ABSTRACT

In this chapter, I examine the economic bases for China’s legal system in two different historical periods. One is the prereform era, covering the historical period from 1949 to 1978,1 and the other is the reform era after 1978. In the prereform era, doctrinal Marxism was adopted and practiced by the government. Economically, socialist transformations were taken to eradicate various nonpublic ownerships. Ideologically, “Maoist Thought” was praised as the true Marxism appropriate to China’s specific case. As a result, the legal system was used as a tool to serve the interests of the proletarian dictatorship.