Proclamation of the People's Republic of China


The founding of the People's Republic of China was formally proclaimed by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, on October 1, 1949 at 3:00 pm in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the new capital of China.
The first public parade of the then new People's Liberation Army took place there, following the chairman's address of the formal foundation of the people's republic. Before this, as the new national anthem March of the Volunteers was played, the new national flag of the People's Republic of China was officially unveiled to the newly founded nation and hoisted for the first time during the celebrations as a 21-gun salute fired in the distance.

Historical Background

The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang -led government of the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China lasting intermittently between 1927 and 1949. The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude: from August 1927 to 1937, the KMT-CPC Alliance collapsed during the Northern Expedition, and the Nationalists controlled most of China. From 1937 to 1945, hostilities were put on hold, and the Second United Front fought the Japanese invasion of China with eventual help from the World War II Allies. The civil war resumed with the Japanese defeat, and the CPC gained the upper hand in the final phase of the war from 1945-1949, generally referred to as the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the Communist Party in control of most of mainland China, and the Kuomintang retreating offshore, reducing its territory to only Taiwan, Hainan, and their surrounding islands. On 21 September 1949, Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China with a speech at the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This was followed by a mass celebration in Tiananmen Square on 1 October, at which the proclamation was made publicly by Mao at the Tiananmen Gate, the date becoming the new country's first National Day.

Declaration

At exactly 3:00pm Beijing Time on 1 October 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong pronounced to the nation from the top of the Tiananmen Gate:
After the national anthem had been played, Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China that day on top of the Tiananmen Gate, declaring:

Celebrations

The first National Day military parade took place right after the proclamation of the PRC. Commanded by Nie Rongzhen, the Commander of the Northern China Military Region and inspected by Zhu De, the Commander-in-Chief of the PLA, the parade involved around 16,000 PLA officers and personnel. The parade, which was approved in June 1949, was the first large-scale and modern Chinese military parade, with the country having never done a public review of troops before under previous governments. Liu Bocheng proposed to parade directors Yang Chengwu and Tang Yanjie be organized in the Soviet format, having personally witnessed a military parade on Red Square in Moscow. The Northern Military Region Band provided musical accompaniment which included the ''Military Anthem of the People's Liberation Army’'.

In Popular Culture

Films depicting the proclamation of the People's Republic of China: