Policy of "Walking on Two Legs"

An image metaphor put forward by Mao Zedong on the socialist construction policy of China.

It pointed out that “under the condition of giving priority to the development of heavy industry, the simultaneous development of industry and agriculture, under the condition of centralized leadership, comprehensive planning and division of labor and cooperation, the simultaneous development of central industry and local industry, and the simultaneous development of large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises.”

When China began to build socialism in an all-round way, Mao Zedong put forward the policy of mobilizing all positive factors to build socialism in his “On the Ten Major Relationships”. He later said, “In the past, we had ten major relationships, that is, walking on two legs.”

"Walking on two legs" is a series of "simultaneous development" in order to mobilize all positive factors to build socialism. The implementation of the policy of simultaneous development of central and local enterprises, and large, medium and small enterprises, and the production of foreign law and local law at the same time, are the concrete embodiment of this policy in industrial construction.

In “On the Ten Major Relationships”, Mao Zedong has put forward the policy of simultaneous development of the central and local governments. In "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People", he pointed out that we must build up a number of large-scale modern enterprises step by step, but we should set up more small and medium enterprises.

Later, with the establishment of the communal industry, it was proposed that the rural areas should also develop industry and agriculture at the same time, and it was required that the rural areas should widely develop semi-mechanized to mechanized commune industry according to the needs and possibilities and according to the plan.

In May 1958, the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the CPC officially adopted the general line and its basic points, which was proposed by the CPC Central Committee on the basis of Mao Zedong's proposal, that is, “to build socialism with full vigour, to strive for the upper reaches, and to build socialism with greater, faster, better and more economical results”.

Mao Zedong put forward the idea of "walking on two legs" and a series of policies of "simultaneous development” according to the national conditions of our country, which has a large population and backward technology. Because with the development of agricultural production, the agricultural population will gradually transfer to cities, industrial and mining areas, and the number of people waiting for employment will increase.

As the central, large, high-tech production enterprises can absorb only a limited number of employees, it will be very difficult to solve the employment problem in China if we only focus on this aspect. In a certain sense, "under the guidance of large enterprises, we develop a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and under the guidance of foreign production, we generally adopt local production methods, mainly for high speed." This does not mean to advocate and protect the backward things, but to advocate the development of large, medium and small enterprises, local law production and foreign law production at the same time.

Mao Zedong believed that the relationship between small and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises, and the local law and national law should be viewed from a dialectical point of view. Many small ones will become middle ones, many will become large ones, backward ones will become advanced ones, and local laws will become national ones, which is the objective law of development.

"Walking on two legs" and a series of policies of "simultaneous development" are not the average use of power without distinction between primary and secondary.

Mao Zedong said: "Under the condition of giving priority to the development of heavy industry, we should carry out several simultaneous actions, each of which is in the middle and has a leading role. For example, the central and local governments are dominated by the central government; industry and agriculture are dominated by industry.” He emphasized in particular that “the simultaneous development of industry and agriculture is the most important part of our efforts.”

The policy of "walking on two legs" conforms to objective economic law, which prioritizes and emphasizes a balanced development, and played an active role in mobilizing all positive factors, correctly handling contradictions among the people, guiding China's construction and avoiding repeating mistakes made in the construction of the Soviet Union.