Principal Contradictions of Socialist Society

In September 1956, with the basic completion of the socialist transformation, China had entered the primary stage of socialism.

The Eighth Congress of the CPC pointed out that the socialist system was basically established in China, the main contradiction in China is no longer the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie, but the contradiction between the people's needs for rapid economic and cultural development and the current situation in which the economy and culture cannot meet the needs of the people.

The purpose of the socialist revolution is to liberate the productive forces. Mao Zedong pointed out: “The current situation is that the large-scale stormy mass class struggle in the revolutionary period has basically ended, but the class struggle is not yet completely over.” We should “unite the people of all nationalities in the country to wage a new war—to fight against nature, to develop our economy, to develop our culture, to enable all the people to go through the current transitional period more smoothly, to consolidate our new system, and to build our new country.” Although the class struggle still exists and the people's democratic dictatorship is needed to be strengthened, "our fundamental task has changed from liberating the productive forces to protecting and developing them under the new relations of production."

Mao Zedong said that in this century (20th century), the first half of the century our efforts were devoted to revolution and the second half should be devoted to construction. Revolution will be carried out in the first half and construction in the second half. Thus, the central task now is construction. And Mao Zedong called this task as "industrial revolution or economic revolution", i.e., the "second revolution". However, due to the Party's lack of ideological preparation for the comprehensive building of socialism at that time, the Party failed to persist in the line proposed by the Eighth National Congress of the CPC and the correct judgment on the main domestic contradictions in this Congress were not upheld.

The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, held in 1978, restored the ideological line of seeking truth from facts. Then the “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China”, adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party in 1981, pointed out that the domestic principal contradiction is no longer the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie but between the demand of the people for rapid economic and cultural development and the existing state of our economy and culture which fall short of the needs of the people. Although class struggle will exist for a long time to a certain extent, it is no longer the principal contradiction. On this basis, this Plenary Meeting put forward the important strategic decision that the focus of Party and government work be shifted to socialist modernization.

In order to solve the principal contradictions in the primary stage of socialism and achieve its main tasks successfully, the CPC, on the basis of the principle of combining Marxism-Leninism with China's construction practice, summarized the experience since the founding of New China, especially since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, and gradually formed a basic line of "one center, two basic points" in the primary stage of socialism.