The Founding Ceremony of the PRC

The Founding Ceremony of the PRC——中华人民共和国开国大典

The founding ceremony of the PRC was a grand event to celebrate the establishment of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China.

After the First Opium War broke out in 1840, the Western powers invaded China. The corrupt feudal rule could not put up a fight, and China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal state. The people lived in misery and suffered immeasurably due to frequent war. In 1921, amid volatile social movements and fueled by the Chinese people’s fight against feudal rule and foreign aggression, the CPC was born by integrating Marxism-Leninism with the Chinese workers’ movement.

In this great fight, the Chinese Communists, represented by Mao Zedong, applied the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism in China’s revolutionary activities, and led the Chinese people onto the path to success for the Chinese revolution-encircling the cities from the countryside and seizing power by armed force. With 28 years of strenuous struggle, the Chinese people defeated Japanese aggressors, toppled the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, overthrew imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, and completed the New Democratic Revolution, eventually founding the People’s Republic of China. 

Preparatory work on the PRC's founding was undertaken by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The First Plenary Session of the CPPCC held in Beiping on September 21-30, 1949 adopted the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, stipulating the state system, political system, and basic guidelines and policies of the PRC. The document served as an interim constitution for a period of time. At the conference it was decided to make Beiping, now renamed Beijing, capital of the People's Republic, adopt the common era calendar, declare the song March of the Volunteers as the national anthem, and designate the Five-Starred Red Flag as the national flag. It also elected a Central People's Government Council, with Mao Zedong as chairman, Zhu De, Li Shaoqi, Soong Ching Ling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan, and Gao Gang as vice chairpersons, and Zhou Enlai and 55 others as members of the Council. The Central People's Government Council held its first session on October 1 and made the decision of proclaiming the establishment of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China.

At 3 pm on October 1, 1949, more than 300,000 people gathered in Tian’anmen Square to witness the grand founding ceremony. On that day, Chairman Mao Zedong solemnly proclaimed the formal establishment of the People's Republic of China. While the military band played March of the Volunteers, the first Five-Starred Flag was raised. This was followed by a military review and civilian procession. October 1 was thus made the National Day of the PRC.

The founding of the PRC firmly consigned to the past the previous semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and the state of disunity of old China.It abrogated the unequal treaties imposed on China by Western powers and ended all the privileges of imperialism in the country. It helped China achieve a great leap in transferring from feudal autocracy to the people's democratic system. From this point forward China entered a new era in its history where the people are masters of the country, and the nation entered a new era of development and progress.