History of the People's Republic of China

The history of the Chinese state established in 1949, encompassing its political, economic, social, and cultural development.

Chinese Communist Revolution: The civil war and political transformation that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power in 1949. Its victory founded the state whose subsequent history this page traces.
Chinese Communist Party: The ruling political party of the People's Republic of China, founded in 1921. Its leadership has directed the state's institutions and major historical campaigns.
Mao Zedong: A Chinese Communist revolutionary who led the People's Republic of China from its founding until his death in 1976. His campaigns and political authority shaped the state's first decades.
Chinese economic reform: The restructuring of China's economy from the late 1970s onward through market incentives, decentralization, and external trade. It produced sustained growth while leaving the party-state in control.
Republic of China: A state founded in 1912 that governed mainland China before 1949 and continues to govern Taiwan. Its retreat to Taiwan after the civil war produced the divided political legacy of 1949.
Great Leap Forward: A campaign from 1958 to 1962 that sought rapid industrialization and agricultural collectivization. Its famine and policy collapse became a defining rupture in early PRC history.
Democratic centralism: An organizational principle combining internal party discussion with binding decisions and centralized discipline. It helps explain how party deliberation coexists with concentrated authority.
Deng Xiaoping: A Chinese Communist leader who became China's paramount leader in the late 1970s and led its turn toward economic reform. His leadership initiated the policies that transformed China's economy.
Poverty reduction in China: The large decline in the number of people living in extreme poverty in China during the reform era. Its scale is among the most consequential social outcomes of post-1978 development.
Sino-Soviet split: The ideological and geopolitical rupture between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 1960s. It ended the early alliance that had shaped the PRC's socialist model.

Linked from 1 page

Zhao ZiyangNarrower topic: Zhao’s rise, reforms, and removal illuminate a pivotal period in the republic’s history.