In the year 1949, after more than a century of heroic struggle, the Chinese people, led by the Communist Party of China, finally won their great victory in the people's revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and thereby brought to an end the history of the oppression and enslavement they had undergone for so long and founded the People's Republic of China - a people's democratic dictatorship. The system of people's democracy - the system of new democracy - of the People's Republic of China guarantees that our country can in a peaceful way eliminate exploitation and poverty and build a prosperous and happy socialist society.

From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the attainment of a socialist society is a period of transition. The general tasks of the state during the transition period are, step by step, to bring about the socialist industrialization of the country and, step by step, to accomplish the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce. In the last few years our people have successfully carried out the reform of the agrarian system, resistance to United States aggression and aid to Korea, the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, the rehabilitation of the national economy, and other large-scale struggles, thereby preparing the necessary conditions for planned economic construction and the gradual transition to a socialist society.

The First National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, at its First Session held in Peking, the capital, solemnly adopted the Constitution of the People's Republic of China on March 20, 1953. This Constitution is based on the Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of 1949 and is a development of it. This Constitution consolidates the gains of the Chinese people's revolution and the new victories won in the political and economic fields since the founding of the People's 'Republic of China; and, moreover, it reflects the basic needs of the state in the period of transition, as well as the common desire of the broad masses of the people to build a socialist society.

In the course of the great struggle to establish the People's Republic of China, the people of our country forged a broad people's democratic united front led by the Communist Party of China and composed of all democratic classes, democratic parties and groups, and people's organizations. This people's democratic united front will continue to play its part in mobilizing and rallying the whole people in the struggle to fulfil the general tasks of the state during the transition period and to oppose enemies within and without.

All the nationalities in our country have been united in one great family of free and equal nationalities. The unity of our country's nationalities will continue to gain in strength on the basis of the further development of the fraternal bonds and mutual aid among them, and on the basis of opposition to imperialism, opposition to public enemies within their own ranks, and opposition to both big-nation chauvinism and local nationalism. In the course of economic construction and cultural development, the state will concern itself with the needs of the different nationalities, and, in the matter of socialist transformation, pay full attention to the special characteristics in the development of each nationality.

Our country has already built an indestructible friendship with the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Democracies; and the friendship between our people and other peace-loving peoples all over the world is growing day by day. These friendships will continue to be developed and consolidated. Our country's policy of establishing and extending diplomatic relations with all countries on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity has already yielded success and will continue to be carried out. In international affairs the firm and consistent policy of our country is to strive for the noble aims of world peace and the progress of mankind.

In accordance with the Common Program, preparations soon began for convening the first National People's Congress and the drafting of the first permanent Constitution of the People's Republic of China. On 24 December 1951, a resolution was moved by Premier Zhou Enlai on behalf of the Communist Party of China at the 43rd meeting of the first CPPCC Standing Committee to draft the new, permanent, Constitution. The resolution was passed, and on 13 January 1952, the Central People's Government appointed a thirty-person drafting committee led by Mao Zedong.

The drafting process was dominated by the Communist Party, and was almost exclusively restricted to the Politburo. In January 1953, the draft Constitution was passed to the CPPCC and discussed in a national education campaign in the winter of 1953. On 20 February 1953, exactly two years after the passage of the Common Program, the first meeting of the first National People's Congress unanimously approved the new Constitution. This version has subsequently been called the "1953 Constitution".

The 1953 Constitution includes a preamble and 108 articles organised into four chapters. It specifies a government structure similar to the current system laid out by the Common Program. Chapter Two of the 1953 Constitution sets up a system of government composed of six structural parts. The highest organ of government is the legislature, the National People's Congress. The executive is composed of the President and the State Council. Sub-national government is to be composed of people's congresses and people's committees of various levels. Autonomous ethnic areas will decide on their forms of government according to the wishes of the "majority of the people" in these areas. Finally, a hierarchy of courts headed by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (which will investigate crimes by the government) form the judicial system.

Chapter Three, Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens, guarantee a relatively comprehensive set of human rights, but also imposed the duty to pay taxes, undertake national service, and to obey the law.

The 1953 Constitution is not entrenched. It could be amended by the National People's Congress by a special two-thirds majority without recourse to a referendum or other such mechanism.

Of course, though, the 1953 Constitution is intended to be a temporary one. It is a transitionary constitution, to be revised once China reaches a fully socialist economy in the future.