After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee East China Bureau (中共中央华东局) and the government of the Shanghai Municipality decided to establish an institute for higher education in Russian studies to cultivate qualified diplomats and translators for international affairs.With the support of Mayor Chen Yi, the Shanghai Russian School (上海俄文学校) was officially established in December 1949.In 1950, the department of English was established and the college was incorporated as the foreign language school affiliated to the East China People's Revolution University (华东人民革命大学).Later in 1952, a nationwide restructuring of institutes of higher education began in China, and the department of oriental language and literature was incorporated into Peking University.In the same year, it was listed as one of the first colleges and universities jointly supervised by the national Ministry of Education and the Municipality of Shanghai.