Socialism Can Be Divided into Underdeveloped and Comparatively Developed Stages

An important idea put forward by Mao Zedong in his talks which were published as “Reading Notes on the Soviet Text Political Economy”, he put forward this important idea as follows: "It is possible to divide the transition from capitalism to communism into two stages: the first stage is the underdeveloped socialism and the second stage is comparatively developed socialism. This latter stage may take even longer than the first. But once it has been passed through, material production and spiritual prosperity will be most ample, people’s communist consciousness will be greatly raised, and they will be ready to enter the highest stage of communism.”

As early as the mid-1950s, Mao Zedong began to explore the stage of socialist development when he explored the path of socialist construction suitable for China's national conditions and made explorations on the theory of socialist construction in China.

In March 1955, at a National Level Representative Cadres Meeting of the CPC, Mao Zedong pointed out: “It is no easy job to build a socialist society in a large country like ours with its complicated conditions and with its formerly very backward economy. … To build a strong, highly industrialized socialist country will require several decades of hard work, say, fifty years, or the entire second half of the present century.”

In January 1956, Mao Zedong pointed out at the National Work Conference on Intellectuals that “Socialism has entered China, but is it finished? Not yet. This socialist society has entered, but not yet completed.”

In February 1957, he further pointed out in "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" that "China's socialist system has only just been set up; it is not yet fully established or fully consolidated.” Mao Zedong's judgment at that time reflected two basic characteristics of objective reality: Firstly, China has entered the socialist society; secondly, China's socialist society was still in the transition stage from "establishment" to "completion".

In November 1958, at the first Zhengzhou Conference, in response to the widespread confusion between form of collective ownership and ownership by the whole people, between socialism and communism at that time, Mao Zedong clearly pointed out that we should draw a clear line between socialism and communism and not rush to transit into communism, and said “at this stage, China is still a socialist society”. In December 1958, at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC, Mao Zedong further pointed out that the transition from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people and transition from socialist ownership by the whole people to the communist ownership by the whole people need a certain degree of development of the productive forces, as must. Thus criticized the mistake of denying collective ownership and abolishing the principle of distribution according to work prematurely, and criticized the utopian idea of leaping over the socialism stage and entering into the communist stage.

In February 1959, at the second Zhengzhou Conference, Mao Zedong emphasized once again that China must go through a series of stages in building socialism. According to Mao Zedong's theory of socialist stage, Zhou Enlai advocated that “the whole period from capitalism to communism is a long transitional period, and China was still in the first stage, which will be divided into many sub-stages”.

Mao Zedong's thought on the stage of socialist development was an important achievement made by the Chinese communists in the process of exploring the path of China's socialist construction, and it is the ideological source of the theory of the primary stage of socialism proposed by the Chinese communists since the Reform and Opening-up.