On 1 October 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong formally proclaimed the establishment of the

PRC before a massive crowd at Tiananmen Square. The CCP headed the Central People's
Government.[74] From this time through the 1980s, top leaders of the CCP (like Mao
Zedong, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping) were largely the same military
leaders prior to the PRC's founding.[75] As a result, informal personal ties
between political and military leaders dominated civil-military relations.[75]

Chinese communists celebrate Joseph Stalin's birthday, 1949.

Stalin proposed a one-party constitution when Liu Shaoqi visited the Soviet Union
in 1952.[76] Then the Constitution of the PRC in 1954 changed the previous
coalition government and established the CCP's sole ruling system.[77][78] Mao said
that China should implement a multi-party system under the leadership of the
working class revolutionary party (CCP) on the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956.[79] He
had not proposed that other parties should be led before,[80] although the CCP had
actually controlled the most political power since 1949.[81] In 1957, the CCP
launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign against the political dissents and figures of
the other minor parties which resulted in the political persecution of at least
550,000 people. The campaign significantly damaged the limited pluralistic nature
in the socialist republic and turned the country into a de facto one-party state.
[82][83][84][85][86] The event led to the catastrophic results of the Second Five
Year from 1958 when the CCP attempted at transforming the country from an agrarian
into an industrialized economy through the formation of people's communes by
launching the Great Leap Forward campaign. The Great Leap resulted in tens of
millions of deaths, with estimates ranging between 15 and 55 million deaths, making
the Great Chinese Famine the largest in human history.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the CCP experienced a significant ideological
separation from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which was going through the
De-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev.[94] By that time, Mao had begun saying
that the "continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat"
stipulated that class enemies continued to exist even though the socialist
revolution seemed to be complete, leading to the Cultural Revolution in which
millions were persecuted and killed.[95] In the Cultural Revolution, party leaders
such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and He Long, were purged or exiled
and the power were fallen into the Gang of Four led by Jiang Qing, Mao's wife.

Following Mao's death in 1976, a power struggle between CCP chairman Hua Guofeng
and vice-chairman Deng Xiaoping erupted.[96] Deng won the struggle, and became the
"paramount leader" in 1978.[96] Deng, alongside Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang,
spearheaded the Reform and opening policy, and introduced the ideological concept
of socialism with Chinese characteristics, opening China to the world's markets.
[97] In reversing some of Mao's "leftist" policies, Deng argued that a socialist
state could use the market economy without itself being capitalist.[98] While
asserting the political power of the Party, the change in policy generated
significant economic growth.[24] The new ideology, however, was contested on both
sides of the spectrum, by Maoists as well as by those supporting political
liberalization. With other social factors, the conflicts culminated in the 1989
Tiananmen Square protests.[99] The protests having been crushed and the reformist
party general secretary Zhao Ziyang under house arrest, Deng's economic policies
resumed and by the early 1990s the concept of a socialist market economy had been
introduced.[100] In 1997, Deng's beliefs (Deng Xiaoping Theory), were embedded in
the CCP constitution.[101]

Flag of the Communist Party of China from 17 June 1951 to 21 July 1996
CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin succeeded Deng as "paramount leader" in the
1990s, and continued most of his policies.[102] In the 1990s, the CCP transformed
from a veteran revolutionary leadership that was both leading militarily and
politically, to a political elite increasingly regenerated according to
institutionalized norms in the civil bureaucracy.[75] Leadership was largely
selected based on rules and norms on promotion and retirement, educational
background, and managerial and technical expertise.[75] There is a largely separate
group of professionalized military officers, serving under top CCP leadership
largely through formal relationships within institutional channels.[75]

As part of Jiang Zemin's nominal legacy, the CCP ratified the Three Represents for
the 2003 revision of the party's constitution, as a "guiding ideology" to encourage
the party to represent "advanced productive forces, the progressive course of
China's culture, and the fundamental interests of the people."[103] The theory
legitimized the entry of private business owners and bourgeois elements into the
party.[103] Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin's successor as general secretary, took office in
2002.[104] Unlike Mao, Deng and Jiang Zemin, Hu laid emphasis on collective
leadership and opposed one-man dominance of the political system.[104] The
insistence on focusing on economic growth led to a wide range of serious social
problems. To address these, Hu introduced two main ideological concepts: the
Scientific Outlook on Development and Harmonious Socialist Society.[105] Hu
resigned from his post as CCP general secretary and Chairman of the CMC at the 18th
National Congress held in 2012, and was succeeded in both posts by Xi Jinping.[106]
[107] Since taking power, Xi has initiated a wide-reaching anti-corruption
campaign, while centralizing powers in the office of CCP general secretary at the
expense of the collective leadership of prior decades. Commentators have described
the campaign as a defining part of Xi's leadership as well as "the principal reason
why he has been able to consolidate his power so quickly and effectively."[108]
Foreign commentators have likened him to Mao.[109] Xi's leadership has also
overseen an increase in the Party's role in China.[110] Xi has added his ideology,
named after himself, into the CCP constitution in 2017.[111] As has been
speculated, Xi Jinping may not retire from his top posts after serving for 10 years
in 2022.[75][112]

On 1 October 2020, U.S. Congressman Scott Perry introduced legislation to add the
CCP to the Top International Criminal Organizations Target (TICOT) List and provide
the United States law enforcement agencies a strategic directive to target the
CCP's activity.[113]

On 21 October 2020, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights (SDIR) of the

Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Development condemned the persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in
Xinjiang by the Government of China and concluded that the Chinese Communist
Party's actions amount to genocide of the Uyghurs per the Genocide Convention.[