Quick questions on Mao and the establishment of the PRC 1949 to 1953: HSC Modern History Personality

The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) met in Beijing from 21 to 30 September 1949. It adopted the Common Program on 29 September 1949 as a provisional constitution. The Common Program defined the PRC as a "people's democratic dictatorship" led by the working class through the CCP, in a bloc of four classes (workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie). Mao was elected Chairman of the Central People's Government Council.

The Agrarian Reform Law of 30 June 1950 generalised the 1947 Outline Land Law to the newly liberated areas. The campaign proceeded village by village through work teams, classification of households into five categories (landlord, rich peasant, middle peasant, poor peasant, hired labourer), struggle sessions (douzheng), and redistribution.

The Campaign to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries (Zhenya fan geming yundong) ran from October 1950 to October 1951. Targets included ex-KMT officials, the Society of Brothers, religious sects, "bandit" remnants, and political opponents. Mao set a quota of approximately 0.1 percent of the population for execution. Yang Kuisong's research, based on Mao's own confidential telegrams, gives about 712,000 executions and around 1.3 million sent to labour reform.

The Sanfan (Three-Anti) Campaign from December 1951 to October 1952 targeted corruption (tan wu), waste (lang fei), and bureaucratism (guan liao zhu yi) within the CCP and the state. Around 4.5 percent of cadres were disciplined.

After two months of negotiation in Moscow (December 1949 to February 1950) Mao secured the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance with Stalin. The treaty provided:

The First Five-Year Plan, launched in 1953 under Premier Zhou Enlai and State Planning Commission chair Gao Gang, was Soviet in design: 156 large capital projects, heavy industry priority, gross industrial output target of 14.7 percent annual growth, agricultural output target of 4.3 percent. The plan was largely successful: industrial output rose 128 percent over the plan period (annual growth about 18 percent); steel rose from 1.35 million tonnes (1952) to 5.35 million tonnes (1957). Agriculture lagged at 24 percent total growth.

The first formal Constitution of the PRC was adopted on 20 September 1954 by the First National People's Congress. Mao became State Chairman; Zhu De Vice Chairman; Liu Shaoqi Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee. The Constitution formally ended the Common Program era.

Maurice Meisner (Mao's China and After, 3rd ed. 1999) gave the canonical periodisation of the 1949 to 1953 consolidation as a coherent New Democracy phase later abandoned for Soviet-style socialism.

The revolution continued through Zhenfan, Sanfan, Wufan, land reform, and collectivisation.

The 156 First Five-Year Plan projects, the engineers, and the loans were structurally important.

Both were purged in 1954, the first major elite purge of the PRC.