5: The Hundred Flowers Campaign

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The Hundred

Flowers Campaign

In 1956, Mao surprised everyone when he launched the hundred

flowers campaign, with the slogan ‘let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred

schools of thought contend’. He was demanding that intellectuals should feel

free to criticise the party, in order to put pressure eon some officials who

were getting in his way over the pace of economic change.

Mao and the

intellectuals

Mao recognised the need for intellectuals in order to

transform china. as they were needed to achieve the economic growth that was essential

to communist aims. However, he never really trusted them, as most came from

landlord or bourgeois background, and had been educated in foreign unis or by

western run foundations.

Launching the hundred

flowers campaign

In launching the 100 flowers campaign, Mao was influenced by

a number of considerations:

The communist party was now securely in control

and the campaigns against counter-revolutionary appeared to have eliminated any

serious opponents

The targets of the 5 year plan had been

achieved, nut there were problems of waste and chaos in an attempt to collectivise

agriculture.

Mao believed that the greatest danger facing the

CPC was the ‘bureaucratism’, the thought officials were being alienated from

the masses. He therefore envisaged the campaign as another rectification

campaign.

Opposition to Mao

Many CPC officials thought encouraging criticism would

undermine the party and create an unstoppable wave that could threaten the

existence of the regime. In 1956, without the full support of the politburo Mao

was unable to get his campaign started.

The success of Mao’s

strategy

Mao was persistent, and being frustrated only made him want

to win more, and also to assert his authority. He made a public speech

encouraging people to back his ideas, and he went on a 3 week trip across china

gaining the support of local CPC officials for the campaign. As he had done before,

when faced with opposition in the party he sought other allies who would back

him, and in April 1957 the politburo sanctioned the campaign.

The campaign begins

Most intellectuals were reluctant to critics the campaign. However,

in May 1957 when the campaign was officially launched, a torrent of criticism

was unleashed on the communist system. It was all over the press, posters, and

at rallies. In Beijing University, students rioted and attacked CPC cadres.

All of this was too much for Mao and he shifted his

attention from encouraging ‘flowers to bloom’ to killing ‘poisonous weeds’. By

early June he was ready to abandon the campaign, and come July a full scale attack

had emerged on intellectuals. In the campaign, as many as 500,000 intellectuals

were subject to persecution. Some were sent to labour camps, others to be re-educated.

Many were also driven to suicide under the pressure. Although there weren’t as

many executions as in previous campaigns, some intellectuals and students were

shot in public to send a message to the public about crossing the CPC. As a result

of all of this, intellectuals in China would never trust Mao or the CPC again.

Mao’s motives for the

100 flowers

Historians argue about the different motives Mao had for the

campaign:

Some say it was a trap, and it was his plan all

along to purge intellectuals.

Others say it wasn’t planned and it grew out of

the conflicts within the CPC leadership.

Another said Mao was just trying to bridge the

gap between party and people, and he underestimated the volume of criticism.

For Mao, even if the campaign wasn’t planned he was still able

to get some positives out of it, as it removed another set of opponents, thereby

further consolidating their power.

Consequences of the

campaign

People began to have doubts over the communist party after

the bloodshed from the hundred flowers campaign.

The campaign, and the anti-rightest campaign which it

evolved into, silenced criticism of communist party regime for a generation.

Party unity was strengthened, Mao’s position was unchallengeable, but intellectual

life was stultified. A popular saying at the time was ‘after the three antis no

one wants to be in charge of money; after the ant-rightest campaign no one

wants to open their mouth.’