Founding of the PRC (1949)

From Civil War Victory to Statehood

The People's Republic of China (PRC) was proclaimed by Mao Zedong from the Tiananmen rostrum in Beijing on 1 October 1949, the culmination of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) victory in the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (1946–1949). The military decision came in three campaigns of 1948–1949: the Liaoshen Campaign (September–November 1948) secured Manchuria; the Huaihai Campaign (November 1948–January 1949) destroyed Nationalist (Kuomintang, KMT) field armies in the central plains; and the Pingjin Campaign (December 1948–January 1949) delivered Beijing (then Beiping) and Tianjin. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) crossed the Yangtze on 21 April 1949 and took the KMT capital Nanjing on 23 April 1949. Chiang Kai-shek's government retreated to Taiwan in December 1949.

Mao's Doctrinal Framing

The ideological architecture of the new state was set out in advance. On 30 June 1949 Mao published "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (论人民民主专政), which defined the regime as a dictatorship of a coalition led by the working class (through the CCP) and based on the worker–peasant alliance, exercised over the "reactionary" classes. The essay announced the policy of "leaning to one side" (一边倒) — alignment with the Soviet Union in the emerging Cold War. This doctrine reconciled the United Front strategy (broad class coalition) with single-party CCP supremacy, and it pre-scripted the constitutional language adopted that autumn.

The CPPCC and the Common Programme

State-building was formalised through the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, 中国人民政治协商会议), convened in Beijing on 21 September 1949 with 662 delegates representing the CCP, the eight legally tolerated "democratic parties," mass organisations, and regional and minority groups. In the absence of an elected legislature, the CPPCC functioned as a provisional National People's Congress. Between 21 and 30 September 1949 it adopted three founding instruments: the Common Programme of the CPPCC (中国人民政治协商会议共同纲领), which served as the interim constitution until 1954; the Organic Law of the Central People's Government; and the Organic Law of the CPPCC. It also fixed the national symbols — Beijing as capital, the March of the Volunteers as the (provisional) national anthem, and the five-star red flag.

The Common Programme described China as a "New Democracy," preserving a mixed economy and a multi-class coalition rather than immediate socialism. The CPPCC elected the Central People's Government Council with Mao Zedong as Chairman and named Zhou Enlai as Premier and concurrently Foreign Minister of the Government Administration Council. The Soviet Union recognised the PRC on 2 October 1949, the first state to do so, confirming the "lean to one side" orientation that would be sealed by the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance of 14 February 1950.

Why This Matters for the Exam

For the Guokao Modern History component, 1949 is a hinge date that anchors both factual-recall items (单选/多选) and analytical 简答/论述 questions. Examiners expect candidates to distinguish three things with precision: the founding event (1 October 1949), the interim constitutional order (the Common Programme of September 1949, NOT the 1954 PRC Constitution), and the institutional body that exercised provisional sovereignty (the CPPCC acting in lieu of the NPC until the First NPC convened in September 1954). A recurring PYQ trap conflates the Common Programme with the 1954 Constitution, or credits the National People's Congress with founding the state — both are wrong. High-yield retention items: Mao's "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (30 June 1949) and its "lean to one side" line; the CPPCC's 662 delegates and three organic documents; Soviet recognition on 2 October 1949 and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 14 February 1950. Shenlun-style essays favour candidates who can connect the founding to the doctrine of New Democracy and the United Front.

Early State Consolidation, 1949–1952

The new state moved rapidly to consolidate control. The Agrarian Reform Law (中华人民共和国土地改革法), promulgated on 30 June 1950, abolished landlord landownership across the newly liberated regions, redistributing land to roughly 300 million peasants and destroying the gentry class as a political base. Politically, the Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries (镇压反革命运动, 1950–1951) eliminated organised KMT remnants, secret societies, and bandits.

The Korean War intervention is inseparable from consolidation. After UN forces approached the Yalu, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army entered Korea on 19 October 1950 under Peng Dehuai; the "Resist America, Aid Korea" campaign (抗美援朝) mobilised the population and welded national unity to the regime. Economically, the Three-Anti Campaign (三反, 1951, targeting corruption, waste and bureaucratism within the party-state) and the Five-Anti Campaign (五反, 1952, targeting the urban bourgeoisie's bribery, tax evasion, fraud, theft of state property and economic intelligence) brought the private commercial sector under state discipline.

Territorial and Administrative Reach

The PRC extended control to the periphery: the PLA entered Tibet following the Chamdo operation (October 1950) and the Seventeen-Point Agreement of 23 May 1951. By the end of 1952, inflation — which had crippled the KMT — was tamed through the unified fiscal measures of 1950 and the introduction of price-stabilisation campaigns directed by Chen Yun. These years of New Democracy were transitional; the formal turn to socialist transformation came with the General Line for the Transition Period (1953) and the First Five-Year Plan (1953–1957), the subject of the next lesson.