The voting is regulated by secret ballot which takes place only in colleges, where the voters are all literate and are experienced in voting. Elsewhere, the voting takes place by a show of hands after the list of candidates has been discussed. “The electoral wards were marked out by the City Consultative Council. Big industrial plants and higher educational establishments with several thousand voters were each to elect three delegates. Smaller plants and institutions were allowed one or two delegates, while plants or institutions which had few voters were united for the election of a common delegate. The city districts elected two delegates or more, depending on the size of their population. The electoral commissions were set up in mills and factories, institutions and educational establishments one month before the conference was due to meet.(…)In all, 61 per cent of the delegates to the third Peking all-sections conference were elected by indirect ballot and 22 per cent by direct ballot; 3 per cent were appointed by the city government, and 14 per cent were invited.” Liu Shaoqi states secret and direct elections are only possible if everyone can write and read. He posits “…in the big cities should have three sessions annually; in the medium-sized and small cities, four sessions; in a province, one session; in a district, two sessions. The Peoples' Congress in villages should meet as often as it is stipulated in the laws.” Chang (1956) remarks “It is stated that the elections up to 1953 of 13,63 7,000 people's representatives to the All-Circle Representative Conferences at all levels, with approximately 75 per cent of the representatives from the worker and peasant classes, marked the consolidation of the political leadership of the proletariat." Zhou Enlai wrote in the magazine “People’s China” of October 1950 the remark: "...a few cities and counties" had convened People's Congresses; all other cities, and 1,707 counties, had organized Representative Conferences of All Circles; and "most" administrative villages had established one or the other." At the end of 1950, in 20 provinces and 7 other administrative units and in the cities Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Nanjing, the first meeting or more of the RCAC are convened. In August 1949, the northeast region, which has been under CCP administration for a longer period, has even elected a people’s government: “…commanders begun to relinquish authority to civil party cadres, in part because many units under Lin Piao’s fourth field army and Nieh Jung-chen’s North China field army had been moved south to reinforce continuing military operations.” In the rural districts the CCP has decided “.. two thirds of the membership should be "elected" from "farm workers, poor peasants and new middle peasants," while one-third of the membership was to be "elected" from "old middle peasants and other working elements." Deng Xiaoping does not agree with these quotas “On March 6, 1950, regarding the case that among 196 representatives in a county conference, there were 133 peasant representatives, 19 worker representatives, and government representatives for the half of the remaining 44 quotas, he (Deng Xiaoping) criticized at the enlarged meeting of CPC East Sichuan committee that, this conference could not be called as representatives of the people from all walks of life, but peasants’ conference only, which certainly could not unite the masses and differentiate the enemy.”
The founding of RCACs in the rural areas runs into problems, mainly in south China. In the province of Guangxi only 28 Xians out of 70 in total have elected a RCAC. The party not always succeeds in controlling these RCACs completely "…profiteers representing various trades first combined and promoted one of their group to serve as a local Business Federation manager and as the standing-committee member of the local all-circles people’s representative conference. Later they bribed the chief of a tax affairs bureau and used his influence to acquire the position of business-section head in the xian people’s government." Zhou Enlai writes in the above-mentioned article also about the function of the RCAC "uniting various strata, parties, groups and nationalities among the people, and enabling both the government to hear the opinions of the people and the people to understand and supervise the work of the government.” In other words, the RCACs are advisory meetings. The majority of the delegates in these RCAC are members of the mass organizations. (See Table 10) The same organizations which are represented in the CPPCC. The RCACs are also used in the persecution of counterrevolutionaries. RCACs or enlarged RCACs organize mass rallies against counterrevolutionaries. For example, on March 24, 1951 in Beijing, March 29 in Tianjin, April 29 in Shanghai and Wuhan.

---

On January 13, 1953, Mao Zedong announces the time is ripe to hold general elections for the NPC and to formulate a constitution. Mao Zedong orders the other politburo members to read a list of compulsory readings and constantly intervenes in the formulation of the constitution. "...its drafting was personally directed by Mao Zedong and the CCP’s highest leaders, though some noncommunist figures also played pivotal roles in its formulation and subsequent exegeses. All of these figures were veterans of the constitutional controversies of the Republican era; and the intellectual and political currents of that time—complete with their contradictions, tensions, concerns, and priorities—inextricably shaped the enterprise." Mao Zedong states: "…military activities on the mainland have already ended, land reform has already been basically accomplished, and people from all walks of life have become organized. Therefore, the conditions are now ripe for convening, according to the stipulation of the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the National People's Congress and people's congresses at each local level." Only shortly before, Mao Zedong had a different opinion. In October 1952, Liu Shaoqi hands over a letter from Mao Zedong to Stalin, in which Mao Zedong proposes to postpone the elections and the formation of a National People’s Congress until after China has basically entered socialism. (On September 24, 1952, Mao Zedong has proposed to enter the transition period. (See Meeting) Stalin disagrees. (See below) Mao Zedong concedes. "In mid-1954, Chinese engaged in a wide-ranging deliberation about political and social rights, the obligations of citizenship, state symbols, political institutions and ideology. Many asked penetrating and frequently prescient questions about law, citizenship, class and political power, and offered provocative suggestions for revision." The big difference between the Common Program and the constitution of 1954 is: “Under the Common Program, the co-existence of both capitalism and socialism was tacitly acknowledged by the CCP. It is in this sense that, compare to the Common Program, the 1954 constitution is more ideologically orientated, for it laid down a socialist state building trajectory in the next ten to twenty years....the 1954 constitution did explicitly reject the possibility of the co-existence of capitalism and socialism in the long run” Diamant remarks "The reassuring language in the preamble to the Common Program, such as the CCP’s interest in “uniting all democratic classes”, disappeared, while many politically threatening terms were added to describe the socialist transition: the “rich peasant” rural economy would gradually be “eliminated” (xiaomie 消灭); the state reserved the right to “expropriate” (zhengyong 征用) private property. Rights were expanded upon."
According to article 6 of the Organic Law of the CPPCC, a plenary session of the CPPCC shall be summoned once every three years by the National Committee. The CCP is reluctant to hold such a plenary session or to hold an election for the NPC. The party takes the decision to postpone the elections. In October 1952, during Liu Shaoqi’s visit, he informs Stalin of this delay. Stalin is strongly against this decision. "Stalin restated his position and buttressed it with several points. First, the government of the PRC had not been elected. This allowed its enemies to question its legitimacy, and to accuse it of being nothing more than a selfproclaimed, military dictatorship. Second, the country had no official constitution. The Common Program offered little consolation here since its legitimacy and the legitimacy of all PRC law were clouded by their origin in the equally unelected CPPCC. Third, the multi-party coalition government established by the Common Program presented a grave security risk to the CCP. Many members of the minor parties had close ties to foreign countries, especially the United States and United Kingdom, and could spy on behalf of those hostile powers. Stalin argued that the CCP could solve these problems and deny its enemies propaganda points simply by holding an election in 1954, which it would surely dominate thanks to its deep reservoir of popular support and experience with mass mobilization.” Back in China, Liu Shaoqi convinces Mao Zedong and on December 24, 1952, the meeting of the permanent committee of the CPPCC decides to hold elections. The CCP and the minzhu dangpai adopt a list of candidates. A committee screens the candidates and in doubt the CCP takes the final decision. The number of candidates does not exceed the number of seats in the NPC. Hill (2017) states "...the Nationalist elections of 1937 and 1947. In those elections, the state had a preferred outcome, although it did not prohibit (or even fully control) opposition and competition. The party’s new system, by contrast, virtually guaranteed a particular outcome in each election. It did not hide its dominance of the election process, but rather embraced it and publicized it as a new form of democracy— a logical conclusion, given the goal of voting. To make this system work, the communist government mobilized an enormous number of people from party organizations and the general public. No previous system of election preparation had been so thorough." In addition, Hill (2017) remarks "The election and the propaganda campaign that preceded it were, despite pronouncements from the government, intimately linked to the climate of pervasive political violence that characterized the early years of the People’s Republic. Although the election was ostensibly not intended as a mass political campaign that targeted “enemies,” it is not surprising that many saw it as exactly that." The election of the NPC is an indirect election, the members of the provincial people’s congresses chose the members of the NPC. Deng Xiaoping explains this procedure by saying “… because most people were unfamiliar with national policies and the names of state leaders, subjecting top Party and government functionaries to a popular vote was impossible.” In reality, even this procedure is not followed. On July 5, 1954, the national committee of the CPPCC approved a list of candidates. The provincial people’s congresses chose almost unanimous these ‘authorized ‘candidates. "Due to the full democratic consultations before the voting, the votes garnered by the elected deputies were very concentrated: 9 received 100 per cent of the votes (539 votes); 19 received one vote less than the full vote; 3 received 2 less; 2 received 3 less; while even the lowest one received only 4 less than the full vote. Even greater uniformity was shown in the election of 46 deputies to the National People's Congress by the Kwangtung Provincial People's Congress: 'The result of the voting showed that there was no invalid vote. All the 46 elected deputies were returned on from 99 to 100 per cent of the votes cast.”

Fig. 12.2 Provincial representation at the National People's Congress 1954

---

This article 12 of the Common Program states that the All-China People’s Congress (NPC) is the supreme organ of state power. In reality the power is vested in the CCP. "According to a decision made in 1949 by the CCP Central Committee, the party committees, instead of government agencies, were the highest decision making bodies in all work units, and decisions made by these committees must be obeyed and carried out unconditionally by all government agencies, military units, and mass organizations. This arrangement was at first meant to be a temporary measure to facilitate the command of the revolutionary forces. However, after taking over power, the unified leadership was imposed on all aspects of the society, and was frequently strengthened under the influence of the party radicals. Party committees were established in every governmental organization. Party secretaries held ultimate power.³⁶"

---

Chapter 2 of Common Program

Road to Common Program Common Program Bibliography Documents Contact