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Fellow-Countrymen,

    The First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference has successfully fulfilled its tasks.

    This session has been attended by delegates from all the democratic parties and people's organizations of China, the People's Liberation Army, the various regions and nationalities of the country, the overseas Chinese and other patriotic democrats; it represents the will of the people of the whole country and demonstrates their unprecedented great unity.

    This great unity of the whole people has been achieved only after long years of heroic struggle, only after the Chinese people and the People's Liberation Army, led by the Communist Party of China, defeated Chiang Kai-shek's reactionary Kuomintang government backed by U.S. imperialism. For over a century, the pioneers of the Chinese people, including such outstanding men as the great revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat-sen who led the Revolution of 1911, have guided the masses in their unceasing struggles to overthrow oppression by the imperialists and reactionary Chinese regimes; this goal has now been finally attained through their dauntless and persistent efforts. We are holding this session at a time when the Chinese people have triumphed over their enemies, changed the face of their country and founded the People's Republic of China. We the 475 million Chinese people have now stood up and the future of our nation is infinitely bright.

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    Under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tsetung, the leader of our people, our session, working with one mind and in accordance with the principle of New Democracy, has enacted the Organic Law of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Organic Law of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and the Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; decided on Peking as the capital of the People's Republic of China; adopted a flag with five stars on a field of red as the national flag of the People's Republic of China and the March of the Volunteers as the present national anthem; adopted the Christian era as the chronological system of the People's Republic of China; and elected the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Central People's Government Council of the People's Republic of China. Thus begins a new era in the history of China.

    Fellow-countrymen, the founding of the People's Republic of China is proclaimed, and the Chinese people now have their own Central Government. In accordance with the Common Programme, the government will exercise the people's democratic dictatorship over the length and breadth of China. It will direct the People's Liberation Army to carry the revolutionary war through to the end, wipe out the remnant enemy troops and liberate the entire territory of the country to fulfil the great task of unifying China. It will lead the people of the whole country in surmounting all difficulties and undertaking large-scale construction in the economic and cultural spheres to eliminate the poverty and ignorance inherited from the old China and improve the material and cultural life of the people step by step. It will protect the interests of the people and stamp out all the conspiracies of counter-revolutionaries. It will strengthen the people's army, navy and air force, consolidate national defence, safeguard our territorial integrity and sovereignty and oppose aggression by any imperialist country. It will unite and ally itself with all peace-loving and freedom-loving countries, nations and peoples, and first of all with the Soviet Union and the New Democracies, and together with them fight against imperialist plots to provoke war and so strive for lasting world peace.

    Fellow-countrymen, we should get ourselves better organized. We should organize the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people in political, military, economic, cultural and other organizations and put an end to the disorganized state characterizing the old China, so

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that the great collective strength of the masses may be tapped both to support the People's Government and the People's Liberation Army and to build a new China, independent, democratic, peaceful, unified, prosperous and strong.

    The heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the People's War of Liberation and the people's revolution shall live for ever in our memory!

    Long live the great unity of the Chinese people!

    Long live the People's Republic of China!

    Long live the Central People's Government!