Marxist theory on the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure and their motion and development. The idealist conception of history reduced the driving forces of development of society to intellectual forces and was incapable of revealing the true secret of the development of society. The materialist conception of history did not stop at the superficial phenomena of historical development but delved into the interior of society and sought the fundamental contradictions that determine the development of society, and holds that the fundamental contradictions of society are the fundamental driving force of development of society. The theory of the fundamental contradictions of society was put forth by Marx and Engels. The idea of the fundamental contradictions of society was first explained in the book The German Ideology. In 1959, in Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx dealt with the contradictory relations between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure more comprehensively and systematically, and revealed the objective law of development of human society. Lenin has uphold and developed Marx and Engels’ theory of the fundamental contradictions of society and applied it to the practice of socialist revolution. In On Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People and other works, Mao Zedong clearly summarized the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure as the fundamental contradictions of society, and dealt with the nature, characteristics and expression of the fundamental contradictions of society as well as the fundamental guideline for resolving contradictions…
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