Mao: The Unknown Story

Most of this criticism never reached the general public, as Mao only allowed carefully selected snippets to appear in the press. The rest was confined to the two channels — seminars and wall posters — which were impermanent and easy to erase. And Mao made sure that these outlets were restricted to isolated campuses and individual institutions, to which the general public was not allowed access. Nor were these institutions permitted to contact each other, and people inside them were banned from going outside to spread their views. When some students tried to distribute handwritten journals, their samizdats were instantly confiscated, and they were punished as “counter-revolutionaries.” Dissent was thus kept rigidly fragmented, so a popular uprising was impossible.

ON 6 JUNE 1957, Mao read a mimeographed pamphlet which speculated that the leadership was split, with himself cast as the champion of dissent, ranged against “conservatives.” In the information void he had created, some had mistakenly come to think that he was a liberal, and appeals had been heard like: “Let us unite around Mao Tse-tung — Khrushchev!” Some even expressed concern for Mao: “It seems our dear comrade Mao Tse-tung is in a very difficult position.” This suggestion that Mao was a liberal was dangerous for him, because it could well embolden dissent.

The next day, Mao ordered an editorial for People’s Daily to be broadcast that evening, saying that challenging the Party was forbidden. Once he pressed this button, the persecution machine started rolling for what was called the “Anti-Rightist Campaign,” which lasted a year. The brief exciting moment of “a hundred flowers” was over.

On 12 June, Mao issued a circular to the Party, to be read to all members “except unreliable ones,” in which he made it explicit that he had set a trap. He did not want his Party to think he was a liberal — in case they themselves should turn liberal.

In this circular, Mao set a quota for victims: between 1 and 10 percent of “intellectuals” (which meant the better-educated), who numbered some 5 million at the time. As a result, at least 550,000-plus people were labeled as “Rightists.” While many had spoken out, some had not said anything against the regime, and were pulled in just to fill Mao’s quota.

To Mao, writers, artists and historians were superfluous. Scientists and technicians, however, were largely exempted from persecution—“especially those who have major achievements,” a September 1957 order decreed; these “must be absolutely protected.” Scientists who had returned from Europe and America, in particular, were to be “neither labelled nor denounced.” Nuclear physicists and rocket scientists were treated extra well. (Throughout Mao’s reign, top scientists were given privileges superior even to those enjoyed by very senior officials.)

As the ultimate aim of this crackdown was to create the atmosphere for harsher extraction to finance the Superpower Program, Mao made a particular point of hammering any challenge directed against his policies towards the peasantry. One People’s Daily headline screamed: “Rebuke the rubbish that ‘peasants’ lives are hard!’ ” To drive home his message, Mao personally arranged a piece of sadistic theater. One well-known figure had been saying that peasants were “on the verge of dying from starvation,” so a “fact-finding” tour was arranged for him. People’s Daily reported that wherever he went he was pursued by crowds up to 50,000 strong, “refuting his rubbish,” and was finally forced to flee, hidden under jute sacks in the boot of a car.

Parallel with theater came executions. Mao revealed later to his top echelon that one province, Hunan, “denounced 100,000, arrested 10,000 and killed 1,000. The other provinces did the same. So our problems were solved.”

A particular example was made of three teachers in one county town in Hubei province who were executed for allegedly stirring up a demonstration by schoolchildren over education cuts. The effect of the cuts was that only one in twenty children would now be able to go on to high school. The demonstration was branded “a Little Hungary,” and a special point was made of publicizing the executions nationwide. It is almost certain that Mao personally ordered the death sentences, as he had just arrived in the province the day before they were passed, and up till that moment the authorities had been undecided about imposing the death penalty. The huge publicity was intended to instill fear in rural schools, which bore the brunt of the education cuts Mao had introduced to squeeze out more funds for the Superpower Program.