History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)
The time period in China from the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 until Mao's death in 1976 is commonly known as Maoist China and Red China. The history of the People's Republic of China is often divided distinctly by historians into the Mao era and the post-Mao era. The country's Mao era lasted from the founding of the People's republic on October 1, 1949 to Deng Xiaoping's consolidation of power and policy reversal at the Third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on December 22, 1978. The Mao era focuses on Mao Zedong's social movements from the early 1950s on, including land reform, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Great Chinese Famine, one of the worst famines in human history, occurred during this era.
1949: Proclamation of the People's Republic of China
The First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference opened in Beijing on September 21, 1949. It consisted of 662 delegates from diverse backgrounds, including the CPC, various democratic parties, people's organizations, the People's Liberation Army, different ethnic groups, and overseas Chinese. In his opening speech, Mao Zedong famously proclaimed that "the Chinese people, comprising one-quarter of humanity, have now stood up."The CPPCC unanimously adopted the Common Program as the basic political program for the country following the Chinese Communist Party's victory in the Chinese Civil War. The conference also made several historic decisions regarding the symbols of the new republic: it designated Beijing as the capital, adopted the Gregorian calendar, selected the Five-Star Red Flag as the national flag and "March of the Volunteers" as the provisional national anthem.
The founding of the People's Republic of China was formally proclaimed by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, on October 1, 1949, at 3:00 pm in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The establishment of the Central People's Government of the PRC, the government of the new nation, was officially declared during the proclamation speech at the founding ceremony. A military parade took place during the foundation ceremony.
Early 1950s: Social revolution
The People's Republic of China was founded on a land that was ravaged by a century of foreign invasion and civil wars. Both urban and rural communities, as well as both agriculture and industry, experienced significant growth between 1949 and 1959. Mao's government carried out land reform, instituted collectivisation and implemented the laogai camp system.In 1949, Mao Zedong declared that the nation would "lean to one side", meaning that the Soviet Union and the communist bloc would be its principal allies. Three months after the PRC was established in October 1949, Mao and his delegation traveled to Moscow. They were not received warmly by Stalin, who doubted if they really were Marxist-Leninists and not simply a group of Chinese nationalists. He had also recognized Chiang Kai-Shek's government, and furthermore distrusted any communist movement that was not under his direct control. After a meeting with Mao, the Soviet leader remarked "What sort of a man is Mao? He seems to have some idea of revolution involving the peasants, but not the workers." Eventually, a frustrated Mao was ready to go home, but Zhou Enlai refused to leave without a formal agreement. Thus, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Friendship was signed and the Chinese at last departed in February 1950.
Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries
According to Chinese historians, between January and October 1950, there were over 800 counter-revolutionary riots nationwide, and that more than 40,000 political activists and masses of cadres were killed as a result. The government alleged that in Guangxi Province alone, counter-revolutionaries burned and destroyed more than 25,000 buildings and robbed over 200,000 head of cattle.In July and October 1950, instructions were issued to emphasize the policy of "Combining Suppression with Leniency". This strategy followed the principle: "The chief criminals must be punished, those who were coerced shall go unpunished, and those who perform meritorious service shall be rewarded". On February 21, 1951, the government officially promulgated the "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Punishment of Counter-revolutionaries. The campaign focused primarily on eliminating underground KMT agents, and also on eliminating secret societies, criminal gangs, and religious sects.
By the time the large-scale movement concluded in late 1951, the authorities had solved over 600 major spy cases and brought to justice the executioners responsible for the deaths of famous revolutionaries like Li Dazhao and Zhao Yiman.
Economic and social reforms
At the time of the PRC's founding in 1949, land reform had not yet been carried out in areas comprising about two-thirds of the national territory, home to a rural population of approximately 290 million people. Poor peasants and farm laborers, who accounted for over 57% of rural households, owned only about 14% of the arable land. In June 1950, Liu Shaoqi presented a report on land reform issues at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th CPC Central Committee. Subsequently, on June 30, 1950, Chairman Mao Zedong signed the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China. By 1953, land reform had been completed in mainland China with the exception of Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, and Sichuan. The campaign resulted in hundreds of millions of peasants receiving a plot of land for the first time. Approximately 300 million peasants who had little or no land received about 700 million mu of land, along with other means of production such as draft animals and tools confiscated from landlords.File:Prior_to_execution_in_China_in_the_early_1950s,_from-_Real_Story_of_Red_China_Land_Reform_-_NARA_-_5730064_.jpg|thumb|300x300px|A wealthy farmer in front a Chinese Communist "people's court" in Fogang County, Guangdong Province on July 23, 1952
The state confiscated enterprises owned by the "four big families". By 1952, the state economy controlled vital sectors, including 80% of heavy industry, 100% of railways, and the entire banking system. By 1952, China's state-owned enterprises accounted for more than 40% of industrial production. By 1952 price stability had been established, commerce had been restored, and industry and agriculture had regained their previous peak levels of production. By 1953, China had rapidly recovered its economy.
The new Marriage Law was passed on April 13, 1950, being the first basic law enacted by the People's Republic of China. It strictly prohibited arranged or forced marriages, the superiority of men over women, and the neglect of children's interests. The law also banned bigamy, concubinage, and child brides.
The government took drastic measures to shut down brothels and ban opium and gambling. On 21 November 1949, all 224 of Beijing's establishments were shut down; 1286 prostitutes and 434 owners, procurers, and pimps were arrested in the space of 12 hours by an estimated 2400 cadres. Nationwide, more than 8,400 brothels were shutdown. By 1952, the drug problem—a scourge for a century—was essentially eradicated through a combination of strict enforcement and rehabilitation.
The Thought Reform Movement began in September 1951, following a speech by premier Zhou Enlai calling for intellectuals to reform their thought. The People's Daily called for teachers and college staff to "arm oneself with the thought of Marxism–Leninism" and to "throw away the vulgar perspectives of individualism and liberalism, and the cultural thought of European-American reactionary bourgeoisie". Mao Zedong officially endorsed the movement in October 1951, stating that "ideological remolding, especially of all types of intellectuals, is one of the important conditions for our country to realize democratic reform and industrialization". By the end of 1952, the movement had spread from Beijing and Tianjin to the entire country, involving the fields of culture, art, and science. Intellectuals were organized into various forms of study activities to learn political theories and the new state's policie, they were also required to examine their past actions and thoughts publicly, admitting to "incorrect" class stances or "bourgeois" tendencies.
The Three-Anti campaign officially began in December 1951, emerging from the broader "Increase Production and Practice Economy" movement that had been initiated to support the national effort in the Korean War. As the government pushed for austerity, they discovered widespread malpractice within the state apparatus. This campaign specifically targeted members of the Communist Party, government officials, and workers in state factories. Its primary goals were to oppose corruption, waste, and bureaucracy. By the time the movement concluded in October 1952, approximately 1.2 million people had been investigated, and over 100,000 were disciplined for varying degrees of corruption. Building directly on the revelations of the Three-Anti campaign, the government launched the Five-Anti campaign in January 1952. Investigations into corrupt officials had frequently exposed illegal dealings with private business owners, prompting a need to regulate the "national bourgeoisie". This second movement targeted private industrial and commercial sectors to eliminate five specific "poisons": bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, and the theft of state economic information. The government mobilized the working class to supervise their employers, uniting with law-abiding capitalists while isolating and punishing the "law-breaking" elements who had exploited the state’s resources during the war effort.
New Democracy
After 1949, China operated under the "Common Program," which established New Democracy as the political basis for building the country. This stage aimed to complete the first step of the revolution: transforming a backward agricultural, semi-colonial, and semi-feudal country into an independent industrial one, creating the necessary material and cultural prerequisites before advancing to socialism. The New Democratic economy was characterized by the simultaneous coexistence of five economic sectors: the state-owned economy, the cooperative economy, the private capitalist economy, the individual economy, and the state-capitalist economy.Originally, Chinese leaders anticipated that the New Democracy period would last a long time to build national strength. The overall strategy was summarized by the slogan "three years of preparation, ten years of construction". Mao Zedong remarked in 1949 that the transition to socialism might require 20 to 30 years. Liu Shaoqi, in reports from 1951, emphasized the task was to "struggle for the consolidation of the New Democratic system" and viewed the transition to socialism as a matter for the distant future, at least after ten years of industrial construction.
Despite the initial plan to maintain New Democracy for the long term, Mao Zedong changed his mind starting in the autumn of 1952. Mao feared that a prolonged New Democratic system would allow the private capitalist economy and the "spontaneous tendencies" of peasants toward capitalism to grow too strong, making later socialist transformation more difficult. As a result, he decided to begin the transition to socialism immediately rather than waiting 10–15 years.