Figuring out who these two guys are (look at the guy’s smile on the right) would not help you go a long way into figuring out the significance of events here in Chapter 20, “Planning the New Society” but it will give you a chuckle.
Terms from the chapter are;
first five year plan Tibet John Foster Dulles
Vietminh Han Chinese PLA
100 Flowers movement
and there are more, like “Zhou Enlai” that I haven’t bothered to repeat. stick to those seven terms, + repeats and you’re good for the quiz.
What is striking to me on the re-read of this chapter, is the extent to which China is swayed by international events that, I’m afraid, you haven’t read about yet. Khrushchev’s speech in 1956 denouncing Stalin, and revolts in Poland and Hungary, also in 1956. This all leads into what is often called the 100 flowers campaign, Mao’s desire to open up criticism from the intellectual community that remains in the PRC, much of which has its origins in the Nationalist party era or before.
You will have a question on your review that goes something like, “If we have criticism to our policies we are not afraid of them” or something like that from Mao. Many students (unadvisedly) try to answer that entire question based up on the 100 flowers campaign. Spence will come right out at the start of the next chapter and say the 100 flowers campaign was NOT a plot by Mao to reveal hidden rightists. He honestly wanted some critics to stand up. If that so, why did so many, like Ding Ling with her Stalin prize in hand, end up in permanent exile?
Kruschev’s denouncing of Stalin was a speech where he critisized Stalin for being too repressive and harsh. This speech in combination with the revolts in Hungary and Poland I think are the reason for Mao launching the 100 flowres campaign. Mao I think might have seen the revolts and Stalin’s denunciation as signs of discontent, so he opened up China to be critisized, to let the people express their feelings, and show their discontent with any problems, but possibly also to change some of China’s policies that were unpolular. However, the reason I think people like Ding Ling were persecuted was because the critics got out of hand, to the point where at first they were just unhappy, but now they were angry, and turning against Mao. Realizing this, I think is what made Mao turn his back on the 100 Flower Movement, which resulted in the more outspoken critics like Ding Ling being exiled.
The 100 Flowers movement to me was like the little engine that could. It had so much potential but in turned into a train wreck in the end! The movement was a disaster because Mao’s important words or never punished. If his poems or speeches were made known to the public I believe the movement would have been successful but the confusiob turned on Mao.
I also liked this chapter because some the history related to me! My mom’s an ethnic Malay from Malaysia, so I thought it was interesting how Chinese in other parts of Asia still held ties to their native country.
I think that Mao had lots of pressure from other high ranking political powers to make some sort of move against people like Hu Feng or Ding Ling because they believed that those sorts of statements would lessen moral and bring ruin to the CCP. I agree with Spence, at least with the facts he has brought forth, he does not create the impression that Mao intentionally devised the 100 Flowers Movement to weed out CCP critics, rather as Spence put it “Mao elaborated on the idea of ‘letting a hundred flowers bloom’ in the field of culture,and ‘a hundred schools of thought contend’ in the field of science” (568). I think that does not make it sound much like he is trying to criminalize anyone. As I read this chapter I skimmed my notes that I took on the videos we watched in class and I noticed that Mao had done similarly when he went back to his home town in the country and asked his old family and friends how the agricultural work was going and they told him the truth about how well villages were really able to meet quotas. While the truth startled him, he took action and made an attempt to change the quotas to be more realistic.
I think the 100 flowers campaign was originally for people to speak out against abuses within the party, but little did CCP officials realize it would get out of hand. For example, the situation that happened at Peking University led to students creating a democratic wall. One year of intellectual freedom was enough for Mao to crack down on people criticizing him. He took radical measures which makes it seem to me like he did it on purpose.
Before reading what others had posted in response to the 100 Flowers movement, I perceived it to be a turning point for China, one that symbolized them making changes to become more modern, and attempting to gain ranks among the other dominant nations at the time. They relaxed laws and limitations in several areas, and encouraged people to speak up, which was in stark contrast to the way that they had been governing their people in the centuries prior. At the same time, Zhou was trying to strengthen China’s communist position by seeking out positive and beneficial relations with the bordering communist countries such as Mongolia, Vietnam and North Korea.
I agree with Spence that Mao’s intent was not to expose “rightists” but rather to receive constructive criticism as opposed to destructive criticism. It seems as though there were other forces that were pressuring Mao such as the CCP. At first Mao encouraged the constructive criticism, just as Maya said above, “Mao elaborated on the idea of ‘letting a hundred flowers bloom’ in the field of culture,and ‘a hundred schools of thought contend’ in the field of science” (568). As a leader, I think Mao should have handled the situation better. He was the one who was encouraging such opinions, if he couldn’t handle the opinions, he shouldn’t have asked for them. I think it’s immature by making the criticizers the villains in the situation. It seems as though Mao is pointing fingers at the criticizers and needed to label them as something negative to get the criticisms to stop.
I think part of the problem with the end results of the 100 Flowers movement was that Mao simply didn’t control everything. His opinions were swayed after the start of the movement, resulting in him redrafting directives. Whether or not he wholeheartledly changed his position on the criticizms, I doubt that he intended for those who spoke out to be severely punished, let alone exiled. When a person employs subordinates to carry out their instructions, they are truly entrusting the subordinates to manage the work themselves. The leader may have little imput in how the work is carried out. This is probably what happened during the movement, and likely many other times during Mao’s rule.