Hundred Flowers Movement Revisited 百花运动

In 1957, Mao Zedong was so confident in the correctness of his socialist ways encouraged the people to speak out, to criticise the govt, believing that the criticism would lead to more progress and a better govt. Thus the Hundred Flowers Movement was launched with the full backing of Mao himself.  Let a hundred flowers bloom. In his own words, Mao said, "Our society cannot back down, it could only progress... criticism of the bureaucracy is pushing the government towards the better." The speech indeed was to encourage the people to speak out, vent their criticisms and frustration as long as they were constructive and not hateful and destructive.

The silent intellectuals, the frustrated intellectuals, and those that opposed  the way communism was introduced to run the China honestly believed that Mao was sincere and wanted to hear them, wanted their honest opinions on how best to run a country. They fired away in all honesty and sincerity.  Never did they think that the movement was a red herring, a test balloon. The intelligentsia got carried away and the criticisms of the govt went too far and became unbearable.

Mao ordered a crackdown that ran for several years and all those that spoke out were arrested and sent to labour camps to reflect and to correct their errorneous thoughts. Many died in the process. Many were condemned for life.

In all honesty, Mao was sincere when he launched the Movement, confident that he was right and the criticisms would lead to more progress and a better govt. He did not set a trap from the start to lure the innocent intelligentsia to speak out and exposed themselves to be arrested. He did so only when the attack became too damaging to his govt and his authority to rule.

The moral of the story is that when a dictator encouraged the masses to speak out, the masses must speak out but must also know what to speak out and what not to speak out.  Say what the dictator wants to hear, not what they want the dictator to hear. They must also know the difference between an honest campaign inviting suggestions and a test balloon to trick them stand up and give themselves away for prosecution and arrest and hard labour. The intelligentsia then were just too naive and were taken in.

People who did not know history or learn from the mistakes in history would be condemned to make the same mistakes and bury themselves only to verify that history would repeat itself with their folly.

Thank you very much for a precious but painful lesson in history.