ABSTRACT
The most thorough scholarly analyses of the Hundred Flowers experiment view it as the cause of sharp, divisive debate within the top Party leadership. The innovations of the Hundred Flowers were themselves seen by many Party members as a violation of traditional procedures. While the Hundred Flowers and mutual supervision policies had implications for rectification, a series of more direct steps began in mid-1956 with a Central Committee notice on the study of rectification documents. In addition, in early 1957 a series of developments occurred indicating resistance to possible directions which rectification and the Hundred Flowers might have taken. Tse-tung Mao's Hundred Flowers and rectification policies met inner Party opposition well before the full extent of his miscalculation became apparent in May. The complex response within the Party to Mao's initiative was paralleled by the reaction of the intellectual community.
