The Communist Party of China's scientific analysis of the main contradictions in society in various historical periods and its empirical enlightenment

Door small army

Over the past one hundred years, the CPC's scientific analysis and accurate grasp of the main contradictions in society in various historical periods have conformed to the major changes in China's revolution, construction, and reform and the general trend of historical development, and have become the logical starting point for the CPC's theoretical innovation and the realistic basis for policy formulation. At present, we are in the beginning of a new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, and reviewing our party's process of analyzing and grasping the main contradictions in society and drawing experience and enlightenment from them is of great theoretical and practical significance for realizing the goal of the second centenary struggle.

The main journey

Over the past one hundred years, the Communist Party of China has conducted a scientific analysis of the main contradictions in our society around the conditions of the world, the country, and the people, and has clearly put forward the main contradictions in society at different times from the standpoint of the state, the nation, and the people, as the basic basis for formulating the party's line, principles, and policies.

The period of the New Democratic Revolution. After the Opium War, China gradually slipped into the abyss of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, which is the most basic national condition of modern China. In July 1922, the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China revealed the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of Chinese society, and for the first time clearly put forward the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolutionary program. In May 1937, Mao Zedong pointed out at a party meeting that "the contradiction between imperialism and China, the contradiction between the feudal system and the masses of the people" was "two fierce basic contradictions" in China for a long time. After continuous exploration, in December 1939, Mao Zedong clearly pointed out in "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China" that "the contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation, the contradiction between feudalism and the masses of the people" constitutes the main contradiction in modern Chinese society. The clarification of the main contradictions in modern Chinese society has determined the two major historical tasks facing the Chinese nation since modern times, one is to seek national independence and the liberation of the people, and the other is to realize the prosperity of the country and the common prosperity of the people.

The period of socialist revolution and construction. At the beginning of the founding of New China, the main contradiction in our society was manifested in the contradiction between the masses of the people and the remnants of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism. After three years of hard work, by 1952 China's national economy was able to recover, the tasks left over from the new-democratic revolution were completed, and tremendous changes took place in the economic, political and social landscape. Our Party has put forward at the right time that "after the overthrow of the landlord class and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the main contradiction within China is the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie, so the national bourgeoisie should no longer be called the middle class." In line with this, the gradual completion of "one transformation and three reforms" has become the general line of the transitional period. By 1956, the socialist transformation was basically completed and the socialist system was established, and the main contradictions in our society underwent fundamental changes. The Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in September 1956 pointed out: "The main contradiction in our country is already the contradiction between the people's demand for the establishment of an advanced industrial country and the reality of a backward agricultural country, and it is already a contradiction between the people's need for rapid economic and cultural development and the current situation in which the economy and culture cannot meet the needs of the people." The correct judgment of the Eighth National Congress of the Party on the main contradictions in society opened a climax in the comprehensive construction of socialism, but later our Party's analysis and judgment of the main contradictions in society deviated from the correct direction of the Eighth National Congress, which adversely affected national construction and development.

Reform, opening up, and the new period of socialist modernization. In 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China resolutely stopped "taking class struggle as the program" and began to re-explore the main contradictions in society. In June 1981, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the Resolution on Several Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, which expressed the main contradiction in society as "the contradiction between the growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production." After this thesis was put forward, it was confirmed and perfected by successive Party Congresses: The report of the Twelfth National Congress pointed out that continuously satisfying the people's growing material and cultural needs is the fundamental purpose of socialist production and construction; the report of the Thirteenth National Congress for the first time adopted the expression of the main contradictions in society in the "Resolution on Several Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic"; the Fourteenth National Congress officially wrote it into the Party Constitution; the report of the Fifteenth National Congress considered it to run through the entire primary stage of socialism; the report of the Sixteenth National Congress adhered to this formulation; and the report of the Seventeenth National Congress put forward" The two have not changed", that is, the national conditions in the initial stage have not changed and the main contradictions in society at the present stage have not changed.

A new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has made historic achievements in reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, the cause of the party and the state has opened up a new situation in an all-round way, and socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in October 2017 put forward the latest thesis on the main contradictions in society, that is, "the contradiction between the people's growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development". The new assertion is based on two main contexts. First, after nearly 40 years of reform and opening up, China's economy has developed from "once on the verge of collapse" to 2017, when the total GDP ranked second in the world for eight consecutive years, achieving a leap from low-income countries to middle-income countries; the level of productivity development has increased significantly from "very low" at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1981 and "quite backward" at the 13th Party Congress in 1987, through the "overall not high" at the 17th National Congress in 2007, and to the 19th National Congress in 2017 The people's living standards have also developed from "insufficient food and clothing" at the beginning of reform and opening up, through the "basic solution to the people's food and clothing problem" in 1987 to the "overall well-off" in 2017, the people's "needs for a better life are becoming more and more extensive, not only putting forward higher requirements for material and cultural life, but also increasing demands in democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment." Second, there are still many deficiencies in our work, which are mainly manifested in the following aspects: "Some conspicuous problems of unbalanced and inadequate development have not yet been solved" and "have become the main constraints to meeting the people's growing needs for a better life."

Empirical implications

The purpose of reviewing the course of our party's analysis and grasp of the main contradictions in society is to analyze and sum up the experiences and lessons learned from them, take history as a mirror, and enlighten the reality and the future.

Only by always standing on the people's standpoint and analyzing and grasping the main contradictions in society can we better practice the original mission. Over the past one hundred years, no matter how the situation changes, our party has always adhered to the people's stand, attached great importance to the general interests of the nation and the interests of the people, and taken the changes in the people's needs and the satisfaction of the situation as the starting point and destination of all its work. In modern Chinese society, which is oppressed by both imperialism and feudalism, the people urgently demand the complete abolition of the unequal treaties and privileges imposed on China by imperialism. The victory of the Chinese revolution and the establishment of the socialist system have brought about the most profound and greatest social changes in the history of our country and are the basis for all future progress and development in our country. Since then, the Eighth National Congress, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee and the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China have directly regarded the people as the main body of the main contradictions in society, and the people's needs and the satisfaction of the people's needs as the two aspects of the main contradictions in society, and have been transformed, and what runs through them is the continuous improvement of the level of people's needs and the continuous expansion of the scope of needs: from the Eighth National Congress pointing out that "the current economy and culture cannot meet the needs of the people", to the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee further defining as "the people's growing material and cultural needs", and then to the Nineteenth National Congress" The need for a better life" emphasizes "better meeting the growing needs of the people in the economic, political, cultural, social, ecological and other aspects, and better promoting the all-round development of people and the overall progress of society". Judging from the long river of history, our party's century-long analysis and grasp of the main contradictions in society is a history of comprehensive social progress and all-round human development, and a history of achievements in constantly meeting the needs of the people, seeking happiness for the people, and seeking rejuvenation for the nation.

In the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, we must profoundly understand the new characteristics and new requirements brought about by the changes in the main contradictions in our society, the new contradictions and new challenges brought about by the complicated international environment, maintain strategic determination, carry forward the spirit of struggle, take the people as the center, unremittingly do our own things, lead high-quality development with the new development concept, build a new development pattern, focus on solving the problems of unbalanced and insufficient development and the problems of the people's urgent difficulties and expectations, and promote the all-round development of the people. More obvious substantive progress has been made in the common prosperity of all the people, and the people's yearning for a better life has been continuously realized.

Only by adhering to the ideological line of seeking truth from facts can we correctly confirm the national conditions of different historical periods. The party's century-long analysis and grasp of the main contradictions in society shows that if the party proceeds from the basic national conditions, the party's judgment of the main contradictions in Chinese society will be correct, and otherwise, mistakes or even mistakes will occur. The fundamental reason why there were many "Left" mistakes during the period of the new-democratic revolution was that it failed to clearly understand China's national conditions. It is precisely for this reason that Mao Zedong pointed out: "To recognize the nature of Chinese society, that is, to recognize Clearly China's national conditions, is the basic basis for recognizing all revolutionary questions." After the founding of New China, the party correctly analyzed the social reality at the beginning of the founding of New China and the socialist transition period, correctly judged the main contradictions in society, successfully completed the tasks of consolidating political power and the three major transformations, and established the socialist system. The Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China has highlighted the basic national conditions that the development of China's productive forces is still very backward, and has updated the judgment of the main contradictions in society, and history has proved correct. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, our Party restored the Eighth National Congress's correct judgment on the basic national conditions, pointed out that the "primary stage of socialism" is the greatest reality of the contemporary national conditions, and stressed the need to vigorously develop the productive forces. After nearly 40 years of development in reform and opening up, new stage changes have taken place in the "backward social production" and "material and cultural needs" since China entered the primary stage of socialism, and it is precisely on the basis of such changes that the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward a new thesis on the main contradictions in our society.

In fact, in the process of drafting the reports of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, some people proposed to revise the expression of the main contradictions in our society, but because the time was not yet ripe, this issue was not conclusive, until the drafting and research of the report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Party, almost all the feedback believed that the time was ripe to redefine the main contradictions in our society. This shows that the latest thesis on the main contradictions of society put forward by the Party in the report of the Nineteenth National Congress is precisely based on the basic ideological method, work method, and leadership method of seeking truth from facts.

Only by grasping the law of transformation of the main contradictions in society can we correctly identify their "change" and "invariance". The main contradictions of society will undergo qualitative changes when there is a drastic evolution in the stage of social historical development, and there will be quantitative or partial qualitative changes in different historical periods of a certain stage of social historical development. The historical process of China's revolution, construction and reform is a clear manifestation of this understanding. The main social contradictions in the stage of the new-democratic revolution were stable as a whole, while their main aspects showed differences in the early days of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the period of the agrarian revolutionary war, the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the period of the War of Liberation. Compared with the period of the new-democratic revolution, the period of national economic recovery at the beginning of the founding of New China, and the period of socialist transition, the transformation of the main contradictions in society during the period of socialist construction is a qualitative change. This is because the Eighth National Congress of the Party "marked or divided the historical turn between the beginning of the era of comprehensive construction and the victorious end of the revolutionary era." At the three important sessions of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, and the Nineteenth National Congress, the changes in the cognition of the main contradictions in society reflected the quantitative change process in the initial stage of socialism in our country, and showed distinct stage characteristics: When the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was convened, China had just entered socialist society and urgently demanded to transform backward agricultural countries into advanced industrial countries; when the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee was convened, it urgently demanded the correction of the economic chaos in the previous period; when the Nineteenth National Congress was convened, China's development has achieved a transformation from economic scarcity to prosperity, from insufficient food and clothing to a well-off society in an all-round way, and the urgent task is no longer the problem of lagging development, but the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development.

It should be pointed out that the latest change also has the characteristics of partial qualitative change, which profoundly reflects the different manifestations of contradictions in different development periods since the reform and opening up, that is, the transformation from the contradiction between supply and demand at the lower level to the contradiction at the middle and high levels, from the contradiction between supply and demand of the "shortage of quantity" to the contradiction between supply and demand of the "quality shortage type", but on the whole, it does not exceed the essence of the contradiction between social production and social demand, and is a development process in which local qualitative changes are constantly occurring in the overall quantitative change.

(The author is Vice Dean of the School of Marxism, Shanghai University of Foreign Chinese)

Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Zhang Wu Text Editor: Song Yanlin

Source: Author: Party Building magazine