Poison grass needs to be weeded out People

“Poison grass needs to be weeded out. People on the right party must be ‘fixed. ’ Failure to do so will result in grave mistakes. This must be done bit, by bit, kill off the enemy one by one. ” -Mao “Intellectuals are beginning to. . . change their mood from cautious to open. . . One day punishment will come down on their heads. . . You must stiffen your scalps and let them attack!. . . Let all those ox devils and snake demons. . . curse us for a few months. I am casting a long line to bait big fish” -Mao "Let Flowers of Many Kinds Blossom, Diverse Schools of Thought Contend!“ -Mao "Intellectuals are often ignorant and have little or experience in practical matters" -Mao Thesis: Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign and Thought Reform failed to create any reforms for China as it was thought to be a devious way of flushing out the opposition rather than a genuine attempt to find out what the people thought.

Thesis Rational • Thesis: Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign and Thought Reform failed to create any reforms for China as it was thought to be a devious way of flushing out the opposition rather than a genuine attempt to find out what the people thought. • The Thought Reform was meant to change peoples thoughts in order to help develop a communist country where everything was shared and all people were equal. • It is important to Mao that all people followed his Communist ways of leadership had no thoughts of being superior to him. To make sure of this the Hundred Flowers Campaign was created in order to find out the Chinese thoughts on Mao himself and communism. • The Hundred Flowers Campaign was a time of debate and reflection on how the government was being run and allowed all citizens to freely express their views on Mao and the communist government. • Mao presented this as a genuine way to find out the peoples thoughts but in the end it was a scam to manipulate the people who didn’t express a liking for Communism which tended to consists of all of the Intellectuals or highly educated. • For those who expressed a negative attitude toward Communism, they would be humanized for their thoughts and be punished for their disagreement with the government by sending them to labor camps or spend time working with peasants to be re-educated.

Key • The political cartoon in the top left corner represents the 500, 000 intellectuals who were forced to work in labor camps or were sent to be re-educated due to their expressions against Mao’s communist leadership during the Hundred Flowers Campaign. • The political cartoon in the bottom left represents how Mao told the people that they could share their opinions on the way that the Communists ran China, but instead of accepting their criticism as instructive, he punished them and took down anyone that was against the Communists. The cartoon shows how Mao said “Let a thousand flowers blossom” but then, in the cartoon, the Communists tore down the flowers. This negatively affected the Chinese people because they were told that they had the freedom to say anything about the government, but when they did they were punished because they were viewed as “Anti. Communist”. Many people believe that Mao encouraged people to share what they thought of the Chinese government in order to expose the intellectuals that were against Communism and take them down. • The political cartoon in the top right represents how the Hundred Flower Campaign looked like a good new start to China, hearing from people about what they think about the new government ideas. However the whole campaign was just to manipulate the upper class and reeducate them into learning the communist ways. The Hundred Flowers Campaign was the start to a whole new army of young people and the greatest amount of nationalism in China’s history. The political cartoon’s main idea is how Mao was secretly creating a huge army and would want to become a superpower of loyal citizens and nuclear threat.

Key • The political cartoon in the bottom right demonstrates how Mao treated the people that listened to him and shared how they felt about the Chinese, by punishing them. Mao told the people that they could say anything that they wanted about the government as a way of constructive criticism, but when some of the people did as he said and shared how they felt about the Communist government he responded by punishing them and putting them in camps in order to “reeducate” them. This is shown in the cartoon because he said “Let a hundred flowers blossom” meaning for the people to speak up, and when the flowers did grow, he ultimately killed the flowers and silenced the people. • The political cartoon in the middle represents how in the Thought Reform Mao and the communist government wanted to hear from the people about how they liked and felt about the new communist way of life. However, if someone spoke up against the communist they would imprison them and send them to labor camps to teach them the communist ways. Many of the intellectuals where the ones to speak up against the government. This led to about 500, 000 people being punished and “re-educated. ” This created a fear factor in the Chinese people making them not want to speak up against the communist leaders because they knew that they would be severely punished. The hundred flower campaign allowed Mao to get rid of any opponents and begin the raise of The Red Guard and the communist’s enthusiasts.

Key • The quote in yellow is a good example of Mao displaying his favoritism over the peasants than the intellectuals of society. Mao always thought the foundation of society was the working class people or the peasants, and thought they were the most important in order to make improvement on society. In this specific statement Mao is saying that the intellectuals do not know anything about real life situations because they believe that they are above everybody else in society and do not understand what it is like to overcome adversity like the peasants have. Also, in order to make a better society Mao is saying to get rid of the intellectuals because they pose a threat and are considered the opponent, and in order for Mao’s plan to follow through then the intellectuals must be destroyed. • This statement by Mao actually will do nothing but hurt China’s growth and improvement. The intellectuals are the people of society that received high education and actually excel at making reasonable and smart real life decisions. Without the intellectuals the government would soon collapse, and this statement by Mao is just another example about how the Hundred Flowers Campaign was not a true attempt at improving society, but seeing the opposition and bringing them to an end so he could still reign.

Key • The quote in black is Mao stating the he will wait for the response of the people on the campaign and then he will take further action based on the response. Again, just another sign that Mao is just trying to annihilate the opposition, more than he is trying to improve China as a whole. Mao is simply waiting to see true communists that are supporting him vs. the people who are against the idea of communism and are trying to show that the idea is absurd. Mao takes cruel action against the anti- communists and will try to kill them or do anything to strike fear into them and prove that communism is the only way of life that will work in China. • Mao is really deterring the growth of China by creating hostility between people with different opinions on the type of government and economy that should exist in China. Mao threatening to use acts of violence as a way to support his vision of China is going to do nothing except hurt China. Mao was just waiting for people to reveal their true opinions, so he could first identify his opponents, and then over power them with ease and eliminate them so all the people that would exist would be communist supporters. Which in his mind would lead to a better China with no disagreement, when in reality would lead to much hostility and anger and violence all throughout China.

Key • In the red quote, Mao Zedong is making a connection, comparing the educated intellectuals in China to the poison grass weeds. Mao Zedong was a vicious ruler. He was one of the most brutal dictators that ever ruled China, yet he is continued to be celebrated throughout the Chinese culture as some amazing, life changing leader. What Mao’s plan was to achieve country domination was to get ahold of the young learning Chinese youth and bring them under his power so that he can train them all to obey all of his beliefs and laws no matter how brutal they actually were. The youth accepted these laws and went along to learn what awfulness he was teaching to them. The older intellectuals were taken out of their natural teaching niche and were scolded by Mao and his followers publically embarrassed them in front of tons of people. The youth also took part in this because that is what they were taught to do. In this quote he refers to the weeds as the intellectual people because they are enriched with the knowledge that the youth is yet still to learn. The teachers could not teach the youth the good in life because Mao took them to teach them his awful ways. He takes the smart people who actually know what’s right and wrong out of their culture and trains the youth the bad ways. This was a negative effect in China because it turned all of the citizens of China into naïve people.

Key • The green quote demonstrates the true anger of Mao and his knowing that the intellectuals can take down his empire if he doesn’t dispose of them properly. The intellectuals know that what Mao is doing is corrupt and wrong. If they choose to spread this to other countries publically, then he fears that the countries will try to step in and take over his empire. He says that they must be punished because they aren’t cautious, they are open about their opinions. The punishment that he ends up assigning them are the public humiliation and brutality in front of tons of Chinese citizens. Created by: Maggie Renehan, Erica Kittermam, Mitchell Bates, Matt Dunkin, Matt Porreca