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.

社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段

社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段不是泛指任何國(guó)家進(jìn)入社會(huì)主義都會(huì)經(jīng)歷的起始階段，而是特指中國(guó)生產(chǎn)力落后、商品經(jīng)濟(jì)不發(fā)達(dá)條件下建設(shè)社會(huì)主義必然要經(jīng)歷的特定階段。生產(chǎn)力水平是判定社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段的根本標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段的論斷包括兩層涵義：一是中國(guó)已經(jīng)進(jìn)入社會(huì)主義社會(huì)，必須堅(jiān)持而不能離開社會(huì)主義；二是中國(guó)的社會(huì)主義社會(huì)正處于并將長(zhǎng)期處于初級(jí)階段，必須正視而不能超越這個(gè)初級(jí)階段。1987年召開的黨的十三大報(bào)告指出：“我國(guó)從五十年代生產(chǎn)資料私有制的社會(huì)主義改造基本完成，到社會(huì)主義現(xiàn)代化的基本實(shí)現(xiàn)，至少需要上百年時(shí)間，都屬于社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段。”經(jīng)過(guò)改革開放40年以來(lái)的快速發(fā)展，特別是黨的十八大以來(lái)取得的歷史性成就和發(fā)生的歷史性變革，中國(guó)特色社會(huì)主義邁上一個(gè)新的大臺(tái)階，但當(dāng)下生產(chǎn)力水平的躍進(jìn)尚未達(dá)到實(shí)現(xiàn)現(xiàn)代化的水平，這一時(shí)期呈現(xiàn)出的發(fā)展階段性特征，仍是在社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段這個(gè)大背景下的新特征，并不是超越了社會(huì)主義初級(jí)階段之后的特征，因而并不能改變對(duì)我國(guó)社會(huì)主義所處發(fā)展階段的判斷。