Flowers Campaign Research Articles

Utopian Ruins: A Memorial Museum of the Mao Era

Utopian Ruins: A Memorial Museum of the Mao Era

Writing Personal Essays between the Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Cultural Revolution: Feng Zikai, Conformist and Authenic

This study examines Feng Zikai’s essays from 1956 to 1965 as products of his attempts to come to terms with the social, political, and cultural situation of the era through writing literary pieces and essays. This analysis of his prose writings that were created over a ten-year stretch bookmarked by the Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Cultural Revolution presents Feng Zikai’s hesitant reassessment of his own work, its intellectual and artistic foundations, and his difficult search for a conformist but at the same time authentic essayistic voice that would allow him to grasp and accept the reality of this period.

Comrades-in-Arms and Partners in Crime: The German Democratic Republic (GDR) and China in the 1950s and 1960s

This article analyzes the quality of selected aspects and issues regarding relations between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and China in the 1950s and early 1960s. How was Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Campaign perceived and interpreted in East Berlin, and why and until when was GDR leader Walter Ulbricht enthusiastic about Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward are among the questions this article will seek to answer. As it turned out, East German leaders’ assessments and newspaper reporting on Mao’s domestic and foreign policy and government propaganda did not in any way correspond with China’s on the ground realities. The East German authorities took Chinese propaganda and entirely false statistics and data on steel and agricultural production at face value and ordered its mouthpiece newspapers to do the same. The same was true for Chinese reporting and propaganda on Ulbricht’s decision to divide Berlin with a wall in 1961: misleading and nonsensical reporting in support of a fair-weather friendship, which in the wake of the Sino-Soviet Split in the early 1960s would turn into enmity (as ordered by Moscow).

A Poetics of the Writers' Conference: Literary Relation in the Cold War World

Abstract This article offers a poetics of the writers' conference as conducted via channels of Cold War–era cultural diplomacy through a reading of the Asian Writers' Conference (New Delhi, 1956), a largely forgotten predecessor of the better-known Afro-Asian Writers' Conferences. Focusing particularly on the Chinese writers in attendance, I read the conference literarily, with an eye to its aesthetics and the particular performance of transnational literary relation that it engendered. The Conference's fortuitous confluence with the Hundred Flowers Campaign in China unexpectedly made possible an approach to transnational literary exchange that actively eschewed and rebelled against state intervention in the literary sphere. As such, the Asian Writers' Conference effected a form of transnational literary relation that thrived in its self-avowed uselessness to mandates of diplomacy. The Conference warns against the tendency in South–South studies to valorize the decentering of colonial powers as cultural mediators without a critical engagement with the nation-state's overseeing presence once it occupies that agential role in transnational literary exchange.

‘Gems Unwrought Can Form Nothing Useful’: Socialist China’s Pedagogical Erasure of Individuality, 1949–1958

ABSTRACT This article investigates socialist China’s pedagogic treatment of individuality between 1949 and 1958, with a focus on the debates concerning ‘all-round development’ and ‘teaching in accordance with aptitude’, two principles that clashed regarding students’ individuality. It reconstructs how educational bureaucrat and theorist Zhang Lingguang spearheaded the debates in People’s Education, China’s leading educational journal. Building on the existing idealistic, critical and cultural perspectives on the debates, this article offers an analysis of power dynamics on three levels. Interpersonally, bureaucrats and ideologues were in conflict with ordinary teachers from local schools. Institutionally, People’s Education mediated between the Ministry of Education and teachers nationwide, while managing its accountability. (Inter)nationally, the debates were conditioned by the changing Sino–Soviet relationship, and by the Hundred Flowers Campaign.

1950년대 중국의 제도화된 ‘五四紀念’과 ‘新5·4운동’

초록·키워드 목차 오류제보하기 In this paper I looked at how the ‘May 4th Day’ executed in the 1950"s after the founding of the People"s Republic of China. In December 1949, the ‘May 4th’ was officially established as a national memory day. It happened 30 years after the May 4th Movement. In addition, guidelines for national supervision of the ‘May 4th Day’ have been issued almost every year. It specifically supported the institutionalized ‘May 4th Day.’ Since then, Youth Day has held a grand celebration every 10 years, in the middle, the celebrations were relatively small each year. This pattern has been established and continues to this day. This has changed considerably compared to the period of the Republic of China. At that time, the activities of the ‘May 4th Day’ were largely suppressed, but it was not until the establishment of the People"s Republic of China that the ‘May 4th Day’ was institutionalized and organized by state power. Based on the institutionalization as above, the activities of the ‘May 4th Day’ were carried out regularly throughout the 1950s. A striking feature of the ‘May 4th Day’ in the 1950s is that political messages have been strongly transmitted from above to the ‘May 4th Day’ every year. Every year, major events or pending issues have been featured in the ‘May 4th Day’ as a political message. The political message above was not related to the May 4th Movement or the student class. So I will call this feature ‘the politicization of the May 4th Day given from above.’ In reality, however, there was a certain difference between the political power and the masses of students in recognizing the important values of the May 4th, such as democracy and science, freedom and equality. This was evident in the ‘May 19th Movement’ which were initiated by students at Beijing University during the ‘Hundred Flowers Campaign’ in 1957 and the ‘Anti-Rightist Campaign’ suppressed it. In the end, students" demands for ‘true socialism’ or ‘socialist democracy’ are soon suppressed by Anti-Rightist Campaign. This leads to ‘extreme left conservatism’ such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The ‘socialist democracy’ that students claimed in 1957 is an ideological legacy to be restored and referenced for political reform in China. It is also an ideological legacy that we should not be wiped out. Now remembering and restoring the ideological legacy of 1957 is very important for the commemoration of ‘May 4th.’ #중화인민공화국 #중국공산당 #‘5·4 기념’ #5·4운동 #5·19운동 #‘백화제방 백강쟁명’ #정풍운동 #반우파투쟁 #中华人民共和国 #中国共产党 #‘五四’纪念’ #五四运动 #五·一九运动 #‘百花齐放百家争鸣’整风运动 #反右派斗争 #People"s Republic of China #Communist Party of China #‘May 4th Day’ #May 4th Movement #May 19th Movement #Hundred Flowers Campaign #Anti-Rightist Campaign Ⅰ. 머리말Ⅱ. ‘오사기념’의 제도화와 정치화 : ‘오사기념’의 연대기Ⅲ. ‘新5·4운동’과 ‘사회주의 민주’ : 또 하나의 ‘오사기념’Ⅳ. 맺음말참고문헌Abstract

Editorial

Editorial Margherita Zanasi Timothy Cheek is the guest editor of this May 2020 special issue focusing on 1957, an important "crucible" year for the People's Republic of China. This year witnessed a dramatic turning point from expectations for free political expression during the Hundred Flowers campaign to the sudden crackdown of the Anti-Rightist campaign. As Cheek explains in his introduction, rather than approaching this turning point as the beginning of a long-term trend of Maoist authoritarianism that was to escalate into the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the contributing authors explore the experience of actors who had no foresight of the political future of China and could make sense of the 1957 events only by relying on their previous experiences. These articles, therefore, present a local and personal narrative of 1957 rather than enclosing it in a metanarrative of political history at the level of the central leadership. In this vein, Dayton Lekner explores the local dynamics of power that shaped relationships between the individual intellectuals and the local and central authorities and how the events of 1957 changed the way in which writers understood their position vis-à-vis society and the state. Yidi Wu's contribution explores how individuals experienced the process of labeling—as "rightists," "centrists," and "leftists"—and argues that the state adopted political labeling as a strategy for eliciting people's loyalty. Stig Thøgersen assesses the long-term impact of the 1957 Anti-Rightist campaign on educational policies. The labeling as "rightists" of proponents of progressive models of education, in fact, paved the way to the adoption of a Stalinist model. Finally, Ning Wang analyzes the culture of political campaigns, focusing specifically on the "chain-of-prey" phenomenon that saw victims turning into accusers as a survival strategy. This special issue was first developed under the stewardship of the previous Twentieth-Century China editor, Kristin Stapleton, to whom goes most of the credit for bringing it to completion. This issue of Twentieth-Century China also includes two review essays. In "What Do Chinese Intellectuals Do These Days?" Peter Zarrow approaches the issue of contemporary Chinese intellectuals' search for identity and a sense of purpose by focusing on three recently published works by Ge Zhaoguang, Els van Dongen, and Sebastian Veg. David Bello's review essay, "Inner Asian Frontiers of China and Some Peoples without Others," focuses on two works on the northern Xinjiang border and the Sino-Korean border in order to explore how emerging historiography of the borderlands contributes to our understanding of imperialism in China. Accessible through Project MUSE are four book reviews. Yvon Wang reviews Howard Chiang's book on science, medicine, and sex transformation in modern China. Micah Muscolino comments on Brian DeMare's recent book on land reform. Tim Wright reviews Elisabeth Köll's history of railroads, and Xiaobing Li reviews Pang Yang Huei's [End Page 119] book on the three-way political relations among China, Taiwan, and the United States during the early Cold War years. Finally, Timothy Cheek is the author featured in our interview series, available at http://hstcconline.org/interviews-with-authors/. [End Page 120] Copyright © 2020 Twentieth Century China Journal, Inc.

A Chill in Spring: Literary Exchange and Political Struggle in the Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns of 1956–1958

Who had the power to innovate in the linguistic and literary realms in the high Mao era? To date, scholars have emphasized a top-down enforcement of formulaic language through a mixture of Communist Party organization and Maoist charisma. This article challenges the exhaustiveness of that model by articulating the circulation, appropriation, and modulation of literary tropes during the political campaigns of 1956–1958. To this end, it traces the widespread uptake of the titular metaphor of the Hundred Flowers Campaign and its proliferation throughout public debate. Troubling the top-down model is the challenge to this propagation posed by sociologist Fei Xiaotong 费孝通 (1910–2005) with his essay “The Early Spring Weather of Intellectuals” and the impact that essay, and its central metaphor, had on public discourse. In exploring this battle over the metaphorical season, this article reimagines the Hundred Flowers, Rectification, and Anti-Rightist campaigns through the lens of literary exchange. It argues that in distinct cases it was control of public discourse through literary virtuosity that constituted a key battleground during the campaigns.

Review: The realities of authoritarian media in China

Review of: Stockman, D. (2012). Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01844-0 China can no longer be called Communist. It is an authoritarian state in which a party that likes to call itself Communist maintains a firm grip on the country. However much the party and the corrupt party princelings enjoy the benefits of capitalism (and let us be frank that it is a distinctively 19th century robber baron style of capitalism), the government usemethods of media control that have not changed since Mao took power in 1959. Censorship has always been part of the regime, but Mao and his direct successors were always clever enough to give the masses a chance to let off steam now and then through such projects as the Hundred Flowers campaign and the Democracy Wall movement.

The Hungarian revolution and the origins of China's Great Leap policies, 1956–57

The 1956 crisis in Hungary had a profound impact on China's domestic politics. It played a formative role in the evolution of Chinese policy as top officials critically reviewed the Stalinist experience of governance. Intellectuals and students began to doubt the efficiency of the party's rule, while Mao Zedong rejected meaningful reforms of institutional socialism in favour of ‘soft’ means of conscripting the intellectuals and ‘remoulding’ popular thought. Having opened up the party to criticism from outside, Mao cited the risk of domestic opponents fomenting a Hungarian-style crisis in China in terminating the Hundred Flowers campaign and moving to a programme of ideological purges in the summer of 1957, which paved the way for a massive economic campaign in 1958.1

Calligraphy, poetry and paradoxical power in Wenda Gu's Neon Calligraphy Series

Calligraphy, poetry and paradoxical power in Wenda Gu's Neon Calligraphy Series

Administrative Reform in Post-Mao China: Efficiency or Ethics (review)

Reviewed by: Administrative Reform in Post-Mao China: Efficiency or Ethics Thomas Scharping (bio) Stephen K. Ma. Administrative Reform in Post-Mao China: Efficiency or Ethics. Lanham, New York, and London: University Press of America, 1996. vii, 218 pp. Hardcover $36.00, ISBN 0-7618-0499-4. While more profound changes in the governmental system of China have been shelved for the time being, the imperatives of economic reform have kept an overhauling of the country's administrative apparatus high on the political agenda. Of course, the borderline between political and administrative reform is a thin one, as all debates on increasing bureaucratic effectiveness soon touch on the sensitive question of the Party's role. The present study by Stephen Ma, therefore, should command the attention of both specialists in organizational studies and those who are interested in the broader topic of political change in China. After having read the study under review here, however, these two groups of readers will be equally disappointed. Neither does the text offer significantly new empirical evidence on its subject nor does it present a well-reasoned argument with fresh perspectives. Because of its lack of clear structure, it cannot even be recommended for introductory reading. The sources used are limited to major Party newspapers and some journals from China, Hong Kong magazines, and a specialized periodical on the topic. The methodology employed is content analysis veering between anecdotal storytelling and the computation of data for article categories, subject matter, and authorship. The conclusions are inconclusive, and the line of reasoning is blurred. The book opens with an introductory chapter on modernization and administrative reform. It presents the guiding questions behind the study: Are the existing administrative structures and processes in China adequate for the implementation of rapid modernization? Can they adapt to the rapid changes in environmental policy making? Have administrative reforms undermined the Party's ability to control, or even reduced the scope of, state power? It is the author's contention that the difficulties encountered in Chinese policy implementation are more related to the unethical behavior of government bureaucrats than to an unbalanced institutional or political development. A couple of pages later, though, he contradicts this assertion by remarking that post-Mao China has produced a bureaucracy with some autonomy and too little supervision. The text abounds with such incongruous statements. Usually, the contradictions are glossed over by profuse references to Max Weber, Samuel Huntington, Anthony Downs, and the like; but we sorely miss some clarifying thought by the author himself. Two further chapters provide historical background to the main subject of the study. They discuss the administrative heritage of China and the role of intellectuals vis-à-vis the government. The main thrust is a claim for the existence of [End Page 141] honest government prior to the reform period, followed by a discussion of the strained relations between intellectuals and power holders. Again, the arguments often contradict each other. And the situation is not improved by the author's practice of making broad statements that lump together imperial China, revolutionary history, and decades of PRC experience. It seems that bureaucratic problems prompting the Hundred Flowers campaign, the sharp inner-Party tensions over different administrative approaches, and the violent conflicts triggered by them during the Cultural Revolution do not exist for the author. Although the pre-reform campaigns are later mentioned in passing and the existence of earlier administrative problems is acknowledged, the book does not succeed in placing into political context the diverse Chinese voices cited. While the opening chapters do not contain significant new points, the parts that follow make some contribution by analyzing the coverage of administrative problems in Chinese periodicals of the reform period. The main attention is focused on the journal Chinese Public Administration, the house organ of the Chinese Association of Public Administration. The author's findings include the following observations: theoretical articles and news on practical developments rather than concrete reform proposals have dominated the writing in the journal; practitioners from the ranks of the bureaucracy rather than intellectuals from outside have been the most active contributors; and questions of personnel management rather than structural issues have been the prevalent topics. Such observations are...

The Founding of The China Quarterly

In the beginning was Soviet Survey, published in London by the Paris-based Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). The Hundred Flowers episode sparked a special issue, the communes a special supplement. The editors of Soviet Survey persuaded Paris HQ that China had become interesting enough to merit its own journal. I had contributed to the Soviet Survey Hundred Flowers issue and in 1958 the CCF had commissioned me to prepare a documentary volume on the theme (The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals in the United States). In early 1959, Walter Laqueur, then Soviet Survey's principal editor, asked me to edit a new journal on China.

Toward a Democratic China: The Intellectual Autobiography of Yan Jiaqi (review)

290 China Review International: Vol. ?, No. ?, Spring 1994 scattered in journal articles. We might quibble with the trendy title and the absence of an index, but the book will prove an enduring resource for graduate students , upper level undergraduates and all workers in this field. Paul Clark The University ofAuckland, New Zealand Yan Jiaqi. David S. K. Hong and Denis C. Mair, translators. Foreword by Andrew J. Nathan. Toward a Democratic China: The IntellectualAutobiography ofYan Jiaqi Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. xviii, 285 pp. Hardcover $34.95. Paperback $15.95. copyrighti994 by University of Hawai'i Press This intellectual autobiography traces Mr. Yan Jiaqi's intellectual journey from the time he was a leading advocate ofDeng Xiaoping's reform platform to his becoming a champion ofthe pro-democracy movement ofexiled Chinese dissidents . The original book was published in Chinese in 1989, before Mr. Yan's exile. It was subsequently translated into English, with four more chapters added, namely chapters 7, 15, 19, and 20, after Mr. Yan left China because of the 1989 Tiananmen Square tragedy. In the book,Yan's actual autobiography takes up twenty chapters; this is nicely supplemented by a selection ofhis own essays and interviews with him at relevant stages ofhis life (chapters 21-32). These essays and interviews are pertinent and helpful to our understanding of Mr. Yan. The English translation of the book has been professionally done, not only capturing the subtle and complex ideas of an "establishment intellectual" who was confronted with difficult choices of reform, but also depicting the dynamics ofthe tension-ridden situation when China was taking its first painful steps in the democratic transition in the post-Mao era. The translators are able to convey the intense feeling ofa Chinese intellectual who was articulating his views on concrete political problems at the major twists and turns during the first decade of reform in China. On the whole, the translations on the topics related to the history ofWestern political philosophy, science, and Chinese literature appear better than those on public administration, management, and economics. The title of the book, Toward a Democratic China: The Intellectual Autobiography ofYan liaji, is slightly misleading because the author devotes most of this autobiography (say, eighteen out of twenty chapters, not including the attached essays and interviews from chapters 21 to 32) to a portrayal ofhimself as an active member of China's think tanks, such as China's Academy of Social Sciences and the Office for Political Reform of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Reviews 291 For one decade of reform from 1979 to 1989, he spent most ofhis time and energy working with and for the establishment, but it is still fair to say that his writings during this period showed considerable sympathy for a wider sharing of political power as well as for the protection ofhuman rights: Take, for instance, his role in publishing the first book about the April Fifth Tiananmen Incident of 1976 (chapter 5), and his role in the commemoration ofthe thirtieth anniversary of the "hundred flowers campaign" (see chapter 12). He has been an open advocate ofdemocracywithout anyreservation since his exile after 1989. Trained in the field ofphysics at the Chinese University ofScience and Technology , Mr. Yan changed his specialization and gained admission to the Philosophy Institute of the China Academy of Science (CAS). Later, his interest in political philosophy and contemporary issues led him into the study of politics. His contributions at several crucial moments in post-Mao politics must have been noted by the CCP ruling circle. As a result, he was appointed first to be the founding Director ofthe Institute of Political Science of the China Academy of Social Sciences, and later to be a member of the Office for Political Reform of the Central Committee, of the CCP. From late 1978 onward, Mr. Yan's principal writings closely paralleled Deng's major political initiatives. These initiatives included the debate on the "criterion for the truth" (chapter 6), the attack on the cult ofpersonality (chapters 6, 13), the réévaluation of Mao and the Cultural Revolution (chapters 3, 4, 13), the abolishing ofthe life-tenure system for high-level cadres (chapter...

Social Reform Organizations and Subsequent Careers of Participants: A Follow-Up Study of Early Participants in the OEO Legal Services Program

Luckmann, Thomas 1967 Invisible Religion. New York: Macmillan. MacFarquar, Roderick 1960 Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals. New York: Praeger. Parsons, Talcott 1955 strains in America. Pp. 209-38 in Daniel Bell (ed.), Radical Right. Garden City: Anchor. Robinson, W. S. 1957 The statistical measurement of agreement. American Sociological Review 22: 17-25. Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1968 The reign of virtue: some broad perspectives on leader and party in the Cultural Revolution. China Quarterly 35 (July-September): 117. Simpson, E. H. 1949 Measurement of diversity. Nature 163:688. Solomon, Richard H. 1971 Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Swanson, Guy E. 1964 Birth of the Gods. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1967 Religion and Regime. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1971 An organizational analysis of collectivities. American Sociological Review 36:607-23. Taylor, Charles L. and Michael C. Hudson 1971 Handbook of Political and Social Indicators. Vol. II. Ann Arbor: Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.

The Hungarian Revolution and the Hundred Flowers Campaign

In the years 1955–56, when it had already become evident that the star of the Stalinist Rákosi-Gerö clique was on the wane in Hungary, Ho Te-ch'ing was the Chinese Ambassador in Budapest. It soon became apparent that he was quietly establishing connexions with the opposition. Not only did he have free access to the highest Party circles and maintained regular contact with the Foreign Ministry (as could be expected of a Party and state representative) but the Chinese Embassy sponsored an extensive intelligence apparatus and was generally regarded as the best informed foreign post in the Hungarian capital. The Cultural Attaché, who spoke Hungarian fluently, maintained contact with Hungarian intellectuals. At the same time, correspondents of the New China News Agency and the Chinese exchange students in Budapest reported to the Ambassador on the activities of the revolutionary Petöfi Circle and the universities. The Ambassador himself travelled widely in the country, becoming acquainted with the local Party secretaries, councilmen and other leaders in the towns and villages. He was also prominent in the social life of the Hungarian capital; his two cooks and staff providing a lavish Oriental touch. While the Soviet Embassy invited Hungarian Stakhanovists (elite workers) to its receptions, Ho was more interested in entertaining leading writers, artists, economists and newspapermen, even those who were not outspoken supporters of the regime.

The Revolution in Hungary and the Hundred Flowers Period in China

In his review of Communist China: the Politics of Student Opposition, Rene Goldman takes issue with Dennis Doolin's notion that Mao may have launched the spring, I957, Party Rectification Campaign in a self-confident mood, reassured of China's political stability by the failure of her people to respond signficantly to the autumn, I956, explosions in East Europe. Goldman holds rather that Mao feared that if concessions were not made to the people, including the opportunity to cut swell-headed cadres down to size, disturbances similar to those in Poland and Hungary might break out in China. This is not merely a disagreement about Mao's psychological state-confident or anxious-but about the nature of the Hundred Flowers Period and the active attitude of China's people to her Communist Party. There seems to be much support for Goldman's view. Mao mentions Hungary numerous times in his February 27, I957, speech, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, which helped start the rectification drive. The CCP also said the efforts of the intellectuals to provoke a Chinese Hungary was one reason for ending the drive. Theodore Chen writes in his Thought Reform of the Chinese Intellectuals (Hong Kong, I960, p. 135), that the I956 uprisings in Poland and Hungary led to liberalization in China, to a drive against Party errors, to economic concessions, for unless something was done to rectify the situation and release to some extent the mounting pressure of repressed disgruntling the Chinese Communists began to realize they might find themselves in a crisis not unlike the Hungarian uprising. This evidence, however, is not quite convincing. A historian seldom accepts a politician's word as to his own motivation without some corroborating evidence. There is very little evidence of any plot among Chinese intellectuals to overthrow the Government of China. Also, as Roderick MacFarquhar points out (The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals, New York, I960), it is difficult to correlate the minor punishments handed these men with the major crimes of which they were accused. The Party probably was trying to blame others for the failure of its liberalization efforts. It is sometimes difficult for those who insist Marxism-Leninism is a predictive science to admit it predicted incorrectly. The Party leadership offered another explanation for ending the Hundred Flowers Period. They claimed the whole thing was a trap intended to ferret out hidden enemies. This rationalization is usually rejected summarily by most scholars. It takes virtually a paranoid outlook to see Mao and his colleagues disrupting an entire society in a mammoth drive just to find some dissidents who subsequently are hardly punished. The evidence for the Hungarian rationalization seems equally weak and that theory also should be rejected.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals. By Roderick MacFarquhar. Epilogue by G. F. Hudson. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1960, xii, 324.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals. By Roderick MacFarquhar. Epilogue by G. F. Hudson. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1960, xii, 324.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals.

Writers and Artists Confer

The third Congress of China's Literary and Art Workers, the first since the Hundred Flowers Campaign, was held in Peking from July 22 to August 13 “to review and assess” the literary and artistic achievements in the years between 1953 and 1960, “summarise and exchange experience, further define the road of development of socialist art and literature, and consider the tasks to be faced in the coming years.” The presence of Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, and other political leaders and the large space which thePeople's Dailydevoted to the meeting indicated its importance. Of the 2,300 delegates there were professionals and amateurs working in local governments and the services and from them a praesidium of over 180 members was elected before the long speeches on the opening day began. Kuo Mo-jo, as the President of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, first spoke a few words of welcome and then went on to outline the circumstances under which the Congress was convoked and the general political lines along which China's art and literature had been and would be developing. These lines were repeated once more, and elaborated, by Lu Ting-yi, Director of the Party's Propaganda Department and Deputy Premier, who represented the Party and the Government, and subsequently they were to be repeated many times over. The third speaker on the opening day to recite them was Chou Yang, Vice-President of the Federation and a Deputy Director of the Party's Propaganda Department, who also laid down six tasks for the Congress.