Primary stage of socialism
This is not a general reference to the initial stage any country will go through when practicing socialism, but a term for the special stage that China has to undergo with backward productive forces and an underdeveloped commodity economy. The level of productive forces is the basic criterion for judging the primary stage of socialism.
The theory of the primary stage of socialism has two connotations: one, China already has a socialist society, which it must continue to develop and never abandon; two, China’s socialist society is still in the primary stage and will remain so for a long time to come, and it is a stage that must be recognized and cannot be skipped.
The report to the 13th CPC National Congress in 1987 predicted that it would take at least 100 years for China to progress from basically completing socialist transformation of private ownership of the means of production in the 1950s to basically realizing socialist modernization. This period was called “the primary stage of socialism.”
With China’s rapid development since reform and opening up, especially with the historic achievements and changes since the 18th CPC National Congress, Chinese socialism has reached a phase of new height. But the current productive forces are not yet fully developed to sustain modernization, and the features of this period are still features of the primary stage of socialism, not of any stage beyond, therefore, they cannot lead to a change of the judgment of China’s current stage of development.
社会主义初级阶段
社会主义初级阶段不是泛指任何国家进入社会主义都会经历的起始阶段，而是特指中国生产力落后、商品经济不发达条件下建设社会主义必然要经历的特定阶段。生产力水平是判定社会主义初级阶段的根本标准。社会主义初级阶段的论断包括两层涵义：一是中国已经进入社会主义社会，必须坚持而不能离开社会主义；二是中国的社会主义社会正处于并将长期处于初级阶段，必须正视而不能超越这个初级阶段。1987年召开的党的十三大报告指出：“我国从五十年代生产资料私有制的社会主义改造基本完成，到社会主义现代化的基本实现，至少需要上百年时间，都属于社会主义初级阶段。”经过改革开放40年以来的快速发展，特别是党的十八大以来取得的历史性成就和发生的历史性变革，中国特色社会主义迈上一个新的大台阶，但当下生产力水平的跃进尚未达到实现现代化的水平，这一时期呈现出的发展阶段性特征，仍是在社会主义初级阶段这个大背景下的新特征，并不是超越了社会主义初级阶段之后的特征，因而并不能改变对我国社会主义所处发展阶段的判断。