasized based on this: "The main task at present is to concentrate efforts to resolve this contradiction and transform our country from a backward agricultural country to an advanced industrial country as soon as possible."In response to the Soviet Union's unilateral emphasis on the development of heavy industry, he pointed out that "the relationship between heavy industry and light industry and agriculture must be handled well." "It must be affirmed by focusing on heavy industry. But at the same time, we must pay full attention to the development of agriculture and light industry" to ensure the basic needs of people's lives. To build a strong socialist country, we must have strong unified leadership from the central government and give full play to the enthusiasm of the local government. Mao Zedong believed that "the enthusiasm of the central government and the local government is much better than having only one enthusiasm." He also pointed out that "enterprises under central departments and local governments have certain autonomy under unified leadership and unified plans." We must mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties through "cadres participating in labor, workers participating in management, and constantly reforming unreasonable rules and regulations." China's modernization cause must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The workers and peasants are the most fundamental force, and they must also play the role of intellectuals. Mao Zedong pointed out that the cause of socialist construction needs as many intellectuals as possible to serve it. He advocated the cultural policy of "a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend with ", and required a large number of senior intellectuals and more ordinary intellectuals to be created in a short period of time to help them solve various problems that must be solved so that they can actively play their talents.
11956, Mao Zedong pointed out at the preparatory meeting of the Eighth National Congress of the Party, "What is the purpose of uniting all forces that can be united inside and outside the Party, at home and abroad? It is to build a great socialist country." This will completely change the situation that has been lagging behind in the past 100 years, and will catch up with the most powerful capitalist country in the world, , which is the United States. He said, "It's a responsibility" and was confident in it, leading the strategic plan for building a strong socialist country. In December 1964, according to Mao Zedong's suggestion, Zhou Enlai formally put forward the grand goal of "four modernizations" at the first session of the Third National People's Congress.
11 In May 1956, Mao Zedong delivered a speech on "On the Ten Major Relationships" at the Supreme State Conference.
Under Mao Zedong's strong leadership, the people of all ethnic groups in our country have devoted themselves to the steaming socialist construction that has never been seen in Chinese history. In a short time, our society underwent earth-shaking changes, establishing an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system, independently developing the ", two bombs, one satellite, ", becoming a major country with important influence in the world, and accumulating important experience in socialist modernization construction in an Oriental power like China with very backward social productivity.
11 In May 1958, the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of my country passed the general line of "work hard, strive for the best, build socialism faster, better, and more efficiently, and more socially," which reflected the general desire of the Party and the broad masses of people to change the backward economic and cultural situation in our country. However, due to violation of the objective laws that must be followed in economic construction, the Party’s work has made serious mistakes in its guidelines, resulting in serious mistakes such as the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution”, leaving behind painful lessons.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "The modernization we are promoting is the socialist modernization led by the Communist Party of China." Mao Zedong made useful explorations for the opening up of this path, and put in his wisdom and hard work. Although we have experienced detours and setbacks in exploration, "history and practice have and will further prove that this path is not only right and easy, but also able to walk steadily and well."
Author’s unit: Seventh Research Department of the Central Academy of Party History and Literature
Source: Central Academy of Party History and Literature website
