ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a broad outline of the reforms undertaken to restructure the economy. The debate over economic structural reform was sparked by the publication of an article in the Guangming Daily in May 1978 which announced that practice was the sole criterion for determining truth. The scientific and technological revolutions that took place after the Second World War socialized the productive labor of various countries and strengthened the trend towards a unitary world economy. Reform of the economic structure in China began in earnest after a party central committee meeting in October 1984. As economic recovery depended to a large extent on agriculture, reform was focused primarily on the rural areas, beginning with the dismantling of communes in favor of private plots and free markets. China's efforts to create a modern socialism include three interpenetrating, interacting aspects: building a materialist civilization, a spiritual civilization, and an institutional civilization.
