Q: In 1978, after 30 years on the socialist road, China created the theory of "primary stage of socialism." Why was this theory created? What are the contents and basis?

A: Any form of society goes through a process of birth, development and maturation. Socialism as a brand new social form, which is different from any other societies in human history, requires all the more a long development process.

During a long time after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, we misjudged China's basic national conditions, ignoring the fact that the country was and would for a long time be in the primary state of socialism. The misjudgment resulted in the making of unrealistic economic targets and policies that far surpassed the national conditions.

With the deepening of China's reform and opening up since 1978, we have come to have a better understanding of socialism and the country's actual conditions, which serves as the basis for the theory of “primary stage of socialism.” The understanding has two meanings:

First, China has entered socialism and should persist in it; Second, China's socialism is still at its primary stage and the country could not simply overstep it. Instead, it should make policies and take actions accordingly.

China has been building a socialist society on the basis of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Its level of productivity lagged far behind that of developed capitalist countries. So we had to put the development of productivity ahead of everything else for a long time. The country should strive to materialize industrialization and socialization and commercialization production activities, which had been achieved in many other countries under capitalism, through reforming production relationships and superstructure, which do not conform to the development of productivity.

The primary stage of socialism is a period in which China would gradually eradicate poverty, transform itself from a society in which farmers dominate the majority of its population and economy is primarily based on manual labor into a society in which non-agricultural population holds the majority and the industry is modernized; a society in which natural and semi-natural economy is given way to market economy. It will take a very long time to achieve these goals.

Before 1978, consumer goods were supplied by fixed quantity in China. In the picture, Beijing residents purchase non-staple food in 1978.