Mao proclaimed the PRC from Tiananmen in 1949
On 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic after Communist victory in the civil war. The Republic of China retreated to Taiwan. Paramount leaders from Mao through Xi Jinping have steered a state now shaped by reform, opening, and centralized power.
Roots include the Chinese Soviet Republic (1931–1937) in Jiangxi and Yan’an. By 1949 the CCP held most of the mainland; in 1950 it took Hainan and annexed Tibet. Land reform redistributed plots to peasants while state-tolerated killings of landlords numbered an estimated one to two million. Population rose from about 550 million in 1950 to 900 million by 1974. The Great Leap Forward’s crash industrialization is linked to roughly 15–55 million deaths from starvation between 1959 and 1961. China tested its first atomic bomb in 1964. Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) brought a decade of upheaval.
After Mao’s death Hua Guofeng arrested the Gang of Four. Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 reform and opening shifted China from planned economy; the 1982 constitution remains in force. 1989 protests, including Tiananmen Square, preceded Jiang Zemin’s leadership and roughly sevenfold economic growth. Hong Kong returned from Britain in 1997 and Macau from Portugal in 1999 under one country, two systems; WTO entry followed in 2001. Hu Jintao’s years saw China become the world’s second-largest economy. Xi Jinping, paramount since 2012, launched an anti-corruption drive that prosecuted more than two million officials by 2022.
Early campaigns—Suppression of Counter-revolutionaries, Three-anti and Five-anti, Sufan—claimed large death tolls; over a million executions are reported in the counterrevolutionary drive alone. The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist campaigns (1957–1958) persecuted at least 550,000 people, mostly intellectuals, entrenching one-party rule. The Two Bombs, One Satellite program, begun in 1958, delivered atomic and hydrogen weapons, missiles, and a satellite by 1970 despite Leap and Cultural Revolution disruption.
Source: History of the People's Republic of China
