Chinas Path to Socialist Industry | Generated by AI
Question: What was the transitional form adopted by China for the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce?
A. Mutual aid teams
B. Primary agricultural cooperatives
C. Advanced agricultural cooperatives
D. State capitalism
Your answer: A
Correct answer: D
Answer:
The correct answer is D. State capitalism.
Explanation:
During the period of socialist transformation in the early years of the People’s Republic of China (mainly 1953–1956), the Party and government adopted different strategies for transforming agriculture, handicrafts, and capitalist industry and commerce.
- For agriculture, the transitional forms were:
- Mutual aid teams (互助组) → Primary cooperatives (初级社) → Advanced cooperatives (高级社) → People’s communes (later).
- For capitalist industry and commerce, China did not directly expropriate private enterprises through confiscation (except for bureaucratic capital). Instead, it implemented a gradual policy of “using, restricting, and transforming” private capitalism, and carried out the transformation mainly through various forms of state capitalism (国家资本主义).
The main transitional path was:
Low-level state capitalism → Higher-level state capitalism → Full socialist transformation (public-private partnership → joint state-private ownership → wholly state-owned).
Typical forms included:
- Processing orders / contracted processing
- Exclusive purchasing and selling
- Commissioned sales / commissioned processing
- Joint state-private enterprises (公私合营)
- Whole-industry joint state-private enterprises (全行业公私合营)
This policy of peaceful redemption through state capitalism was a distinctive feature of China’s socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce, different from the Soviet Union’s approach of direct nationalization.
Therefore, the transitional form specifically used for the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce was state capitalism (国家资本主义), which corresponds to option D.
Options A, B, and C all refer to forms used in the agricultural cooperation movement, not in the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce.
References:
- 中共中央文献研究室. 建国以来重要文献选编（第4册）
- Standard Chinese modern history / socialist transformation textbooks (e.g., higher education teaching materials on the history of the Communist Party of China)