Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (1950s) – Mao’s Rethink

Early on in the period of the first five-year plan (in 1956) Mao critiqued the soviet model that had produced it and recognised the economic imbalances it had in turn produced in ‘On the Ten Major Relationships’. He called for a shift in emphasis from investment in the heavy industry beloved by Stalin to investment in light industry and agricultural technology, decentralisation of development and of economic control and the abandonment of ‘one-man-management’ in favour of ‘collective management’.

This signalled the beginning of Mao’s rethink that continued into 1958 and it is notable that today this period is considered by the CCP itself to be the one in which Mao began to get much of his thinking wrong (in 1981 it said Mao was 70% good 30% bad and that all the bad dated from 1957). Mainly this is because the crackdown that followed the call for the ‘flowers to bloom and ideas to contend and so on’, the failure of the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution can be traced in part to that thinking. He was certainly on to something with the critique of the soviet model, however, but from there he went on (and off the rails).

Historians tend to suggest that Mao had probably wanted to get intellectuals on side and when surprised by his failure to do so overreacted with the anti-rightist campaign that followed its manifestation. Problems had arisen and he did need assistance to resolve the tensions that had built up.

Some accept his explanation that he was merely setting a trap, however.

His own apparent theoretical effort at rapprochement at least that led to such dismal failure began in February of 1957 with ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Amongst the People’. He tentatively concluded there that it was possible for contradictions to occur under socialism and that the CCP could be wrong leading to his suggestion that it might be possible for others to validly criticise it provided the criticism was constructive. He thus urged the party itself to listen out for constructive criticism from without but especially from the masses (his faith in intellectuals had never been complete). He had first asked for the ‘hundred flowers to bloom’ in May of 1956 and at that time he was speaking to intellectuals hoping they could help him build a better socialism.

So Mao at least apparently began with the aim of recognising the validity of some intelligent criticism but the end result was that he ultimately despaired of intellectuals as a group on which he could rely for his purposes (if he did ever trust them) and in addition created conditions for even the virtually complete absence of constructive criticism of decisions made at the centre.

All that many had aimed to do was help Mao to improve socialism when they accused the CCP of abandoning the peasants and workers and becoming a new ruling class but he simply didn’t see it like that. He saw them as enemies of the people just like Nationalists simply because they, by implication, had criticised him. The anti-rightist campaign commenced in June of 1957. Between half a million and a million people in all were labelled rightist over the course of about a year ending in 1958 with consequences often both dire and long term for both the individuals and their families.