Hundred Flowers Campaign

Hundred Flowers Campaign, movement begun in May 1956 within the communist government of China to lift the restrictions imposed upon Chinese intellectuals and thus grant greater freedom of thought and speech.

Motivated by the relaxation of strict communist controls in the Soviet Union that accompanied Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in February 1956, the Chinese chief of state Mao Zedong invited criticism of the Chinese Communist Party’s policies, even by noncommunist intellectuals, with a famous slogan from Chinese classical history, “Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Criticism was slow in developing, but other party leaders continued to echo Mao’s theme in speeches during the next year. Not until the spring of 1957 did articulate members of society begin to criticize communist policies openly; within a few weeks the party became subjected to an ever-increasing volume of criticism. Wall posters denounced every aspect of the government, and students and professors criticized party members. In June—with the publication of an amended version of a speech Mao had given in February, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”—the party began to signal that the criticism had gone too far. By early July an antirightists’ campaign was under way in which the recent critics of the regime were subjected to severe retribution; most of them lost their jobs and were forced to do manual labour in the country, and some were sent to prison.