Socialist Industrialization

Realizing the socialist industrialization of the country and building China into a strong industrialized country was an important idea of Mao Zedong. Since the modern times, China was faced with the historical task of striving for national independence, people's liberation and the prosperity of the nation. In the process of accomplishing the first historical task, that is, striving for national independence and people's liberation, Mao Zedong repeatedly expounded on China's industrialization, i.e., the second historical task.

As early as the Anti-Japanese War, on May 22, 1944, Mao Zedong pointed out that the main reason for China's backwardness was the lack of advanced industry. Why did the Japanese imperialists dare to bully China to such an extent? Just because China did not have a strong large-scale industry, they bullied us because of our backwardness. Therefore, eliminating this kind of backwardness is the mission of our entire nation; “the enduring independence of the Chinese nation will be built upon industrialization. Our Communist Party of China must work hard for industrialization.”

In his political report to the Seventh National Congress of the CPC, he pointed out: "Without independence, freedom, democracy and unity it is impossible to build industry on a really large scale. Without industry there can be no solid national defense, no well-being for the people, no prosperity or strength for the nation.” He stressed that in order to build a new China, it was necessary to develop industry. The progress of Chinese society would mainly depend on the development of industry.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, on the one hand, expressed satisfaction and for the country's basic conditions for industrialization, and at the same time, he deeply realized that China, as a backward agricultural country, needed a long way to go so as to achieve industrialization. He pointed out in the “Order of the Military Commission on the Collective Reemployment of the Army” on February 1, 1952: "In order to completely liberate the Chinese nation and people, we must realize the industrialization of the country, and what we did is just a step in this direction.”

With the completion of the tasks left over by the New-Democratic Revolution and the recovery of the national economy, concentrating on economic construction, that is, striving for the realization of the second historical task, was highlighted on the agenda of the Party and the state. In order to carry out economic construction, the first thing was to transform China from a backward agricultural country into an advanced industrial country and achieve industrialization.

Historically, there were two ways to realize industrialization: capitalist industrialization and socialist industrialization. In the general line and tasks of the transitional period formally put forward by Mao Zedong at the Political Bureau meeting of the CPC Central Committee in June 1953, he clearly put forward the idea of “realizing the country’s socialist industrialization step by step over a fairly long period of time”, and in a speech on October 15 at the same year, Mao Zedong pointed out: “The capitalist road can also lead to increased production, but the time required would be longer and the course painful. We will not practice capitalism, that's settled.” The realization of socialist industrialization was an inevitable requirement and necessary condition for the independence and prosperity of a country.

China's industrialization started under the influence of the Soviet Union. Influenced by the Soviet Union, China once put too much emphasis on the development of heavy industry and infrastructure and this affected the development of agriculture and light industry, resulting in a certain degree of imbalance, which prompted Mao Zedong to think about how to take the road of China's industrialization, and at that time, he mainly focused how to deal with the relationship between heavy industry, agriculture and light industry.

As early as December 1951, when reviewing the “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Implementing Streamlining the Army, Simplifying the Government, Increasing Production and Saving Economy, Opposing Corruption, Waste and Bureaucracy”, Mao Zedong wrote: "To complete industrialization, of course, is not only heavy industry and national defense industry, but all necessary light industries should be built up." “In order to complete the industrialization of our country, we must develop agriculture and gradually complete the socialization of agriculture.”

On June 14, 1954, Mao Zedong pointed out in the “On the Draft Constitution of the People's Republic of China”: “Our general objective is to strive to build a great socialist country. Ours is a big country with 600 million people, and to accomplish socialist industrialization and the socialist transformation and mechanization of agriculture and we must make China a great socialist country.”

In April 1956, Mao Zedong discussed the first major relationship— the relationship between the heavy industry and the light industry and agriculture—in his work “On the Ten Major Relationships”. He pointed out that the emphasis in China's construction should focus to heavy industry. The production of the means of production should be given priority, but this definitely should not mean that the production of the means of subsistence, especially grain, shall be ignored. Without enough food and other daily necessities, it would be impossible to provide subsistence for the workers in the first place, and then what sense would it make to talk about developing heavy industry? Therefore, “the relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and the light industry plus the agriculture on the other hand must be properly handled.”

He argued that “there were two possible approaches to develop heavy industry, one was to develop agriculture and light industry less, and the other was to develop agriculture and light industry more.” “In the long run, the first approach will lead to a smaller and slower development of heavy industry, or at least would put it on a less solid foundation, and when the over-all account will be added up and evaluated a few decades hence, it will not prove to have paid.” The second approach will lead to a greater and faster development of heavy industry and, since this approach will ensure the livelihood of the people, it will lay a more solid foundation for the development of heavy industry. Mao Zedong's discussion on the relationship between the heavy industry and the light industry and agriculture was, in fact, a question of exploring a unique path of industrialization in China. In February 1957, Mao Zedong clearly put forward a "China's path to industrialization" different from that of the Soviet Union in his article "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People" and discussed the question of China's path to industrialization, in a special chapter.

He said that in discussing our path to industrialization, we should be mainly concerned with the relationship between the growth of heavy industry, light industry, and agriculture and we should affirm that heavy industry must be at the core of China's economic construction. At the same time, however, full attention should be paid to the development of agriculture and light industry. As China was a vast agricultural country, with over 80% of its population in the rural areas, agriculture should be developed along with industry, because only in this way will our industry secure raw materials and a market, and only in this way will it be possible to accumulate more funds for building a strong heavy industry.

For Mao Zedong, the fate of the light industry was closely tied up with agriculture. Without agriculture there could be no light industry. With the gradual progress in the technical transformation and modernization of agriculture, with more and more machinery, fertilizer, water conservancy and electric power projects and transport facilities for the farms, as well as fuel and building materials for the rural consumers, we will see that that rural areas and agriculture sector will provide heavy industry an important support, a market for heavy industry. The entire national economy will benefit if we can achieve an even greater growth in our agriculture and thus induce a correspondingly greater development for the light industry. As agriculture and light industry developed, heavy industry which will be provided with a strong market and funds, will grow faster. Hence although it will seem that we will have a slower pace of industrialization, but in fact its development will not be so slow, and indeed may even be faster.

While repeatedly discussing the dialectical relationship between the development of heavy industry and agriculture and light industry, Mao Zedong also put forward the general policy of developing the national economy on the basis of agriculture, with industry as the leading factor, with agriculture, light and heavy as the order, as well as a set of "walking on two legs" principles, that is, the simultaneous development of heavy industry and light industry, of the central industry and local industries, of coastal industries and inland industries, of large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, and so on.

Taking the path of China's industrialization was an important thought of the CPC in exploring the path of China's socialist construction, emphasizing the correct handling of the relationship between heavy industry, light industry and agriculture was in line with the reality of China's large population and weak industrial foundation, and had important guiding significance for accelerating China's economic construction and socialist industrialization.