Why did Mao launch the Hundred Flowers Campaign

Question 1

Asking the intellectuals for help

Answer 1

Mao was worried that the economy was not improving fast enough.
It may have been that the HFC was a genuine attempt to encourage educated intellectuals to come forward with advice and answers to this problem.

Question 2

Rectification of the Party

Answer 2

Mao feared that the Party was becoming less revolutionary: he feared that it had become bureaucratic and needed to be ‘rectified’.
Mao wanted to encourage intellectuals to point out the mistakes of Party members and force them to act in the interests of the people again.

Question 3

Removal of Mao’s enemies

Answer 3

Mao believed that some members of the Party were not radical enough in introducing Communist policies, especially economic reforms which Mao wanted to happen very quickly.
He hoped that the intellectuals would criticise these more conservative Communists, giving him the opportunity to remove them.

Question 4

International concerns

Answer 4

In February 1956, Khrushchev made the famous speech that denounced Stalin’s cult of personality and his use of the secret police and terror.
This may have made Mao nervous so he sought a way to prove that he was not a dictator by encouraging debate.

Question 4

Over-confidence

Answer 4

The early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had been a success: the GMD had been forced to flee, the Korean War had been a success and the First Five-Year Plan had boosted industrialisation.
Land reform had been popular among the peasants.
By asking intellectuals to deliver a judgement on the regime, he expected a ringing endorsement of his policies that would give him even greater influence and allow him to advance his own personal policies.

Question 5

Criticisms of Mao and the CCP

Answer 5

They denounced the Party’s failure to provide democratic rights or freedom of expression.
They attacked the privileged situation that the Communist leaders had given themselves, with better food, housing and education for their children.

Question 6

Mao’s response

Answer 6

In June, Mao’s speech on ‘Handling Contradictions’ was finally published in the People’s Daily but there was no mention of compromise or moderation.
Instead it declared that ‘poisonous weeds’ had grown up among the ‘fragrant flowers’.
These ‘right-wingers’ had abused their freedoms and he demanded a campaign of class struggle against them

Question 6

Aftermath of the HFC

Answer 6

Mao launched the ‘Anti-Rightest’ campaign.
It is estimated that between 400,000 and 700,000 intellectuals were purged and sent to the countryside or the Laogai for ‘labour reform’.
Others died of suicide.