Continuity and Novelty Features in the Economic Policy of Five Generations of the PRC Leadership

After founding of the PRC in 1949 the economic policy of the country was formed by five generations of the Chinese leader. The program of “new democracy” and gradual socialist transformations, put forward initially, was interrupted by “accelerated construction of socialism”, by “the great leap forward and people’s communes”, and then — by decade of the “cultural revolution”. The new economic start initiated after putting forward the task of building “socialism with Chinese specifics”, requiring to follow the principle of “practice — criterion of truth”. “The center of gravity” in the party and state work shifted to economic construction, and in the subsequent more than 35 years of reforms social and economic course of the Chinese leadership was remaining consistent, being supplemented only by “creative discoveries” of the new generation of leaders.