ABSTRACT
On May 2, 1956, Mao Tse-tung, in a speech to the Supreme State Conference, developed various themes with liberal overtones, illustrating them with an old image from the Warring States period: "May a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend. The essential part of what Lu Ting-yi said, at a conference of writers, was that the differences between the various schools in literature, the arts, and science should be allowed to flourish. In fact, the statements made by the minister of propaganda followed and enlarged upon those of Chou En-lai, who had spoken a few months earlier at a conference called by the Central Committee to study the question of the intellectuals. The Antirightist Movement of 1957 made itself felt in the administration, the press, and the Party. In September, at the Third Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee, Teng Hsiao-p'ing mentioned the Antirightist Movement, which had assumed a national scale.
