‘let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend’: the ‘opinion poll’ that was the Hundred Flowers Campaign

Things seemed to be going well for Mao and the Chinese Communist Party in 1956 when Mao decided to open the Party to criticism in what was coined the ‘Hundred Flowers’ campaign. Whatever the initial reasons for the campaign, and for the reasons for its change of direction, the criticisms it threw up, offer a rare insight into the true feelings of the Chinese people, Party members included. Though Mao had used the devise before at Yan’an, in the history of one-party, authoritarian, totalitarian states, to my knowledge it stands as a unique ‘opinion poll’ of the feelings of the people.

In establishing a relaxed atmosphere for the campaign, Mao had talked of the need to ease the hold the Party had thus far had on the People’s Republic of China: ‘It would not work to have no discipline’, he said, ‘but if the discipline is too rigid, initiative will be stifled.’[1]  And he also said that, ‘Discipline that stifles creativity and initiative should be abolished. We need a little liberalism to facilitate getting things done. To be strict all the time won’t work’.[2]  So, the purpose of this piece is to focus on that ‘opinion poll’ and take a look at the criticisms thrown up.

At first, however, both the Party and the wider Chinese society were slow to respond to his call. What was acceptable criticism? What was an acceptable alternative ‘school of thought’? Getting it wrong, could cost you your life, certainly your freedom. Philip Short quotes a Chinese proverb: ‘A man who has been bitten by a snake is frightened by a piece of rope’.[3] But frustrated by the slow response, Mao demanded that the People’s Daily publicise the movement. Mao also set off by train on a tour to “meet the people” and convince Party cadres and non-Party groups that the campaign was a genuine attempt to hear their views. Of course, everyone he met was carefully selected and primed as to how to respond, and every situation was just as carefully stage-managed. But the positive experience only convinced him more that he was right to call for the people’s views.

The first views had started to trickle in during the summer of 1956 with scientists protesting about the interference from Party members untrained in the sciences. Now, in the spring of 1957, they grew in number and breadth. They also grew ever more bitter in tone as emotions ran high. Socialist realism was described as ‘cheap optimism’ and there were calls for it to be replaced with Western realism that exposed economic hardship and the social conditions that resulted. Another criticism was the manner in which the Party treated intellectuals, lauding them when they were needed, treating them like ‘dog shit’ when it suited. An engineer went so far as to say they were less subdued under the Japanese occupation, concluding that ‘Everyone had learned the technique of double-talk …’[4]

There were complaints that the old feudal attitudes towards women persisted even among Party members. The Marriage Law of 1950 was criticised for not doing enough to protect women, and the All-China Federation of Democratic Women even more so. Too little attention had been given to medical care (except for Party officials). The oppressive burdens placed on the peasantry came in for criticism too, as did the growing gap between town and countryside, specifically that too much attention had been given to the cities. There were also complaints about the lack of workers’ control in the factories, the lack of free trade unions, and the new system of wage differentials.

There were anti-Soviet comments too, as well as criticisms of Party policies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s dismantling of industrial machinery in Manchuria, its loans to the infant PRC and its limited support of the Korean War came in for criticism. But so too was the CCP’s uncritical acceptance of Soviet economic planning, Soviet education policies, its school curricula.

The Party’s monopoly of power was criticised. The Constitution of 1954 stated it would play a ‘leading role’ but it had also provided freedom and a meaningful political role for the democratic parties. This hadn’t happened. They were allowed to exist but served no purpose but to formally ratify decisions made in the inner sanctums of the CCP. What, then, was the “united front”, the “democratic dictatorship” of four classes, even the Constitution, but empty words? And what was the difference between the government and the Party? And what had happened to such constitutional rights as freedom of speech, a free press? Specific violations were raised.

The Party was seen as distanced from the people (as we have noted, possibly a reason for Mao instigating the campaign). Chu Anping, the editor-in-chief of the Guangming Daily, seen as the intellectuals’ newspaper, identified the key to the problem as ‘the idea that ‘the world belongs to the Party.’ I think a party leading a nation’ he went on to say, ‘is not the same thing as a party owning a nation’.[5] Even Mao’s style of leadership was criticised. A university professor referred to the ‘arbitrary and reckless’ nature of Mao’s authority.[6]

Another strong criticism, and this much at least, Mao must have welcomed, was that the Party had become a bureaucracy, monopolising power and privileges, and was utterly distanced from the people, ‘an aristocracy divorced from the people’, and the people treated as ‘slaves’. The CCP was accused of abandoning its socialist principles. Party officials acted no different from traditional mandarins or Guomindang bureaucrats. They lived in special residences, enjoyed special medical care, their children went to special schools; and they enjoyed access to privileged recreational facilities and vacation resorts. A leader of the Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party put it best when he wrote,

‘In leading the masses to carry through the revolution in the past, the Party stood among the masses; after the liberation, it felt the position had changed and, instead of standing among the masses, it stood on the back of the masses and ruled the masses….. [leaders] should differ in duties, not in status. Some are deeply conscious of being officials; they occupy special positions even when taking meals and seeing operas.’[7]

It is interesting to note that Mao, himself, had secured the “luxuries of office”. Philip Short describes how he had housed himself in the former group of palaces where Manchu princes had lived, and which were connected to the Forbidden City. They were luxurious.[8]

There were demands for the bureaucracy to be reduced, an end to special privileges, and for the introduction of genuine “social democracy” with popular supervision over economic and political life, and of state and Party organs.

This was all unleashed in little more than a month. There was a heap of pent-up criticism!

The harshest criticisms were posted on walls of schools and public buildings, more considered criticisms were printed in newspapers. When the movement spread to the universities, students at Beijing University created a “Democracy Wall” for critical posters to be displayed. Crowds of thousands listened to students talk at the Democratic Plaza, as it was renamed, on issues ranging from multi-party elections to the respective merits of socialism and capitalism, and student associations were formed with names like ‘Voices from the Lowest Level’, ‘Bitter Medicine’ and even ‘the Hundred Flowers Society’. They distributed leaflets published their own newspapers and organised the rallies. They occupied university buildings, attacked government and Party buildings, and even held Party officials as hostages. And what happened at Beijing University was replicated in universities all over China, and even spread to middle schools.

There was a heap of pent-up emotion too!

Mao would turn on the critics as the campaign was turned on its head, no longer about cultivating ‘blooming flowers’ but cutting out poisonous weeds, and a debate still continues as to whether this was what Mao had intended to happen all along. That will be for another “short piece” but whatever each of us feels about that particular debate, we are still left with a rare insight of the feelings of people in a single-party, authoritarian, totalitarian state.

[1] Mao quoted in Michael Lynch, Mao, pp. 160-1

[2] Mao quoted in Philip Short, Mao: A Life, p. 455

[3] Quoted in Philip Short, p. 461

[4] Quoted in Philip Short, p. 466

[5] Quoted in J.A.G. Roberts, Modern China, p. 232

[6] Quoted in Michael Lynch, Mao, p. 163

[7] Quoted in Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China And After, p. 176

[8] Philip Short, pp. 471-2