The CPC’s Century-Long Exploration ofa Socialist Ownership System

Abstract

Throughout its century-long history, the Communist Party of China (CPC) hasbeen striving to explore and implement an ownership system of the means of production.Upon its founding in 1921, the Party envisioned to create a sole ownership system after thevictory of the National Revolution. In war times, land issues dominated the agenda of theParty’s work on the ownership structure since most of its bases and liberated areas werein the countryside. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinaestablished a basic socialist economic system through “one industrialization and threetransformations,” i.e. socialist industrialization and the transformations of agriculture,artisanal production, and capitalist industry and commerce. This nascent socialist economicsystem was characterized by the sole public ownership of the means of production and ahighly centralized planned economy. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, the Partytook bold steps to explore and reform the socialist ownership system under the principle tokeep public ownership as the mainstay and allow diverse forms of ownership to develop sideby side. In the new era, the Party has redefined China’s basic socialist economic system bycreating a mixed ownership structure at two levels with public ownership as the mainstay.China’s increasing economic vitality and dynamism have witnessed the exploration andgrowth of this mixed ownership system.