Article 17 of the Common Program

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On February 28, 1949, The CCP decided to abolish the old laws of the GMD government in the “recently liberated areas”. This rejection of the laws and judicial system of the GMD did not mean the new government started with a blank sheet. On one hand, they had gained experience in governance before 1949. Many of the laws issued after 'Liberation '—such as the Land Reform Law, the Marriage Law, various labor laws, and the organic laws governing legal and quasi-legal bodies like the courts and mediation committees—had their roots in the pre-1949 era. Before 1949, the party had already governed more than 90 million people.
On the other hand, they could copy the Soviet Union model. Throughout the 1950s, legal education in China was entirely overseen by Soviet experts. China not only dispatched numerous law students to the Soviet Union but also invited a substantial number of Soviet experts to lecture within China. In some law-related courses, textbooks from the Soviet Union were employed in educational institutions.
Besides, several laws without political implications are still in force, for example, laws regulating traffic. The formulation of article 17 gave the party an escape route, to keep some legislation of the GMD intact, because only laws which oppressed the people should be abrogated. The parallels between the CCP's efforts to establish a unique brand of 'Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics' and the approaches of the GMD are striking and extensive. Both parties, once partners, identified as Leninist vanguards and favoured highly statist, centrally planned models of economic development and social organization. However, the GMD rejected communism and class struggle. While the Three People’s Principles Rule of Law of the GMD explicitly subordinated individual liberty to that of the greater nation, it maintained that "the people were not divided into classes and had equal rights."
Both parties spoke of law in similar terms. The Nationalist Judicial Yuan invoked the Three People’s Principles to assert that "the administration of justice is an important branch of politics," while the CCP, with its Marxist perspective, agreed that "law and politics have an intimate connection. Law is a branch of politics, and serves politics." Both parties also embraced the concept of creative destruction brought about by revolution, which influenced law and society. The CCP demonstrated this by abolishing the Nationalist legal system in 1949, while the GMD also held a forthright position on the transformative impact of revolution. Despite fervent representations, the "old law standpoint" wasn't merely a forgotten remnant of the past; instead, the Party had actively integrated, reshaped, and adopted it, breathing new life into it. This is why it became entrenched in the base areas, outlived the Nationalist regime, and persisted in the PRC. The more one looks ahead in time, the more evident this becomes. Between 1949 and 1957, components of the old law continually disrupted the legal system.
In 1949, Wang Ming a CCP party leader, headed a working group of 41 politicians and lawyers who were drafting new legislation. Several legal publications were released, and new legal training programs were initiated. Although new personnel were recruited and given brief training, the courts faced a significant backlog of housing, labor, property, debt, family, and other cases from the very start. To address this, after removing undesirable individuals, the regime retained many Nationalist judicial officials to help manage the workload. By 1952, around 6,000 holdovers remained among the 28,000 cadres staffing the judiciary. In September 1949, a new law school was established in Beijing, offering a one-year course for lawyers, jurists, and law professors. The number of law schools and departments in China decreased from 53 in 1949 to just eight by 1953, with faculties and libraries being dismantled and dispersed. Enrollment also dropped from 7,338 to 3,908, with only 1,740 students in traditional undergraduate programs. The remaining 2,168 were in shorter, polytechnic programs aimed at preparing skilled cadres for service in the legal field.

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From July 26 until August 11, 1950, the Ministry of Justice organized a congress to discuss and solve the problem in the judicial system. Several measures have been identified as necessary steps forward. These included the imperative to broaden the central law courses organized by the Ministry of Justice and to extend the establishment of new jurisprudence institutes, primarily aimed at retraining lawyers from traditional backgrounds. It has been acknowledged as essential to institute courses for the training of judicial-procuratorial personnel in the major administrative regions (such as the North-Eastern, Central-Southern, Eastern, South-Central, and North-Western Regions) as well as in the larger provinces. Additionally, there have been suggestions for enhancing the functioning of law faculties present in most public and private universities across China. Historically, these faculties operated independently of justice organs, remaining detached from routine tasks typically handled by courts and procuratorates. Consequently, they produced cadres ill-suited for employment in the new, 'democratic' justice institutions.
The emphasis within the judicial work lied on political matters and not on the daily routine and/or formal procedures. As long as the struggle against the counterrevolutionary is going on, as Shen Junru , stated in 1951 "Our judicial work must serve political ends actively, and must be brought to bear on current central political tasks and mass movements." To "safeguard the fruits of revolution," political-legal cadres were called upon to conduct mass trials and struggle meetings.”
A year before, he defined the judicial work as "to suppress resolutely, sternly and in good time all counter-revolutionary activities which undermine agrarian reform, production and the people's democratic reconstruction, and to suppress the resistance of reactionary classes; [and to] protect the gains of land reform, production, reconstruction and democratic order". In the early history of the Party, influencing judicial verdicts was a fundamental aspect of judicial procedures. In the border regions under Party control during the 1930s, all criminal court rulings had to undergo approval from Party committees before being finalized. This practice of "case approval" persisted as the dominant approach in court proceedings even after the founding of the PRC in 1949. Occasionally, the police, procuratorate, and courts collaborated under Party leadership, particularly in handling high-profile cases. During the final years of GMD rule over mainland China, the practice of law became heavily influenced by political factors, leading to widespread perceptions of cronyism and corruption in both court rulings and staffing. Many of those entrusted by the CCP in 1949 with transforming the Chinese judicial system—some of whom were themselves veterans of the GMD system—carried this mixed Republican legacy. As they dismantled the old system with one hand, they simultaneously sifted through, adapted, and repurposed parts of it with the other. The PRC inherited a shortage of judicial trained employees, a clustering of law schools in east and south China, Beijing and Tianjin, this led inevitable to a shortage of qualified personnel in the least developed areas of the country.

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Blaustein (1962), divides the laws made between 1949 and 1954 in 3 categories: constitutional, organic, and formal laws. The constitutional laws are the Common Program of 1949 and the Constitution of 1954. The organic laws describe the power, organization and procedures of administrative bodies of government. In the period before 1954 they regulate the CPPCC and the CPGC, in the period after 1954 5 organic laws regulate the NPC, the State Council, the tribunals and the local People’s Congresses.
The formal laws can be categorized in laws dealing with political crimes, corruption and crimes against persons. The law on punishment of counterrevolutionary activities promulgated on February 7, 1951, is an example of the first category. The second category can be represented by the law on punishment for impairment of state currency. The law concerning the strict prohibition of opium and other narcotics of February 24, 1950, represents the third type. The most important formal laws are the Marriage Law, see Article 6, the Land Reform law, see Article 27 and the Trade Union law, see Article 32. These laws were called the country’s “Great Laws.” Together with the 1949 Common Program, the 1953 Election Law, the 1954 constitution, and the Organic Laws.
The main purpose of legalization in People's Republic of China is not to rule conflicts and/or safeguarding the rights and interests of the individual but to protect the political aims of the CCP. An article in the newspaper Yangtse Daily underlines this concept. "It is impossible to talk of justice in isolation from Party principles. Whatever agrees with Party principles is just; whatever disagrees with Party principles is unjust."
There is no Criminal Code, the new laws are vaguely described, and the punishment is not clear. In the early years of the PRC, many GMD laws remained in use. The PRC's break with the past was less definitive in both theory and practice. Many judges were former GMD judges whose "common sense" was often rooted in the "abolished" Republican Criminal Law. Communist judges, on the other hand, had to rely on their "common sense" or revolutionary principles, a practice inherited from the Border Area and the Civil War periods. This allowed the government and the CCP to shape laws to serve their own interests, and in extreme cases, even the personal interests of leaders like Mao Zedong. The ambiguity and unpredictability of the legal and penal systems naturally fostered an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, deterring people from taking any action or considering resistance against the will of the state, the Party, or its leaders.
The decrees are often not made public and are constantly revised or changed. Mao Zedong explained in June 1949 in his "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship". "...if people break the law, they will be punished, imprisoned or even sentenced to death. But these will be individual cases, differing in principle from the dictatorship imposed against the reactionaries as a class."
On May 11, 1951,Peng Zhen remarked "In terms of legislation, it is inappropriate to urgently formulate some immature and unnecessary "complete" and "fine" sets of laws and regulations, so as to work behind closed doors or tie the hands of the masses; it should be based on the current central tasks and the urgent needs of the people. As for the problem, according to the possibility and necessity, the mature experience should be finalized, the system and legal provisions should be gradually formed by reporting typical experience and integrating the experience of various places, gradually from simple to complex, from general rules to detailed rules, and from single regulations to form a complete set of criminal laws, civil law"
Besides having the wrong class background, people can also be arrested for having wrong ideas, incorrect attitudes, little dedication, and having voluntary or involuntary contact with wrong people. Even party members are not excluded from this system and can become enemies of the state.

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The courts take into account the class the defendant belongs. The class status is thought to affect the mental state of the offender. An accused person with a bourgeois or middle-class background is more likely to have counterrevolutionary intent than a state worker. See Article 7 on class status. "It seems that by taking into account such factors as background and class composition, a person can be convicted of a crime involving counter-revolutionary intent regardless of his actual mental state."
A special category is the so-called lumpenproletarian and vagrants, they are seen as victims of the oppression of imperialists, warlords, and landlords. However, they are also considered a threat by disrupting labour and production and colluding with the enemy. Therefore, the CCP handled them with compassion and with disapproval, and made a distinction between enemies and those who could be reformed. See Article 1
The death penalty is one of the weapons against counterrevolutionaries, rapists, murders, and destroyers of state property and drug traffickers. This final group of offenders faced harsh arrests and severe punishment, as their crimes were suspected of having connections to counter-revolutionaries and international drug cartels. In contrast, drug users were detained and subjected to mandatory rehabilitation.
Mao Zedong stated in the late 1940's: "It is absolutely necessary and legitimate to sentence to death by the People’s Court and the democratic government criminals who actively and grievously oppose the People’s Democratic Revolution and commit acts of sabotage against agrarian reform; in other words: counterrevolutionaries and local tyrants guilty of the most abominable crimes. Otherwise, it would be impossible to establish democratic order. "
In 1950 Mao Zedong wrote "If we do not kill bandit leaders and professional bandits, we will never be able to exterminate banditry: instead, the harder we try to destroy ordinary bandits the more of them there will be. If we do not kill local bullies, we will not be able to organize peasant associations and consequently we will not be able to distribute land to the peasants. If we do not kill key (Nationalist) secret agents, acts of sabotage and assassinations will continue. In sum, we must apply a policy of absolute repression to bandit leaders, to local bullies and to key secret agents in order to emancipate the people and to reinforce the power of the people."
The death penalty can be carried out immediately or after 2 years. The death penalty is not applicable to pregnant women, juvenile criminals (In 1953, it is decided to establish 9 juvenile correctional centres) and for elderly offenders above 60 years. Persons who receive this deal can improve their attitude during their period of hard labour and be sentenced to life imprisonment or to a fixed period. See Article 7 on reform through labour.

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The organic law of the central people's government of the PRC stipulates in article 5 The Central People's Government Council shall set up: …and the Supreme People's Court and the People's Procurator General's Office as the highest judicial and supervisory bodies of the country." Article 7 of this organic law states Central People's Government Council should also exercise the authority of appointment and removal of the Procurator-General, his deputies, and the members of the People's Procurator-General's Office. Chapter 5 of this law describes its functions and position. On October 19, 1949 Luo Ronghuan is appointed as attorney general of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Li Liuru and Lan Gongwu are appointed deputy attorney general. Although the Organic Law represented a significant improvement over previous enactments on this issue, it still left many questions unanswered. However, it deserves recognition for formally authorizing, for the first time, the establishment of a Procurator-General's Office to lead a nationwide agency in the near future. It is worth noting that during its first two years, the newly created office conducted very little actual business, playing only a marginal role in the sweeping revolutionary changes already being driven from above, which were transforming the country's traditional structures.
There are a couple of reasons for this minimal role of the procuratorate. First of all, acute shortage of qualified personnel to man the offices. The staff remaining from the GMD were not qualified for the tasks ahead. The introduction of this legal system was new to them. There has been no predecessor to the procuratorate in China.
Second, the new government was not interested in legal technicalities, they want their revolutionary policies to be implemented as soon as possible.
Lastly, the regime had additional channels to implement its plans more swiftly and efficiently, including the public security forces, various administrative control mechanisms, the Party, mass organizations, and mass campaigns. Between 1950 and 1953, several nationwide campaigns and movements targeted and isolated specific social groups: landlords during the Land Reform Campaign (1950–1952); counterrevolutionaries in the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries (1950–1951); corrupt bureaucrats through the Three-Anti Campaign (anticorruption, antiwaste, antibureaucracy, 1952); capitalists and private entrepreneurs in the Five-Anti Campaign (antibribery, anti-tax evasion, antifraud, antitheft of state property, anti-leakage of state economic secrets, 1952); and the educational sector and intellectuals more broadly in the Thought Reform Campaign (1951–1952).
In 1949, the officers of the PLA primarily handled the administration of justice and the maintenance of order. Later, during the land reform period, individuals were selected from the Peasants' Association to act as judicial officers, while in urban areas, judicial officers were chosen from trade unions and other people's organizations. The courts have as main task the punishment of counterrevolutionaries. There are 3 kinds of courts.
In the military courts, the judges are chosen by the PLA and/or CCP. In these courts, public is allowed but the judges sentences. The operation of military tribunals in trying civilians under the 1951 Statute on Punishing Counterrevolutionaries is illustrated by an espionage case decided 17 August 1951 by the military court of the Beijing Military Control Committee.

There was no provision for a defense, and defendants were not allowed to have legal counsel. The Public Security Bureau had already conducted an investigation and "established conclusive evidence" of the accused's guilt. Typically, all defendants confessed to their crimes. Furthermore, the court applied the statute on Punishment for Counterrevolutionary Activity retroactively, even though all the offenses were committed before the statute was enacted on February 20, 1951.
The second type of courts is the People’s Tribunals, which feature lay judges and allow for audience participation. These tribunals handle adversaries from significant political campaigns, such as the Land Reform. Legal procedures are seldom adhered to, defendants do not have lawyers, judges are often untrained and inexperienced, and trial records are poorly maintained. The purpose of these tribunals is twofold: to punish political opponents and to raise political awareness among the populace, thereby encouraging support for the new regime. They are ad hoc in nature and only operate during specific campaigns. In 1951 alone, Beijing hosted approximately thirty thousand mass trials, with an estimated three million participants. Other major cities and rural areas throughout the country also experienced widespread use of mass trials. In Tianjin, for instance, more than 20,000 mass trials were conducted, engaging over two million individuals. The CCP has consistently used material incentives as a means to mobilize impoverished peasants, a strategy that is also evident in the zhenfan campaigns. Typically, at the end of most struggle meetings, the focus shifts to addressing past grievances, often quantified as economic reparations for the alleged victims. When immediate compensation for these "losses" isn't possible, the accused and their families face heightened tax burdens, which diminishes resources available to the victims or the broader community. In addition to economic incentives, many participants engage in these struggles to settle personal scores.
This system of People’s Tribunals is stopped in 1952 at the moment the purging counterrevolutionaries Article 7 and Wufan Article 30 campaigns are ended, but from 1954 they are put in action at irregular intervals and from 1957 they are fully back in business.
The third courts are also People’s Tribunals with judges. These judges have a GMD background. They are present in cities and deal with minor crimes. They are subjected to dual oversight, characterized by vertical control from a higher court and horizontal oversight from a government council at the same administrative level. Ostensibly, this dual oversight was devised to strip the courts entirely of their judicial independence. Typically, county courts served as courts of first instance, while provincial courts served as appellate courts for second and final instances. However, there were circumstances where either the first or third trial, conducted by the People's Supreme Court, might serve as the final judgment. Nevertheless, the suspension of the right to appeal could be rationalized as a measure to "effectively suppress counter-revolutionary activities and prevent cunning elements from exploiting the two-trial system to prolong case resolution." Consequently, it was not uncommon for the first-instance trial to serve as the final verdict.

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On August 13, 1952, the CCP launched a reform campaign in the judicial sector aimed at dismantling "old bourgeois" concepts related to legislation and law enforcement, as well as addressing conflicts within the judiciary. The existing personnel and the newly appointed cadres held vastly different perspectives on the nature of legal work. Significant tensions arose between the two groups regarding their professional and personal approaches. It’s easy to envision the challenges a former guerrilla squad leader would face in collaborating with a colleague who had been trained as a lawyer at institutions like Oxford or the Sorbonne.

The North China Region surrounding Beijing had the largest share of pre-1949 cadres, and beyond that the largest share dating to the Anti-Japanese War period by far. In 1950, the share of unfilled positions in some Regions was staggering: Central-South Region (58.3 percent), East China Region (71.6 percent), Southwest Region (80 percent). The competition for cadres throughout the country is fierce, legal work is looked down upon, often physical or mental handicapped cadres were assigned to the jobs and promising judicial cadres were transferred to other jobs with higher prestige, priority or more ‘future’.
The high demand for judicial personnel compelled Communist leaders to retain staff from the former GMD regime. Many of these retained officials were suspected of disloyalty and faced purges. For instance, in October 1951, prior to the initiation of the reform campaign, a report indicated that over two hundred court officials in Guangxi province—including judges, district attorneys, and jurors who had previously served the Nationalist regime—were deemed suspicious and arrested en masse as potential anti-revolutionaries.
In his self-criticism Han Shuzhi, head of the court in Shanghai, wrote "I failed to reform the organization of the court on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Mao Zedong...and had not thoroughly mastered by application the little revolutionary knowledge I had learned,"

During this reform campaign, which ended in April 1953, about 80% of the old GMD personnel lost their jobs, were reassigned to teaching in primary or middle schools, working in libraries, or as minor clerical functionaries. The number of retained judges experienced the largest decline, with 69.3% of them purged after the legal reform. Only sixteen new retained judges were appointed during this period. In contrast, the old cadres and young cadres saw losses of 11.65% and 14.88%, respectively, which were significantly lower than those of the retained judges. The primary beneficiaries of the legal reform were new members of the CCP and the Youth League, highlighting the Party Central's commitment to reestablishing control over the courts and transforming them into a dependable instrument of the Party. Additionally, female cadres experienced substantial gains, with their numbers increasing by 135%.
Citizens are encouraged to report any issues anonymously. For example, in Tianjin, from September 9 to 18, 1952, 475 denunciation reports were submitted to an office established collaboratively by the people's courts, the people's procurator, and the people's supervision committee, or were anonymously placed in a special letterbox at the procurator’s office.
The second judicial work conference in April 1953 ended the campaign and it celebrated the Reform Movement as having established a strong footing for the consolidation of the People's Dictatorship and the enhancement of judicial efforts in New China. It asserted that the nation was now poised for further advancement of the people's judicial system. The statement advocated for specific initiatives at both central and regional levels, including the training of judicial personnel and the establishment of specialized schools for them. It also called for an expansion in the involvement of people's assessors alongside judges, the establishment of additional special courts in various industries, and the formation of more conciliation committees. Additionally, it advocated for increased court activities within communities, the establishment of people's reception offices linked with the courts to address letters, petitions, complaints, and inquiries. Thus, it marked the beginning of a new era. Due to the campaign, there is now a shortage of personnel and the courts cannot handle all cases. In 1954, some 1140 judges are reappointed after ‘sufficient’ training.
A different obstacle in the judicial work is the execution of the verdicts. The North China Division of the Supreme People’s Court mentioned "According to reports from all Regions of Northchina, there is a great accumulation of unexecuted cases at the level of the court of first instance. . . . In some of these cases, it has been two or three years since judgment; in some, the party frequently runs to the court to apply for execution but the problem is not resolved; in some, the party asks, “Is there any law in the court?” and “Does the judgment count for anything?” — this has been the cause of great dissatisfaction among the masses."
At the second work conference, Peng Zhen announced to the audience that the fight against the revolution's enemies was nearly complete and that the judiciary was prepared to enter a new phase. Law enforcement at both the national and local levels would be carried out by newly trained personnel. Law enforcement agencies would be activated in factories, mines, and railways. All party committees were urged to enhance their oversight and inspection of court operations, and a member of the standing party committee should be appointed to supervise judicial matters. Additionally, all judicial institutions were expected to proactively and promptly submit reports to party committees while strictly adhering to the request-for-instruction-and-report protocol.
Special mediation teams are set up. Mediation was deeply rooted in the ideology of the "mass line," which emphasized that judges should not confine themselves to courtrooms but actively engage with the community to seek truth with the assistance of "the masses" and subsequently resolve or mediate cases. According to this ideology, judges were expected to rely on the masses because they possessed the clearest insight, and the justice system, like governance in general, was to operate according to the principle of "from the masses, to the masses." This approach aimed to minimize conflicts between leadership and followers, as well as between courts and the masses. Following this ideology, judges would consult the masses to determine whether a marriage was worth reconciling, and if so, would involve them in the resolution process. Similarly, other disputes would be handled in the same manner, with judges investigating to gather truth from the masses and then collaborating with them to resolve the dispute. Civil or minor criminal cases should first go through mediation. Only if mediation efforts fail can the court accept and adjudicate these cases. The CCP mandate that civil cases be addressed through mediation first, because the CCP claims from the beginning to represent Chinese workers and peasants. Unlike criminal cases, which often disrupt personal lives and threaten Communist rule and social order, civil cases were viewed as internal contradictions among the people and thus better resolved through mediation. Additionally, as an ideologically driven revolutionary party, the CCP aimed to defend workers’ rights in disputes between employees and employers.

In 1954, the regime implemented a system of courts and Higher People’s Courts to replace the people's tribunals. The focus transitioned from eradicating remnants of the old regime to a second phase of historical development centered on the peaceful construction of a Socialist community. Almost overnight, the regime's previously negative perspective was officially supplanted by an ambitious positive agenda aimed at transforming the country's social and economic structure. For the bureaucracy, this shift brought new operational objectives and a different work style than what had previously been considered appropriate.
At the 8th party congress in 1956, Liu Shaoqi looked back to the period of 1949-1954 and said “During this period, the chief aim of the struggle was to liberate the people from reactionary rule and to free the productive forces of society from the bondage of old relations of production. The principal method of struggle was to lead the masses in direct action. Such laws in the nature of general principles were thus suited to the needs of the time." And he continued "Now, however, the period of revolutionary storm and stress is past…and the aim of our struggle is changed into one of safeguarding the successful development of the productive forces of society, a corresponding change in the methods of struggle will consequently have to follow, and a complete legal system becomes an absolute necessity.”
Meanwhile, Mao Zedong complained about the slowness of the revolution, which is mainly caused by “… comrades are tottering along like a woman with bound feet, always complaining that others are going too fast, too fast. They picked on trifles, made inappropriate complaints, expressed endless worries, and set countless pure norms and prohibiting rules, thinking that this is the correct way to guide the socialist mass movement in rural areas.”
Mao Zedong is not an opponent of legislation; he also believes that a planned economy has to have rules. 66% out of the 4072 regulations, decrees and laws are related to the economy. "The Communist Government, indeed, had passed 4,072 laws and decrees in the eight years from October, 1949, to October, 1957; ⁵⁰ but these did not form any systematic, coherent or even consistent body of law. They were for the most part directed to particular situations and transitional problems; they were loosely and crudely drafted; many of those enacted during the "revolutionary period" between 1949 and 1953 were frankly designed to uphold the very counterpart of the rule of law."

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Chapter 2 of Common Program

• Road to Common Program
• Common Program
• Bibliography
• Documents