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) was adopted on 29 September 1949 by the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC in Beiping (Beijing), one day before the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. Functioning as a provisional constitution, it filled the constitutional vacuum left by the collapse of the Nationalist (Guomindang) Republic and the absence of an elected National People's Congress. Drafted under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party with Zhou Enlai overseeing the process, the document carried legal supremacy until it was superseded by the first formal Constitution of the PRC adopted on 20 September 1954. Alongside it, the same session passed the Organic Law of the CPPCC and the Organic Law of the Central People's Government, establishing the institutional scaffolding of the new state.
The Programme codified the doctrine of New Democracy (新民主主义) articulated by Mao Zedong in his 1940 essay and his June 1949 work "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship." Its General Principles defined the state as a "people's democratic dictatorship" led by the working class, based on the alliance of workers and peasants, and uniting all democratic classes — including the national bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie — within the four-class bloc symbolised by the four small stars on the national flag. It was explicitly transitional and not yet socialist: it protected private property and lawful private capital while reserving the commanding heights for the state. The 60 articles across seven chapters covered state organs, military affairs, economic policy, cultural and educational policy, nationalities (minzu) policy, and foreign relations. It guaranteed regional autonomy for minority nationalities, proclaimed equality of the sexes, abolished extraterritorial privileges, and committed the new state to "leaning to one side" toward the Soviet-led socialist camp in foreign affairs.
In practice the Common Programme legitimised the early consolidation measures of the PRC: the Agrarian Reform Law of June 1950, the Marriage Law of 1950, the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, and the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns. The CPPCC itself, having served as the provisional supreme organ of state power before the convening of the National People's Congress, was demoted in 1954 to a united-front advisory body — the role it nominally retains in 2026 as the principal organ of "socialist consultative democracy." The Programme's transitional logic ended when the CCP announced the General Line for the Transition to Socialism in 1953, accelerating collectivisation and the nationalisation that the 1954 Constitution would formalise.
For the examination, this term arises chiefly in modern Chinese history and comparative-government papers. UPSC and FSOT candidates should be able to distinguish the Common Programme (provisional, 1949, New Democracy, multi-class) from the 1954 Constitution (formal, socialist transition, single-class leadership). The favoured question angle tests its dual significance: as the founding constitutional instrument of the PRC and as the legal embodiment of Mao's New Democracy theory, while noting that the CPPCC's brief exercise of sovereign authority preceded its later purely consultative function.
Example
In 1950 the People's Republic enacted its Agrarian Reform Law and Marriage Law under the authority of the Common Programme, which served as China's provisional constitution until the 1954 Constitution replaced it.
Frequently asked questions
It was adopted on 29 September 1949 by the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC, one day before the PRC's proclamation on 1 October 1949. It was superseded by the first formal Constitution of the PRC, adopted by the National People's Congress on 20 September 1954.