As for the technology of legislation, it was obviously backward. To many of the legislation staff, “legislative technique” was a new concept that they had never heard of. There was no consideration, either to strategy or to quality, in law making. In decision-making, there was almost no difference between that of legislation and that of politics and administration. The internal structure of law was not scientific and complete, with too many terms and forms that made it complicated and impenetrable. The standardization of law was imperfect, with a lack of consequence models. There were regulations for what a man with power should do and should not do, but no attention had been paid to what kind of responsibility should be taken by those who went against these regulations. The methods of classifying, editing and compiling of laws were backward too. When there was little timely attention paid to the planning of legislation, law making often could not tell what was urgent and what was not. It was out of the question to talk about a legislative forecast, coordination, information feedback and the application of scientific measures. These problems rendered negative influences to the legislation in later years, even up to today.

The second period of China’s legislation was from 1957 to the late 1970s. China’s legislation suffered a severe setback in this period. During the 20 years from the enlarged Anti-Rightists Campaign in 1957 to the end of the “cultural revolution” in 1976, disturbances arose repeatedly in China, making the country’s legislation, which, like many other causes, could have developed smoothly, but instead suffered heavy losses. Though the CPC 8th National Congress made the decision that the state should work out complete laws eventually and systematically according to the need, it did not factually take the building of democracy and a legal system, including legislation, as a component of a strategic target basis and fundamental task of socialist construction. Due to various reasons, after socialist transformation was finished, the ruling Party often handled non-class-struggle problems as class-struggle issues while observing and solving new contradictions and problems that emerged in the areas of politics, economy and culture along with the progress of socialist development. And, facing this new situation, it often habitually used the outdated method and experience of a thunderstorm-typed massive campaign that was familiar. As a result, class struggle was seriously generalized, and a series of Leftist policies on urban and rural economic constructions and class struggle came into being. Meanwhile, the principles of collective leadership and democratic centralism which had been guiding the political life of the Party and the state were increasingly weakened and even sabotaged. Because democracy in the Party and in the country’s political and social lives had not been systemized and legalized, or, in some instances, although there were laws, there was no authority, the Party’s power was over-concentrated to one person. Under such circumstances, it was unavoidable that political tragedies and economic mistakes took place repeatedly. Since class struggle was considered the most important lever of national and social development, and, when power became over-concentrated, there was no way to effectively check it to avoid the negative consequence, it was impossible for the legislation and even the legal system as a whole not to go astray and stagnate for a long time. As a result, the legal characteristics that were badly needed for a modern country were drowned in backward man-ruling thinking and behavior.