Hundred Flowers Campaign
The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement (Chinese: 百花齊放; pinyin: Bǎihuā Qífàng) and the Double Hundred Movement (雙百方針; Shuāngbǎi Fāngzhēn), was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the People's Republic of China during which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong, proposed to "let one hundred flowers bloom in social science and arts and let one hundred points of view be expressed in the field of science." It was a campaign that allowed citizens to offer criticism and advice to the government and the party; hence it was intended to serve an antibureaucratic purpose, at least on the Maoists' part. The campaign resulted in a groundswell of criticism aimed at the Party and its policies by those outside its rank and represented a brief period of relaxation in ideological and cultural control.