Talk:Hundred Flowers Campaign

message: I removed this phrase from the article. If there is a source that can show that Mao had gotten tired of criticism, it should be reformulated so as to not trivialize it ("simply grown sick") and in a more encyclopedic language. Foolip 19:53, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mao had simply grown sick of continual bashing of the CCP." 

message: This is a simply anti-Maoist propaganda, if Mao despised intellectuals, why would he have written so much about epistemology and the importance of learning? Mao wasn't against dissent. The Cultural Revolution was all about dissent; it was a massive movement against a corrupt government.
I welcome you to fix the article. I based some of these writings 3 years ago on a book by Stuart Schramm on Mao. Some of my ideas have changed from then. Colipon+(T) 19:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If Mao didn't despise intellectuals, why did he kill so many of them?64.111.151.124 (talk) 21:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-Maoist Propaganda 

message: :Some concluded that Mao knew the outcome before the campaign had even started.
Who is "some"?  Right-wing Americans?  Flag-waving Communist party members?  European historians? FireWorks 07:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who Concluded? 

message: Anyone have a source for "death toll possibly in the millions"?  That's a really shakey statement as is. FireWorks 07:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source 

message: I read an article on asiansentinel and am was surprised to see how deep this campaign was. I have heard a little bit about it from various other sources but with the current wikipedia article it's a question of white washing Mao's purge. The article might be biased but is there anybody willing to dispute the facts stated in the article? Yukon guy 19:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will clean this up. Colipon+(T) 02:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: There's a lot of information missing from this article

message: "It is commonly believed that the campaign was a political trap, alleging that Mao persecuted those who had views different from the party. The ideological crackdown following the campaign's failure re-imposed Maoist orthodoxy in public expression."
There is really no basis for this statement, the idea put forward that is "common" thought that this was a "trap," has little to no basis beyond Jung Chang's writings. However other notable Sinologists and biographers of Mao have serious disagreements with her views on this subject.
The only basis for such assertions as well seem to be only a postori look at the "anti-Rightist" campaign.
Further it might be "commonly believed," but what is important is whether or not this common understanding amongst scholars in the field.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.123.73 (talk) 02:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's an internet trope, isn't it: there's always somebody ready to step up and defend the indefensible. Get it through your skull that Mao was a million times worse than Hitler.137.205.183.114 (talk) 08:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trap? 

message: In reference to the theory that the campaign was a deliberate ruse to expose rightists, the article intro states that the theory has been challenged on the grounds that Zhou Enlai was also involved.  What relevance does this have?  Is the implication that Zhou was a saint, and would never participate in such a ruse? 
Li Zhisui's account of the campaign's genesis and evolution does offer a good counterpoint to Jun Chang.  Li's argument is basically that Mao intended to use the campaign to consolidate his own power and direct criticism toward opponents.  He was dismayed when criticisms turn against him, and the rest is history.  
(Speaking of that history, the article is very weak on the extent of persecution that followed the campaign).  
Back to the trap question, I find Jun Chang's arguments on the matter to be valuable (if only she were more inclined to cite her sources...), even if I'm not totally ready to buy into it.  She draws on Mao's talks with Party brass analyzing the Hungarian uprising, and concluding that the Hungarians' problem was that "they didn't eliminate all those counter-revolutionaries....Eastern Europe just didn't kill on a grand scale."  She also quotes Mao in Spring telling Ke Qing-shi and others that the campaign was analagous to "casting a long line to bait big fish," and saying "how can we catch the snakes if we don't let them out of their lairs."  Homunculus (duihua) 18:46, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does Zhou Enlai have to do with it?  

message: The claim that Mao remarked at the time that he had "enticed the snakes out of their caves." was explicitly rejected in the first source ("The 'Hundred Flowers' was not, as Mao's victims and supporters both claims, a carefully contribed trap from the start, an example of the Chairman's cunning in 'luring the snake out of its hole'. p.468 Short, Mao: A Life) and completely unsourced in the second. It also appears nowhere in the published corpus, but its inclusion in this article has been widely repeated. TheGrza 03:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of Falsified Quotation

message: The article mentions the name of the campaign comes from a poem, but is Mao the poem author? Is that the full extent of the poem? barraponto (talk) 14:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poem source 

message: Citation five links to an archive of a google books page, but there is no content, simply, "image not available." I'm new, so I'm not quite sure how to approach this issue as would normally be done. The claim citation five exists in regards to seems pretty central to the content of the page, so I would think that having a valid source is important there. What should happen? Thanks, AquaticOnWiki (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi . In most cases, where a book is cited the link should not go to a "preview" on google books. If the book is available in the library at the Internet Archive the link should go to the book there. For books unavailable at the archive, the link should go to the page about the book on the publisher's website - preferably the publisher of the edition cited, but if that is unavailable the current publisher can also be used. Cambial foliage❧ 20:23, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  broken/ bad citation link? 

message: So I read a book called "China's Men of Letters" by K.E. Priestley, and there's a pretty decent source on the Hundred Flowers campaign in general. However, it states that the campaign began in May 1956, while this article implies it started much later. It's further implied to have been so, when it states the campaign's beginning was marked by "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People", which was spoken in February 1957. Reading that speech, it seems Mao Zedong was talking moreso in retrospect. 
I'm unsure if this is 100% right, as I only have my notes on me from when I borrowed the book. If you're curious, by all means view them here, the book is admittedly quite rare: 
I believe it's worth fact checking all this just to make sure we're on the right track.
Harvard Citation here:
Priestley, K. E., and Shou-jung Chʻên. “The Hundred Flowers Campaign” in China’s Men of Letters, Yesterday and Today. Hong Kong: Dragonfly Books, 1962. Print.
Thank you for your time! Plague von Karma (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Start of the campaign seems iffy?