When the flowers bloomed in China
Why 1956-57 was one of the most interesting periods in Chinese Communist Party’s history
Authors
When the flowers bloomed in China
Why 1956-57 was one of the most interesting periods in Chinese Communist Party’s history
Can you imagine there was a brief period in which the CCP not just tolerated but encouraged criticism of the party’s policies? This is the story of Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-57) launched by CCP under Mao.
Mao Zedong led the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 till his death in 1976.
According to W.J.F. Jenner’s 1980 article on this subject, factors such the realistic turn (1955 onward) in Soviet literary style, denunciation of Stalin by Nitika Khusruchev in February 1956 and events unfolding in Hungary and Poland provided the stimulus for this change in CPP’s approach.
But what about official seal of CCP? According to Jenner:
The next stage in the official encouragement of somewhat freer writing was the publication in June 1956 of a speech by Lu Dingyi, the director of the Central Committee’s Propaganda Bureau, that launched the slogan, ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.’
In early 1957, no less than Mao endorsed the campaign in his speeches to supreme state conference and national propaganda conference.
And then there was a lot of criticism coming the way of CCP. How much could they take?
In June 1957, an amended version of Mao’s supreme state conference speech was officially published. Titled “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People”, it not only marked the ending of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, but also signaled the beginning of the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-59). Those who offered their criticism were now being persecuted by the very same machinery that had actively encouraged them.
It is not conclusively clear what Mao’s intentions were behind the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Whether he genuinely wanted to foster criticism of the party (and clamped down when it went out of hand) or just simply wanted to identify and weed out enemies of the party. Either ways, what followed the blooming flowers was great leap forward and the cultural revolution that collectively killed millions of people.