Anti-Rightist Movement

The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the People's Republic of China, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged "Rightists" within the Chinese Communist Party (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. 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.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. 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. For example, Jiabiangou, 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

* Zhang Bojun, China's "number one rightist"
* Luo Longji, China's "number two rightist"
* Huang Qixiang
* Chen Mingshu
* Chen Mengjia
* Zhu Rongji, later Premier of China
*Wu Zuguang, playwright
* Qian Weichang
* Gu Zhun
* Long Yun, former warlord of Yunnan

See also

*Great Leap Forward
*Cultural Revolution
* List of CCP Campaigns
* Communist mass killings
* Communist terrorism
*Boluan Fanzheng
*Yan'an Rectification Movement

References

External links

An Overview of Democracy Movements in ChinaPetitioning for redress over the anti-rightist campaign
– Human Rights in China (HRIC), 2005

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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