Hundred Flowers Campaign 1957: Dissent & Backlash (Edexcel A Level History: Route E: Communist states in the twentieth century): Revision Note

Summary

• From the end of the Civil War to 1956, Mao and the Communists had clamped down on any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party

  • But in 1956, Mao called for open debates about the performance of the CCP and its policies

    • This became known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign

  • At first, people were wary of offering any criticism.

  • This was perhaps due to critics and opponents of the CCP having been rounded up and imprisoned in the past

  • After some encouragement, people did begin to openly debate and criticise CCP policies and leaders.

• This came to a sudden end when Mao branded these critics as 'Rightists' and claimed they wanted to reverse the revolution

  • Around half a million people were arrested in the aftermath of the Hundred Flowers Campaign

Hundred Flowers Campaign 1957: encouraging criticism and its aftermath to 1965

• In 1956 and 1957, Mao gave a series of speeches

  • The speeches appeared to invite debate and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rule

  • Mao said, 'let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend'

  • This seemed to ask people to debate the CCP's performance openly

    • This became known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign

Mao's motives for the Hundred Flowers campaign

New Ideas

• Some believe Mao was concerned that the economy was not performing well enough

  • By calling for ideas and debate, he hoped to find new ideas and solutions to China's problems

Events in the Soviet Union

• In February 1956, the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, made a "secret speech"

  • In this speech, he criticised his predecessor, Josef Stalin, for his use of terror, imprisonment and secret police

  • Some believe the Hundred Flowers campaign was Mao's way of showing that he was different from his former fellow Communist Leader, Stalin

A Pretence to Remove his Enemies

• Mao believed that some members of the CCP and Politburo were too hesitant and reserved when it came to economic reforms

  • Mao hoped that these members would be heavily criticised during the Hundred Flowers Campaign

  • This would then allow him to move against them and remove them

Reactions to the Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Initially, people were very reluctant to criticise Mao or the CCP

  • Mao then demanded that the Hundred Flowers Campaign be covered in the newspapers

  • He then travelled around the country by train to personally hear the views of the people

• His repeated calls for debate and new ideas eventually resulted in widespread criticism of the CCP, its policies and its leaders

Anti-Rightist campaign: the CCP's response to Hundred Flowers criticism

• Mao called a sudden halt to the debates and criticism of the CCP in June 1957

  • Those who had criticised the CCP found themselves branded as "Rightists" by Mao

  • The "Rightists" were attacked for trying to destroy the revolution and restore capitalism

• Despite being encouraged to openly debate China's system of government, around 500,000 people were arrested

• They were dealt with in many ways, including:

  • Being sent to the labour camps

  • Sent to the countryside for forced rural labour

  • Being demoted or losing their jobs

  • Execution

• The speed with which Mao acted to round up his critics has led some historians to believe the Hundred Flowers Campaign was a ploy

  • They argue that Mao used it to get critics of the government to expose and incriminate themselves

The aftermath of the Hundred Flowers criticism

• The backlash against the critics who exposed themselves during the Hundred Flowers campaign created a climate of fear that lasted throughout the 1960s

  • Intellectuals, experts, writers and academics were viewed as suspicious and unreliable

  • This meant they felt unable to speak out during the disastrous Great Leap Forward (opens in a new tab)

    • This, in turn, led to the Great Famine and the avoidable deaths of millions of people

• Some historians have argued that the backlash that followed the Hundred Flowers campaign laid the foundations for the Cultural Revolution (opens in a new tab)

  • Anyone who had been criticised or labelled a "Rightist" during the Hundred Flowers Campaign was targeted once again by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution

    • This often resulted in their execution