Foundation for the Monument to the People's Heroes
In 1949, Premier Zhou Enlai proposed to build the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square at the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). All the representatives voiced their approval, and on September 30, all CPPCC deputies held a ceremony to lay the foundation for the Monument to the People's Heroes. Premier Zhou made a speech on behalf of the NPC Presidium and remarked that "our first CPPCC plenary session calls on our people to commemorate the dead and encourage the living and decides to build in the capital of the PRC a monument to the people's heroes who have laid down their lives for our country." The inscription drafted by Chairman Mao Zedong and written by Premier Zhou Enlai is as follows:
"Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past three years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past thirty years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in the many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies in seeking for national independence and freedom and well-being of the people!"
