People's Republic of China Founded
On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. The announcement marked the Chinese Communist Party's victory in a long civil war and the beginning of one-party rule over the world's most populous country. It reshaped the politics of Asia and the Cold War, and the Party that took power that day still governs China.
The roots of the conflict lay in the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the decades of instability that followed. The Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, gained nominal control of much of the country by the late 1920s, but it soon turned against its Communist partners in a violent purge in 1927. The two sides fought intermittently for years, with the Communists surviving the Long March of 1934-35 and building a base in the northwest. They set aside open war to resist Japan's invasion, which began in full in 1937, though tensions never disappeared.
After Japan's defeat in 1945, fighting resumed in earnest. Attempts at mediation, including efforts by the United States, failed. The Nationalists held more troops and better equipment at first, but they were weakened by wartime exhaustion, severe inflation, corruption, and declining public confidence. The People's Liberation Army, drawing on rural support and land reform promises, won major campaigns in Manchuria and northern and central China in 1948 and 1949. Historians generally stress both Communist organization and Nationalist failures in explaining the outcome, rather than any single cause.
With the mainland largely lost, Chiang Kai-shek and the remnants of his government and army withdrew to Taiwan in late 1949, bringing with them well over a million people by common estimates. The Republic of China continued to exist there, and the two governments each claimed to represent all of China. Fighting and tension across the Taiwan Strait persisted, and the status of Taiwan remains a major international issue today.
On the mainland, the new government moved quickly to consolidate power. It carried out land redistribution, campaigns against perceived enemies, and the reorganization of society and the economy along socialist lines. In 1950 China intervened in the Korean War, and it aligned itself for a time with the Soviet Union. Later campaigns, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, brought immense suffering, while the reforms begun in 1978 opened the way to rapid economic growth.
The founding is commemorated each year as National Day. For supporters, it represents the end of foreign domination and national fragmentation; critics point to the political repression and human cost that accompanied Party rule.