I
We say that what marks the transformation in the nature of the revolution, the basic conclusion of the stage of the new-democratic revolution and the beginning of the stage of the socialist revolution, is the change in political power, the downfall of the Kuomintang counterrevolutionary regime and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This does not mean that the great task of socialist transformation could be undertaken immediately in all aspects throughout the country right after the establishment of the People’s Republic.
No, at that time we still had to resolve the contradiction between feudalism and democracy—that is, between the landlords and the peasants—across the vast rural areas.
At that time, the principal contradiction in the countryside was between feudalism and democracy, not between capitalism and socialism. Therefore, it was necessary to spend two to three years carrying out land reform in the rural areas.
At that time, on the one hand, we implemented democratic land reform in the countryside; on the other hand, in the cities we immediately set about taking over the bureaucratic capitalist enterprises and turning them into socialist enterprises, establishing a socialist state bank, and simultaneously began building socialist state-run commerce and cooperative commerce nationwide. Moreover, in the preceding years we had already started implementing measures of state capitalism with regard to private capitalist enterprises.
All this reveals the intricate and complex picture of the first few years of our country’s transition period.

II
The period from the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the basic completion of socialist transformation is a transition period.
The Party’s general line and general task for this transition period are to gradually realize the country’s socialist industrialization over a fairly long period of time, and to gradually realize the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts, and capitalist industry and commerce by the state.
This general line is the beacon illuminating all our work; wherever we deviate from it in our work, we shall commit Rightist or “Leftist” errors.

III
The essence of the Party’s general line for the transition period is to make the socialist ownership of the means of production the sole economic foundation of our country and society. [2]
We must do this because only by completing the transition from private ownership of the means of production to socialist ownership can we facilitate the rapid development of the social productive forces, bring about a technical revolution, change the situation in which the vast majority of our social economy employs simple and backward tools and farm implements for work into one in which all kinds of machines, up to the most advanced ones, are used, and thereby achieve the large-scale production of a variety of industrial and agricultural goods to meet the ever-growing needs of the people, raise their living standards, reliably strengthen our national defense capabilities, oppose imperialist aggression, and ultimately consolidate the people’s political power and prevent a counterrevolutionary restoration.
To accomplish this task, it will take roughly three five-year plans, or about fifteen years (counting from 1953, to be basically completed by 1967; adding the three years of economic recovery, that makes eighteen years, of which four have already passed). By then China can basically be built into a great socialist country.

Printed based on the Compilation of Reading Materials for Socialist Education Courses (Volume I) published by the People’s Publishing House in December 1957.

Notes
[1] These are three passages added or revised by Mao Zedong while reviewing the draft of the Propaganda Outline for the Study and Publicity of the Party’s General Line for the Transition Period, titled “Strive to Mobilize All Forces to Build Our Country into a Great Socialist Country,” prepared by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee.
Mao Zedong began to put forward the Party’s general line for the transition period in the latter half of 1952. A relatively complete formulation was presented at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on June 15, 1953, and it was formally written into Zhou Enlai’s concluding remarks at the 1953 National Financial and Economic Work Conference in August.
Passage II is Mao Zedong’s final revised formulation of the general line for the transition period.
[2] This sentence was originally in the draft of the Propaganda Outline for the Study and Publicity of the Party’s General Line for the Transition Period submitted for review by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee.