Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
In a previous article I outlined briefly the development of the situation on the campus of Peking University (Pei-Ta) before, during and after the momentous events of the spring of 1957, the period of the “rectification campaign.”
The sequence of events in the past four years permits us to view the rectification campaign as a dividing date in the history of Communist China. The rectification campaign was the culminating point of a period that had seen the post-revolutionary reorganisation of the country, the assertion by the Communist Party of total control over the political, economic and ideological life of the nation and, following a campaign of liquidation of counter-revolutionary elements in the summer of 1955, a sudden “thaw.”
1 See “Peking University Today,” The China Quarterly, No. 7, 07–09 1961.Google Scholar
2 See Directives on Rectification, People's Daily, 05 1, 1957.Google Scholar
3 Ta-yung, Tao, “The Flowers in Bloom are too Few, The Voices of Controversy are at too Low a Pitch,” Peking Daily, 04 20, 1957.Google Scholar
4 A formula coined by Ch'u An-p'ing, chief editor of the Kuang-ming Daily, in one of his articles.
5 Allusion to the “San Hao” (Three Good) directive of Mao Tse-tung to the youth: “Good health, good study, good work.”
6 Later accused of having headed an anti-Party plot with Chang Po-chün.
7 This fear was expressed by Lu Ting-yi in his speech, “The Basic Differences Between the Bourgeois Rightists and Us,” delivered to the Fourth Session of the First National People's Congress on July 11.
8 Interview with Mo-jo, Kuo, Kuang-ming Daily, 06 28, 1957.Google Scholar