Why Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Is a Road That Spans the "Caudine Forks"

With the courage to break new ground and the commitment to self-innovation, the Chinese people have blazed a trail across the "Caudine Forks" of capitalism, which is the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics. To cross the "Caudine Forks" means to avoid all the disastrous twists and turns brought about by the capitalist system, while fully absorbing and utilizing all the positive fruits of capitalism. In China, this leapfrogging process can be divided into two stages: the first stage is the period of planned economy, with public ownership as the basis and planning as the means to complete industrialization and lay a material foundation for socialism with Chinese characteristics; the second stage is the period of reform and opening up, during which we have been vigorously introducing advanced western technologies, learning from the advanced western experience and constantly emancipating the productive forces. It was precisely because of his profound understanding of the disadvantages of capitalism that Marx emphasized that Russia and other backward countries in the east should not go through the sufferings of capitalism, but should take the road of leapfrogging. Unfortunately, the collapse of the former Soviet Union made it fall down on the road of crossing, and the Soviet Union no longer had a chance to complete the second stage of crossing the "Caudine Forks" of capitalism. China's reform and opening up is a higher level leap in the new era, for which we have been absorbing all the achievements of civilization created by capitalism and making them serve the socialist construction with Chinese characteristics.