Give Priority to the Development of Heavy Industry, and Pay Full Attention to the Development of Agriculture and Light Industry

An important guiding principle of developing national economy put forward by Mao Zedong.

Mao Zedong pointed out in his "On the Ten Major Relationships" in 1956 that in socialist economic construction, the relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and light industry and agriculture on the other must be properly handled.

Heavy industry is the main sector of means of production and the emphasis in China's construction, and the production of the means of production must be given priority. Without the development of heavy industry, light industry and all sectors of the national economy cannot develop rapidly, create higher labor productivity, and build a modern national defense. Heavy industry is the important premise of expanding reproduction, the material basis of technical transformation of national economy, and plays a leading role in national economy.

Mao Zedong also pointed out in his "On the Ten Major Relationships" that "some comrades want to slow down the development of heavy industry, and this idea is wrong.” "But there are comrades who have one-sided emphasis on the significance of developing heavy industry, and they are also wrong to reduce the speed of development in light industry and other economic sectors."

This shows that while giving priority to the development of heavy industry, we should also pay full attention to the development of light industry and agriculture. This is because, first, since the people's demand for consumer goods is growing day by day, if light industry is not developed accordingly, there may be a shortage of goods, which will affect the stability of prices and the market. Especially in rural areas, if there are not enough industrial products to exchange for agricultural products at a stable and reasonable price, it may hinder the consolidation of the alliance of industry and agriculture, and may affect the development of industrial production.

Secondly, light industry needs less investment, the construction time of enterprises is relatively short, the turnover of funds is relatively fast, so the accumulation of funds is relatively fast, and the funds accumulated by light industry can be used to help the development of heavy industry. Therefore, we should pay attention to the development of light industry within the scope of capital, raw materials and market. Therefore, giving priority to the development of heavy industry must be compatible with the development of agriculture and light industry, so as to better serve agriculture and light industry; if we want to develop heavy industry as soon as possible, we must develop agriculture and light industry more. Only in this way can production and construction be integrated with people's livelihood, industry and agriculture be closely integrated and mutually supported, and the national economy develop proportionally and coordinately.

From December 1959 to February 1960, Mao Zedong pointed out in his talk on the Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union: "Priority growth in producing the means of production is an economic rule for expanded reproduction common to all societies.” If there are no priorities in producing the means of production in capitalist society there can be no expanded reproduction.

Stalin embodied this law as giving priority to the development of heavy industry. Stalin's shortcoming was that he overemphasized the priority growth of heavy industry and neglected agriculture in the plans. “Our approach is to make priority development of heavy industry the condition for putting into effect concurrent promotion of industry and agriculture, as well as some other concurrent programs.”

Giving priority to the development of heavy industry and paying full attention to the development of agriculture and light industry were the important guidelines for the development of China's national economy, which correctly reflects the position and mutual relationship of agriculture and industry in the process of China's national economic development and clarified the overall direction for the formulation of the national economic development plan. Its implementation would be conducive to the coordinated development of the economy.