Hundred Flowers Campaign

Hundred Flowers Campaign
Simplified Chinese百花齐放
Traditional Chinese百花齊放

The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement (Chinese: 百花齐放), the double hundred movement (双百方针) was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the People's Republic of China during which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong purposed to "let one hundred flowers boom in social science and arts and let one hundred of view points be expressed in the field of science.[1][2] It is a campaign that allowed citizens to offer criticism and advice to the government and the party.[3] Hence, it intended to serve for an antibureaucratic puporse, at least on Maoists' part. [4]The campaign culminated in the Retification of the Party by those outside its rank and represented a period of relaxed ideological and cultural control. [5]

The movement was in part a response to address the tensions between the CCP and the intellectuals.[6] Another key issue that led to the hundred flower movement is the fact that Mao realized the CCP's control over intellectual life is stifling potentially useful new ideas. He was also worried of the emerging new party elites that could threaten his position.[3] He sought to use this movement to restrain the new forces within the party. However, criticism quickly grew out of hand and posed a legitimate threat to the communist regime. The liberation was short-lived. Following this liberation, a crackdown continued through 1957 and 1959 as it developed into an Anti-Rightist Campaign against those who were critical of the regime and its ideology. Citizens were rounded up in waves by the hundreds of thousands, publicly criticized during struggle sessions, and condemned to prison camps for re-education through labor, or even execution.[7] The ideological crackdown re-imposed Maoist orthodoxy in public expression, and catalyzed the Anti-Rightist Movement.

  1. ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick. 1960. The Hundred Flowers. pp. 3
  2. ^ "新中国档案:"百花齐放、百家争鸣"方针的提出". www.gov.cn. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  3. ^ a b Fofa (2023-03-02). China a century of revolution, part 2 (1949-1976). Retrieved 2024-06-02 – via YouTube.
  4. ^ Maurice J., Meisner (1986). "Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic". Internet Archive. p. 169.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Daniel, Leese (2011). Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 55.
  6. ^ Burns, John P. (March 1996). "Governing China: From Revolution Through Reform. By Kenneth Lieberthal [New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. xxvi + 498 pp. $30.00. ISBN 0–393–96714–X.]". The China Quarterly. 145: 189–190. doi:10.1017/s0305741000044192. ISSN 0305-7410.
  7. ^ Short, Philip (2000). Mao: A Life. Macmillan. pp. 457–471. ISBN 978-0-8050-6638-8.

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