The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged " Rightists" within the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

(CCP) and the country as a whole. The campaign was launched by Chairman Mao Zedong, but Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen also played an important role. The Anti-Rightist Campaign significantly damaged democracy in China and turned the country into a ''de facto'' one-party state. The definition of rightists was not always consistent, often including critics to the left of the government, but officially referred to those intellectuals who appeared to favor capitalism, or were against one-party rule as well as forcible, state-run

collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

. According to China's official statistics published during the " Boluan Fanzheng" period, the anti-rightist campaign resulted in the political persecution of at least 550,000 people. Some researchers believe that the actual number of persecuted is between 1 and 2 million or even higher. Deng Xiaoping admitted that there were mistakes during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and most victims have received rehabilitation since 1959.

History

Background

The Anti-Rightist Campaign was a reaction against the Hundred Flowers Campaign which had promoted pluralism of expression and criticism of the government, even though initiation of both campaigns was controlled by Mao Zedong and were integrally connected. Going perhaps as far back as the Long March there had been resentment against "rightists" inside the CCP, for example,

Zhang Bojun Zhang Bojun (; November 17, 1895 – May 17, 1969) was a Chinese politician and intellectual, and was removed from his ministerial position in the late 1950s after being declared "China's number one rightist." Biography Zhang graduated from the ...

.The International PEN Award For Independent Chinese Writing
, EastSouthWestNorth, retrieved 2007-01-19.

First wave

The first wave of attacks began immediately following the end of the Hundred Flowers movement in July 1957. By the end of the year, 300,000 people had been labeled as rightists, including the writer

Ding Ling Ding Ling (; October 12, 1904 – March 4, 1986), formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi (), also known as Bin Zhi (彬芷 ''Bīn Zhǐ''), one of the most celebrated 20th-century Chinese women authors. She is known ...

. Future premier Zhu Rongji, then working in the State Planning Commission, was purged in 1958. Most of the accused were intellectuals. The penalties included informal criticism, hard labor, and in some cases,

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

. For example,

Jiabiangou Jiabiangou Labor Camp () is a former farm labor camp (laogai) located in the area under the administration of Jiuquan in the northwestern desert region of Gansu Province. The camp was in use during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the years from 19 ...

, a notable labor camp in Gansu, held approximately 3,000 political prisoners from 1957 to 1961, of whom about 2,500 died, mostly of starvation. One main target was the independent legal system. Legal professionals were transferred to other jobs; judicial power was exercised instead by political cadres and the police.

Second wave

The second part of the campaign followed the Lushan Conference of July 2 – August 16, 1959, a meeting of top party leaders. The meeting condemned the PRC's defense minister, General Peng Dehuai, a critic of the Great Leap Forward.

Criticism by Mao

Administering several provinces in the southwest, Deng proved so zealous in liquidating alleged counter-revolutionaries that even the Chairman felt obliged to write to him. Mao urged Deng Xiaoping to slow down the campaign's body count, saying:

Rehabilitation

After Mao's death in 1976, many of the convictions were revoked during the Boluan Fanzheng period. At that time, under leader Deng Xiaoping, the government announced that it needed capitalists' experience to get the country moving economically, and subsequently the guilty verdicts of thousands of counterrevolutionary cases were overturned — affecting many of those accused of rightism and who had been persecuted for that crime the previous twenty two years. This came despite the fact that Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen were among the most enthusiastic prosecutors of the movement during the "First Wave" of 1957.

Censorship in China

In 2009, leading up the 60th anniversary of the PRC's founding, a number of media outlets in China listed the most significant events of 1957 but downplayed or omitted reference to the Anti-Rightist Movement. Websites were reportedly notified by authorities that the topic of the movement was extremely sensitive.

Famous Rightists

, China's "number one rightist" *

Luo Longji Luo Longji (; July 30, 1898 – December 7, 1965) was a Chinese politician and famous intellectual. Luo has been called the "China's number two rightist". He and Hu Shih collaborated to research and promote human rights in China, which made them o ...

, China's "number two rightist" *

Huang Qixiang Huang Qixiang (; 2 September 1898 – 10 December 1970) was a Chinese military commander and statesman. He led the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, Chinese Action Committee for National Liberation in 1933 during the short-lived P ...

Chen Mingshu Chen Mingshu (; 15 October 1889 – 15 May 1965) was a Chinese general and politician. A Hakka from Hepu, Guangxi, he graduated from Baoding Military Academy and participated in the Northern Expedition. He was briefly premier after Chiang Kai-sh ...

Chen Mengjia Chen Mengjia (; 20 April 1911, in Nanjing – 3 September 1966, in Beijing) was a Chinese scholar, poet, paleographer and archaeologist. He was considered the foremost authority on oracle bones and was Professor of Chinese at Tsinghua University ...

* Zhu Rongji, later Premier of China * Wu Zuguang, playwright * Qian Weichang * Gu Zhun * Long Yun, former warlord of

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

References

External links

An Overview of Democracy Movements in ChinaPetitioning for redress over the anti-rightist campaign
– Human Rights in China (HRIC), 2005 {{Authority control Campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party Political repression in China Political and cultural purges Maoist terminology Maoist China Cold War history of China Communist repression 1950s in China Human rights abuses in China Persecution of intellectuals