Page 225 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

WE MUST ELIMINATE POVERTY 223
path for the peoples of the Third World, who represent three quarters of the
world’s population, but also—and this is even more important—we shall
have demonstrated to mankind that socialism is the only path and that it is
superior to capitalism.
So, to build socialism it is necessary to develop the productive forces.
Poverty is not socialism. To uphold socialism, a socialism that is to be
superior to capitalism, it is imperative first and foremost to eliminate
poverty. True, we are building socialism, but that doesn’t mean that what we
have achieved so far is up to the socialist standard. Not until the middle of
the next century, when we have reached the level of the moderately
developed countries, shall we be able to say that we have really built socialism
and to declare convincingly that it is superior to capitalism. We are
advancing towards that goal.
In the course of building socialism and trying to modernize we have
encountered some interference from the “Left”. Since the Third Plenary
Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of our Party, we have been
concentrating on combating “Left” mistakes, because those are the ones we
have made in the past. But there has also been interference from the Right.
By that we mean the call for wholesale Westernization, which would lead not
to socialism but to capitalism. We have already coped with the recent
widespread ideological trend in favour of bourgeois liberalization and made
some changes of personnel.
In short, we shall unswervingly follow the road mapped out since that
Plenary Session. We have been marching down this road for more than eight
years. I think there is no doubt that we shall attain the goal we have set for
the end of the century. Although the next goal, for the 50 years after that,
will be harder to reach, I am convinced that we can reach that one too.