The National Day military parade of 1956 was the first National Day military parade since China established the socialist system. The Communist Party of China had led the Chinese people to successfully complete a socialist transformation on individual farming, the individual handicraft industry and capitalist industry and commerce, and establish a socialist system. This led the Chinese people to take a promising socialist road. Although it was raining on the parade day and every soldier and officer was soaked, they still briskly marched to the rhythm of the military symphony, holding their heads high. Water splashed as they marched forward in step, showing the indomitable and invincible spirit of the people's army. Because of the weather, the long-awaited Chinese-made jet aircrafts did not participate in the parade as originally planned, but the automobiles transporting the armed forces were Chinese-made Jiefang-branded, which were the first batch to come off the production line. This military parade fully demonstrated the huge step forward the Chinese military had made in its modernization.

This military parade was the only one of the 13 National Day military parades to be held in the rain since the founding of New China. Peng Dehuai and Yang Chengwu were again the parade Commander and the parade Commander-in-Chief respectively. They reviewed a troop comprising 11,929 soldiers. The parade was attended by the then-Indonesian President Dewi Sukarno and Nepalese Prime Minister Acharya, representatives from the Communist Party, Workers' Party, Party of Labor, the Party of Working People and People's Revolutionary Party from over 50 countries attending the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, guests from over 50 countries who were invited to the ceremony, diplomatic envoys and officials in China and experts from the Soviet Union, the People's Democracies and other countries who helped with the construction of New China.

(Source: CCTV June 17, 2009)