Common Programme

The Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (中国人民政治协商会议共同纲领, Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang Huiyi Gongtong Gangling) was adopted on 29 September 1949 by the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beiping (Beijing), one day before Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. Comprising a preamble and 60 articles across seven chapters, it functioned as the provisional or interim constitution of the new state in the absence of a National People's Congress, which had not yet been convened. Drafted chiefly under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with input from allied "democratic parties," it served as the foundational legal-political charter of the PRC from 1949 until the promulgation of the first formal Constitution on 20 September 1954.

The document defined the new state as a "people's democratic dictatorship" (人民民主专政) led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance, uniting workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie — the political content of Mao's theory of "New Democracy." Article 1 declared the PRC a state opposing imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism. It vested supreme power in the People's Congresses and, pending their establishment, conferred that authority on the CPPCC plenary session, with the Central People's Government Council exercising state power between sessions. Other chapters addressed military policy, economic policy (recognising state, cooperative, private-capitalist, individual and state-capitalist sectors), cultural and educational policy, and a foreign policy of solidarity with the Soviet bloc — the "lean to one side" (一边倒) orientation. Notably, it guaranteed equality among nationalities and regional autonomy for minority areas, an early statement of the principle later codified in the 1954 Constitution.

The Common Programme was the legal basis for the consolidation of CCP rule in the early 1950s, framing the Land Reform Law (1950), the Marriage Law (1950), and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries. Its transitional character ended once socialist construction accelerated: the 1954 Constitution, adopted by the First National People's Congress on 20 September 1954, replaced it, institutionalising the NPC as the supreme organ of state power and reducing the CPPCC to a united-front advisory body — a status it retains in 2026 under the current 1982 Constitution. The Common Programme is thus remembered as the constitutional bridge between the revolutionary seizure of power and the formal state architecture of socialist China.

For competitive examinations, the Common Programme appears squarely in China modern history and China political system papers, and in comparative-government and international-relations sections of UPSC, FSOT and CSS syllabi. Typical question angles ask candidates to identify it as the PRC's interim constitution, to date it (1949) against the first formal Constitution (1954), to explain its embodiment of "New Democracy" and "people's democratic dictatorship," and to trace the evolving role of the CPPCC from quasi-legislature to advisory organ. Examiners frequently test the distinction between the CPPCC and the NPC, making precise dating and institutional sequencing essential.