The Historical Evolution And Basic Experiences Of China’s Five-Year Plan

The Five-Year Plan is an important policy tool for the CPC to make its ruling mission and goals specific,practical and epochal,and also a clear manifestation of the superiority of the socialist system.Since the formulation of the first Five-Year Plan in 1951,China has completed the compilation and implementation of 13 Five-Year plans,and the implementation of the 14 th Five-Year Plan has begun.In the course of more than 70 years,the CPC has made continuous efforts to adapt and improve the Five-Year Plan,which has become an important policy system for clarifying the country’s overall strategic goals,clarifying the government’s priorities for economic and social development,and guiding and regulating the behavior of society and market entities.From the theoretical origin,planning has always been regarded as the distinctive feature and means of development of socialist society,whether it is the idea of Utopian socialists,the discourse of Marx and Engels,or the application of it in practice by Lenin and Stalin.Since the founding of The People’s Republic of China in 1949,the CPC has followed the guidance of Marxist theory,absorbed the useful results of Marxist writers’ explorations on planned economy,and formulated and implemented development plans in light of China’s specific realities and local conditions,thus achieving world-renowned achievements in China’s economic and social development.These achievements have been achieved step by step under the guidance of clear long-term goals and phase goals.According to the different development stages of China’s socialist construction and reform,the Five-Year Plan can be divided into three periods: The Five-Year Plan during the planned economic system period:the first five-year plan--the fifth five-year plan;The Five-Year Plan during the period of economic system transformation: the sixth five-year Plan--the tenth five-year Plan;The Five-Year Plan for perfecting the socialist market economic system: the eleventh five-year Plan--the fourteenth five-year plan.Focusing on the realization of specific phased goals,the Five-Year Plan in different periods have promoted theoretical development,practical progress and institutional improvement in each stage of development.Practice is the source and driving force of understanding.The development of the Five-Year Plan shows regular evolution characteristics: the nature of the Five-Year Plan has changed from mandatory plans to macro-strategic plans with both guidance and constraint;The goal of the Five-Year Plan has changed from realizing social industrialization to the Four Modernizations,and then to building a well-off society and a modern socialist country in an all-round way.The content of the Five-Year Plan changed from focusing on economic development to "five-in-one" comprehensive development of economy,politics,culture,society and ecology.The process of planning and decision-making has changed from internal collective decision-making to multi-subject participatory decision-making under the leadership of the CPC,and the planning system has changed from a single economic plan to coordination and linkage of all levels and types of planning.And behind these evolution features contains the Five-Year Plan unique basic experience.Behind these evolving features lies the unique experience of the CPC leading the people in governing the country.These basic lessons are mainly reflected in : we always adhere to the centralized and unified leadership,adhere to the central committee of the people’s yearning for a better life for the ultimate pursuit,adhere to the latest theoretical achievements in adapting Marxism to guide,to respect the objective law of economic and social development as the basic principle,adhere to the system innovation to promote the development of the basic safeguard.By looking at history as a mirror,one can see the rise and fall.We should be good at drawing lessons from history,provide reference for the continuous improvement of the Five-Year Plan,and offer Chinese wisdom and solutions for world development.