100 Flowers Campaign

Question 1

When was the 100 Flowers launched?

Answer 1

1956

Question 2

What was the aim of 100 flowers?

Answer 2

Intellectuals would help make the party more responsive to popular sentiment

Social grievances would be expressed safely

Question 3

What did Mao say of the aim of the 100 Flowers?

Answer 3

“Let 100 flowers bloom, let 100 schools of thought contend”

Question 4

Why did Mao and the CCP need to regain the confidence of the intelligentsia?

Answer 4

There was a shortage of technical expertise, making their industrial progress difficult

Question 5

Why did Mao feel the need to let the people express their concerns?

Answer 5

• Hope that it would shake up party bureaucracy

- Vaccinate the masses against suppressed discontent

Question 6

Why, according to a Democratic League Minister, were intellectuals not expressing their discontent?

Answer 6

“the basic cause lies in the fact that higher intellectuals are still suspicious”

Question 7

Who supported Mao’s campaign in the CCP? Who didn’t?

Answer 7

Zhou Ennlai

Everyone else

Question 8

When did Mao reinvigorate the 100 Flowers?

Answer 8

February 1957

Question 9

How did Mao reinvigorate 100 Flowers?

Answer 9

In a speech called “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” to the Supreme State Conference, consisting of scientists academics and writers

Question 10

What was Mao saying in his speech at the Supreme State Conference?

Answer 10

Contradictions among the people could be resolved peacefully through unity-criticism-unity- contradictions were only harmful if they are allowed to aggravate the people

Question 11

What was Mao expecting of the 100 Flowers?

Answer 11

“A gentle breeze and a fine rain”

Question 12

When did the criticism begin?

Answer 12

May 1957

Question 13

What kinds of things did intellectuals criticise? (5 pt)

Answer 13

• dissatisfaction with CCP monopoly on power
• CCP cadres meddling in intellectual matters
• research time wasted in political meetings
• corrupt work style of CCP officials
• Mao being arbitrary and reckless in character

Question 14

Why was Mao shocked?

Answer 14

He had hoped for constructive criticism regarding the details of the communists within the ruling structure, not the structure itself

Question 15

What criticisms were considered by Mao to be ‘poisonous weeds’?

Answer 15

‘antagonistic contradictions’- those which denounced the party- were bourgeois, and dangerously anti-revolutionary

Question 16

What campaign came out of the 100 Flowers?

Answer 16

The Anti-Rightist Campaign

Question 17

What did the Anti-Rightist Campaign entail? (4 pt)

Answer 17

Intellectuals were put through harsh denunciations and self-criticism meetings

Institutions which employed intellectuals were required to put forward a quota of 5% of their staff as rightists

300,000-400,000 were sent for re-education through labour in prison camps

40% of the GMD Left and Democratic League were found rightist

Question 18

What were the ultimate consequences of the Anti-Rightist Campaign?

Answer 18

• Countless lives ruined
• Damage to China’s higher education system
• Discrediting of people with technical training and expertise
• Lesser influence of other parties in government

Question 19

What did an intellectual say about the CCP’s regard of intellectuals?

Answer 19

“dog shit one moment and 10,000 ounces of gold the next”

Question 20

What did Mao say about the poisonous weeds?

Answer 20

“any word or deed in variance with socialism is wrong”

Question 21

What is Halliday’s opinion of the true intentions of the 110 Flowers?

Answer 21

“Mao was setting a trap”

Question 22

What did Mao say about whether the 100 flowers was a trap?

Answer 22

“some say it was a secret scheme, we say it was open”

Question 23

What did Li Zhisui say of the poisonous weeds?

Answer 23

“Mao had grossly miscalculated”

Question 24

What did Short say of the nature of the 100 Flowers?

Answer 24

“The most ambitious attempt ever undertaken in any communist country to combine a totalitarian system with democratic checks and balances”