Hundred Flowers Campaign Facts & Worksheets

Let’s find out more about the Hundred Flowers Campaign!

The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also known as the Hundred Flowers Movement, lasted from 1956 to mid-1957. It started when leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the founding and sole ruling Party in China, encouraged intellectuals and non-party members to criticise and advise the government. A list of economic goals known as the First Five-Year Plan was successfully implemented, which aimed to collectivise farmland and nationalised industry, and required the cooperation of the educated classes. Mao Zedong, the President of the People’s Republic of China at that time, promoted the Hundred Flowers Campaign, calling it after a poem: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.”

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Following the establishment of Mao’s communist rule in China, a new constitution was developed in 1954 that included freedom of speech, assembly, and press. However, these liberties were only granted when the government favoured socialism. Intellectuals were the most mocked because their ideologies were constantly changing. The Communists had earned many intellectuals’ backing in 1949, but that support was eroding. As a result, the CCP was now in the process of reclaiming that support for economic reasons.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSED CAMPAIGN

• The intellectuals had to be more advanced and progressive because science and technology were required to give China riches and strength in both political and economic aspects. China had a twelve-year plan for scientific progress, which involved the cooperation of the intellectuals.
• The intellectuals feared the Communists because they were persecuted. Mao had proposed a twelve-year program to improve agricultural production, but he needed the intellectuals to help by participating in China’s economic and political life.
• Because China was such a new nation, the objective was to emulate the Soviet model of central planning and industrial development. However, the Premier of the Republic of China, Zhou Enlai, and Mao Zedong had slightly different ideas about accomplishing the developments in China.
• Zhou argued that more rational organisations and work assignments would allow the intellectuals to develop their skills better, benefitting the state. He stated that more books, better housing, and more prizes were required for this to happen.
• Zhou also eased barriers to recruiting intellectuals into the CCP, which resulted in a 50% rise in party enrollment in 1957. The challenge for Mao was that the CCP now had more intellectuals than working-class members.
• Conversely, Mao believed that bureaucrats and peasants should be isolated from the intellectuals for them to flourish. Mao thought that agriculture was essential for the nation to advance and that the intellectuals were a critical component in expanding agricultural production.
• Mao envisioned a society full of small-scale companies in the countryside, local communities at the centre of the socio-economy, labour-intensive projects, and moral incentives. He demanded that everything be completed as soon as possible. Even though Mao had reservations about the ability to reform the intellectuals, he believed that the result of a bigger China was worth taking a risk on the intellectuals. 

HUNDRED FLOWERS

• During a policy-making conference in 1956, Zhou Enlai underlined the necessity for a more extensive campaign to organise many Chinese intellectuals to provide suggestions regarding government policy. Zhou believed that having more intellectuals would promote a more balanced governance. 
• A significant influence happened in February 1956, when Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev criticised Joseph Stalin, the proponent of the First Five-Year Plan and Communist Party Secretary General. Khrushchev delivered a speech portraying Stalin as a “bloodthirsty tyrant.” For Mao, the problem with that speech was that the Chinese people had been persuaded to believe that Stalin was the rescuer of China and a comrade to the Chinese people.
• Mao had witnessed the Khrushchev-led attack on Stalin’s very restrictive policies in the Soviet Union and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Soviets and feared that a similar political backlash against the Communist government’s tight policies might occur in China. Mao deposed Zhou and assumed command of the effort to encourage government criticism.
• Mao’s “Let a hundred flowers bloom” and “Let a hundred schools of thought contend” campaigns took effect on 2 May 1956. The first phrase was directed toward artists and writers, whom he urged to express themselves freely within the boundaries of social realism. The latter phrase was intended for scientists (intellectuals), whom he wished not to fear when proposing various scientific theories for the sake of scientific progress.

  

• Because of the persecution many had previously endured, the intellectuals were first cautious about voicing disapproval. For example, in 1955, a writer named Hu Feng was imprisoned for criticising political involvement in creative works.
• However, Mao and others continually urged the intellectuals to express their opinions on political issues. By the summer of 1956, newspaper articles criticised bureaucracy, social realism, and the government’s contempt for Marxist humanitarian values. 
• They were also encouraged by an anti-Stalinist revolutionary movement in Hungary, demonstrating that change in the Soviet system was conceivable and that the same thing could happen in China.
• In February 1956, Mao re-launched his campaign with the speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.” He placed a heavy emphasis on agriculture and a lighter industry. His philosophy was that “the standard of living of the people should correspond with the stage of development of productive forces, and no section of the population, especially not the leading groups, should seek a standard higher than the remainder.”
• Mao also provided intellectuals with new opportunities to critique freely. Mao believed that because the intellectuals were assumed to favour socialism, it was advantageous for the country to hear the many opinions of the intellectuals. Mao also chastised the CCP, emphasising the importance of class struggle over bureaucracy and reinstating the concept of class struggle. He argued that the class struggle was a matter of class ideologies.
• However, the criticisms became harsher as time went by. When Mao unveiled his strategy of open criticism, he expected people to criticise Zhou’s ideas, not his own. Much was said about the leaders and the followers. Because Mao stated that leaders and other political officials were not to interfere with people’s complaints, the intellectuals and students equally publicly expressed their unhappiness. They were highly aggressive and accusatory of the CCP; for example, many scholars desired professional autonomy, and they tackled the issue of China’s political monopoly.
• Intellectuals even challenged social structures, claiming that the Communists were not functioning in a socialist manner by, for example, fostering economic inequities. There were even published letters claiming that a privileged class received better medical care, lived in separate dwellings, or had access to everything the general public did not. Intellectual and political liberties were supposed to be available to everyone, not only to the authorities. However, Mao even went after bureaucracy, claiming that classes should be abolished. He stated that the distance between the city and the countryside needs to be bridged.

  

• On 19 May, a key event in Chinese history occurred when students at Beida (Beijing University) dedicated a Democracy Wall; the dining hall side was covered with posters and newspaper articles voicing their criticisms about the government. 
• Organisations like the Hundred Flowers Society and Beida hosted meetings and distributed information packets about the socialist system and its critics. Such efforts upset Mao, who ended the Hundred Flowers Campaign on 8 June. 
• This Hundred Flowers Campaign, however, had consequences. On 18 June, the government reissued Mao’s Hundred Flowers speech with new elements, such as the attempt to remove the intellectuals from the government.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

• Mao called a halt to the campaign in July 1957. Mao now used his Hundred Flowers Campaign to deceive critics into voicing their opinions and to find and remove his political opponents. Later, the Anti-Rightist Campaign was established to purge alleged “Rightists” within the Chinese Communist Party. Rightists were the intellectuals who opposed the administration of China. The Anti-Rightist investigated those who had expressed their concerns over the government.

IMPACT OF THE CAMPAIGN

• By the end of 1957, 300,000 people had been classified as rightists. In 1958, future Premier Zhu Rongji was expelled while working in the State Planning Commission. The majority of those charged were intellectuals. Informal criticism, “re-education through labour,” and, in some instances, execution were among the consequences.
• Despite having identical ideals to people considered socialist opponents, Mao assisted in condemning and persecuting them. 
• This behaviour made some Chinese wonder if this was what Mao and the Chinese government had in mind all along: to allow them that freedom so that those opposed to socialism could be located and dealt with more readily.
• The CCP accused the intellectuals of being too critical of the government, and the Party used that criticism to oppress the intellectuals. 
• They were imprisoned or transported to labour camps. They were forced to farm the land there, but most were banished.
• The most significant setback and disappointment was that freedom of expression was so devastating during the Hundred Flowers Campaign that it was never practised again in China under the government of Mao.