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The Hundred Flowers Campaign period refers to a brief interlude in the People's Republic of China from 1956 to 1957 during which the Communist Party of China authorities permitted or encouraged a variety of views and solutions. Subsequently an ideological crackdown re-imposed Maoist orthodoxy in public expression.
The name Hundred Flowers originates from a poem:
百花齊放，百家爭鳴 "Let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend."
The campaign emphasized on the so-called "social democracy" in a communist country. The idea was to have intellectuals discuss the country's problems in order to promote new arts and new cultural institutions. In response, many scholars and intellectuals sent the government letters advising a more open society.
In actuality, the Hundred Flowers Campaign was a ploy by Mao Zedong to pick our counter-revolutionaries on the basis of their letters. As a result, many of these so-called anti-revolutionaries were later arrested, convicted and sent to prison or sentenced to death.