First National People's Congress and the 1954 Constitution

In New China's early years, conditions were not yet ripe, so the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference exercised the powers of the National People's Congress and the Common Program served as a provisional constitution. With economic construction and social stability, conditions for convening a National People's Congress and drafting a constitution gradually matured. In 1953 the country held its first census and its first large-scale general election. In January 1953 the Central People's Government set up a constitution drafting committee chaired by Mao Zedong, and after the draft was published it was discussed nationwide for over two months, with more than 150 million people taking part. From 15 to 28 September 1954 the First Session of the First National People's Congress met in Beijing, attended by over 1,200 deputies. It adopted the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the country's first constitution of the socialist type. The constitution provided that 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; that all power belongs to the people; and that the organs through which the people exercise power are the National People's Congress and local people's congresses at all levels. The session elected Mao Zedong chairman and Zhu De vice chairman of the People's Republic, Liu Shaoqi chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and approved Zhou Enlai as premier of the State Council. The convening of the first Congress and the promulgation of the constitution marked the formal establishment of the people's congress system nationwide as the fundamental political system.