IV. The Anti-rightist Movement—Nationwide Brainwashing
In 1956, a group of Hungarian intellectuals formed the Petofi Circle, which held forums and debates critical of the Hungarian government. The group sparked a nationwide revolution in Hungary, which was crushed by Soviet soldiers. Mao Zedong took this “Hungarian Event” as a lesson. In 1957, Mao called upon the Chinese intellectuals and other people to “help the CCP rectify itself.” This movement, known as the “Hundred Flowers Movement” for short, followed the slogan of “letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Mao’s purpose was to lure out the “anti-Party elements” among the people. In his letter to provincial Party chiefs in 1957, Mao Zedong spoke his intention of “luring the snakes out of their holes” by letting them air their views freely in the name of freedom of thought and rectifying the CCP.
Slogans at the time encouraged people to speak up and promised no reprisals—the Party would not “grab pigtails, strike with sticks, issue hats, or settle accounts after the autumn,” meaning the party would not find fault, make attacks, place labels, or seek to retaliate. Yet soon the CCP initiated an “anti-rightist” movement, declaring 540,000 of the people who dared to speak up as “rightists.” Among them, 270,000 lost their jobs and 230,000 were labeled as “medium rightists” or “anti-CCP anti-socialist elements.” Later some summarized the CCP’s political stratagems of persecution into four items: Luring the snakes out of holes; fabricating crimes, attacking suddenly, and punishing with a single accusation; attacking relentlessly in the name of saving people; and forcing self-criticism and using the most severe labels.
What then were the “reactionary speeches” that had caused so many rightists and anti-communists to be exiled for nearly 30 years in far-flung corners of the nation? The “three major reactionary theories,” the targets of general and intensive assaults at the time, consisted of a few speeches by Luo Longji, Zhang Bojun, and Chu Anping. A closer look at what they proposed and suggested shows that their wishes were quite benign.
Luo suggested forming a joint commission of the CCP and various “democratic” parties to investigate the deviations in the “Three Anti Campaign” and “Five Anti Campaign,” and the movements for purging reactionaries. The State Council itself often presented something to the Political Consultative Committee and the People’s Congress for observations and comments, and Zhang suggested the Political Consultative Committee and the People’s Congress should be included in the decision-making process.
Chu suggested that since non-CCP members also had good ideas, self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility as well, there was no need to assign a CCP member across the nation as the head of every work unit, big or small, or even for the teams under each work unit. There was also no need that everything, major or minor, had to be done the way the CCP members suggested. All three had expressed their willingness to follow the CCP and none of their suggestions had exceeded the boundaries demarcated by the famous words of writer and critic Lu Xun [4], “My master, your gown has become dirty. Please take it off and I will wash it for you.” Like Lu Xun, these “rightists” expressed docility, submissiveness and respect.
None of the condemned “rightists” suggested that the CCP should be overthrown; all they had offered was constructive criticism. Yet precisely because of these suggestions, tens of thousands of people lost their freedom, and millions of families suffered. What followed were more movements such as “confiding to the CCP,” digging out the hardliners, the new “Three Anti Campaign,” sending intellectuals to the countryside to do hard labor, and catching the rightists who were missed the first time around. Whoever had a disagreement with the leader of the workplace, especially the party secretaries, would be labeled as anti-CCP. The CCP would often subject them to constant criticism, or send them to labor camps for forced reeducation. Sometimes the Party relocated whole families to rural areas, and barred their children from going to college or joining the army. They couldn’t apply for jobs in cities or towns either. The families would lose their job security and public health benefits. They became lowly members of the peasant rank and outcasts even among second-class citizens.
After the persecution of the intellectuals, some scholars developed a two-faced personality. They followed closely the “Red Sun” and became the CCP’s “court-appointed intellectuals,” doing or saying whatever the CCP asked. Some others became aloof and distanced themselves from political matters. Chinese intellectuals, who have traditionally had a strong sense of responsibility towards the nation, have been silenced ever since.
V. The Great Leap Forward—Creating Falsehoods to Test People’s Loyalty
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