On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People's Republic of China on the forum of Tian'anmen Square. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping inspected the Shen Zhen Special Economic Zone of Guangdong Province. |
The early days of New China were a period of economic recovery. While developing production, China gradually established socialist public ownership of the means of production. From 1953 to 1956, large-scale socialist transformation of the national economy was implemented, the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) for the development of the national economy was achieved ahead of schedule, and China established and expanded basic industries necessary for full industrialization, hitherto non-existent domestically, producing airplanes, automobiles, heavy machinery, precision machinery, power-generating equipment, metallurgical and mining equipment, high-grade alloy steels and non-ferrous metals.
From the evening of Dec. 31, 1999 to the morning of Jan. 1, 2000, people from all walks of life in Beijing gathered at the newly-built Altar of Centenary to celebrate the coming of the new century. The picture shows President Jiang Zeming at the celebration ceremony. |
However, during this dynamic decade, serious mistakes were also made in the Party and government’s guidelines, harming the national economy.
The “cultural revolution,” which lasted for 10 years from May 1966 to October 1976, was initiated and led by Mao Zedong, the then chairman of the CPC Central Committee. Taking advantage of Mao Zedong’s mistakes in his later years, the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary cliques, unbeknownst to Mao, engaged in activities that brought great calamity to the country and people, causing the most serious setbacks and most damaging losses to the country since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In spite of the grievous mistakes Mao Zedong made during the “cultural revolution,” his lifetime record shows that his contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweighed his errors.