Editing Chinese Communist Party (section)

===Proclamation of the PRC and the 1950s===
{{Further|Proclamation of the People's Republic of China}}
[[File:Stalin birthday2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.95|left|Chinese communists celebrate Joseph Stalin's birthday, 1949.]]
Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) before a massive crowd at Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949. The CCP headed the [[Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (1949–1954)|Central People's Government]].<ref name="auto" />{{Rp|page=118}} From this time through the 1980s, top leaders of the CCP (such as Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping) were largely the same military leaders prior to the PRC's founding.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Miller |first=Alice |title=The 19th Central Committee Politburo |url=https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm55-am-final.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215022611/https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm55-am-final.pdf |archive-date=15 February 2021 |access-date=27 April 2020 |website=China Leadership Monitor, No. 55 |publisher=[[Hoover Institution]]}}</ref> As a result, informal personal ties between political and military leaders dominated civil-military relations.<ref name=":2" />

Stalin proposed a one-party constitution when [[Liu Shaoqi]] visited the Soviet Union in 1952.<ref>{{Cite book |last=哲 |first=師 |title=在歷史巨人身邊——師哲回憶錄 |date=1991 |publisher=中央文獻出版社 |location=Beijing |page=531}}</ref> The constitution of the PRC in 1954 subsequently abolished the previous coalition government and established the CCP's one-party system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=子陵 |first=辛 |title=紅太陽的隕落：千秋功罪毛澤東 |date=2009 |publisher=書作坊 |location=Hong Kong |page=88}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=理羣 |first=錢 |title=毛澤東和後毛澤東時代 |date=2012 |publisher=聯經 |location=Taipei |page=64}}</ref> In 1957, the CCP launched the [[Anti-Rightist Campaign]] against political dissidents and prominent figures from minor parties, which resulted in the political persecution of at least 550,000 people. The campaign significantly damaged the limited pluralistic nature in the socialist republic and solidified the country's status as a ''de facto'' [[one-party state]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=King |first=Gilbert |title=The Silence that Preceded China's Great Leap into Famine |language=en |work=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-silence-that-preceded-chinas-great-leap-into-famine-51898077/ |url-status=live |access-date=28 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191014232813/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-silence-that-preceded-chinas-great-leap-into-famine-51898077/ |archive-date=14 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Du |first=Guang |year=2007 |title="反右"运动与民主革命——纪念"反右"运动五十周年 |url=https://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/97-mcs-2007-issue-3/1015-2012-01-05-15-35-22.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414035811/https://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/97-mcs-2007-issue-3/1015-2012-01-05-15-35-22.html |archive-date=14 April 2021 |access-date=18 July 2020 |website=[[Modern China Studies]] |language=zh}}</ref>

The Anti-Rightist Campaign led to the catastrophic results of the Second Five Year Plan from 1958 to 1962, known as the [[Great Leap Forward]]. In an effort to transform the country from an agrarian economy into an industrialized one, the CCP collectivized farmland, formed people's communes, and diverted labour to factories. General mismanagement and exaggerations of harvests by CCP officials led to the [[Great Chinese Famine]], which resulted in an estimated 15 to 45 million deaths,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gráda |first=Cormac Ó |year=2007 |title=Making Famine History |url=http://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstream/10197/492/3/ogradac_article_pub_063.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Journal of Economic Literature]] |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=5–38 |doi=10.1257/jel.45.1.5 |issn=0022-0515 |jstor=27646746 |s2cid=54763671 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602070651/https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstream/10197/492/3/ogradac_article_pub_063.pdf |archive-date=2 June 2021 |access-date=21 April 2021 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10197/492}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Meng |first1=Xin |last2=Qian |first2=Nancy |last3=Yared |first3=Pierre |year=2015 |title=The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961 |url=https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/pyared/papers/famines.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[The Review of Economic Studies]] |volume=82 |issue=4 |pages=1568–1611 |citeseerx=10.1.1.321.1333 |doi=10.1093/restud/rdv016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305165942/https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/pyared/papers/famines.pdf |archive-date=5 March 2020 |access-date=22 April 2020}}</ref> making it the largest famine in recorded history.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smil |first=Vaclav |date=18 December 1999 |title=China's great famine: 40 years later |journal=[[The BMJ]] |volume=319 |issue=7225 |pages=1619–1621 |doi=10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1619 |issn=0959-8138 |pmc=1127087 |pmid=10600969}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Mirsky |first=Jonathan |date=7 December 2012 |title=Unnatural Disaster |language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books/review/tombstone-the-great-chinese-famine-1958-1962-by-yang-jisheng.html |url-status=live |access-date=22 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170124011617/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books/review/tombstone-the-great-chinese-famine-1958-1962-by-yang-jisheng.html |archive-date=24 January 2017 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dikötter |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Dikötter |title=Mao's Great Famine: Ways of Living, Ways of Dying |url=http://www.dartmouth.edu/~crossley/HIST5.03/FILES/OHMC_DIkotter.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200716231543/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~crossley/HIST5.03/FILES/OHMC_DIkotter.pdf |archive-date=16 July 2020 |publisher=[[Dartmouth College]]}}</ref>