Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (1954)
중화인민공화국 헌법 (1954)
The first constitution of the People’s Republic of China, adopted on 20 September 1954 by the first session of the First National People’s Congress. Its 106 articles cover the preamble, general principles, state structure, the fundamental rights and duties of citizens, and the flag, emblem and capital; building on the Common Program, it wrote the general line for the transition period into the general task of the state. It set up the system of state chairman, National People’s Congress and State Council, and was replaced by the constitution of 1975.
In depth
In December 1952 Zhou Enlai proposed to the CPPCC that a constitution be drafted, and on 13 January 1953 the Central People’s Government Council set up a 33-member drafting committee chaired by Mao Zedong. Stalin had repeatedly advised a constitution: during Liu Shaoqi’s visit in 1949, during Mao’s visit in 1950, and in reply to Liu’s letter of 1952. Mao wrote the draft at West Lake in Hangzhou at the end of 1953 with Chen Boda, Hu Qiaomu and Tian Jiaying, and on 14 June 1954 explained that it rested on the two principles of democracy and socialism. Liu Shaoqi presented the draft on behalf of the drafting committee.
Its core articles read:
第一條 中華人民共和國是工人階級領導的、以工農聯盟為基礎的人民民主國家。
Article 1. The People’s Republic of China is a people’s democratic state led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.
第四條 中華人民共和國依靠國家機關和社會力量，通過社會主義工業化和社會主義改造，保證逐步消滅剝削制度，建立社會主義社會。
Article 4. The People’s Republic of China, by relying on the organs of state and the social forces, and by means of socialist industrialisation and socialist transformation, ensures the gradual abolition of systems of exploitation and the building of a socialist society.
第十條 國家依照法律保護資本家的生產資料所有權和其他資本所有權。
Article 10. The state protects according to law the right of capitalists to own means of production and other capital.
The preamble recorded the “indestructible friendship” with the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies. Mao became chairman of the state, Liu Shaoqi chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and Zhou Enlai premier of the State Council, and the CPPCC handed over its legislative functions. Article 10, protecting capitalists’ ownership, was emptied of content by joint state-private conversion within two years. The present constitution of 1982 is built on this one.