Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 1, 2022

 

Scientific Judgments on the Historic Juncture and Developmental Stages of Contemporary China and Their Evolutionary Logic

(Abstract)

 

Jiang Hui and Lin Jianhua

 

Grasping the laws and stages of society’s development is an important issue. Any form of society, including socialist society, goes through a historical process of constant change and long-term development, which occurs through evolutionary stages and developmental steps. In the context of modern China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) united and led the Chinese people making the historical decision to choose socialism in course of their unremitting struggle and arduous exploration. In the process of socialist revolution, construction and reform, the CPC, in accordance with Marxist theories on social development and stage division, summed up the positive and negative experiences of the world socialist movement, and, on the basis of the actual social development of contemporary China, creatively explored the laws of Chinese social development and proactively explored and made scientific judgments on the historical position, developmental stages, major contradictions and historical tasks of Chinese society in different historical periods, thus ensuring that the Party’s theories and policies were correct at critical periods in China’s historical development. Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, and especially since reform and opening-up, the CPC has made a number of important judgments on China’s historic juncture and developmental stages, such as the primary stage of socialism, the New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and the new stage of development. It embodies the dialectical unity of continuity and distinctive stages as well as the quantitative and qualitative changes in China’s social development, and is of great theoretical and practical significance for its consciously pursuing the developmental laws and the logic of evolution of contemporary China, exercising historical dynamism and taking historical initiative, following social development trends to promote staged leaps forward, and advancing the rule-governed development of Chinese society.