A Chill in Spring: Literary Exchange and Political Struggle in the Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns of 1956–1958

Two Modes of Communication: Party-Speak and Literary Canon

In late 1956 and early 1957, in a move to expand the Hundred Flowers campaign, in which the Party had called for a relaxation of controls over scientific, artistic, and literary production, Mao Zedong toured China promoting freedom of expression, open criticism of the party, and a spirit of unity. In this opening phase of what would become first the Rectification (in which those outside the Party were called on to critique those within) and then the Anti-Rightist campaign (in which the offer was withdrawn with dire consequences for an estimated half million), Mao drew simultaneously on two modes of communication. He drew, of course, on the formulaic expression of Marxist-Leninist tenets that, by the mid 1950s, had become de rigueur for all party communications (Barmé, 2012). The goal of this mode, as shown by Michael Schoenhals and Ji Fengyuan, was the propagation and institutionalization of a prescribed public language founded on the CCP’s belief that even minor aberrations of phrasing in public communication could have enormous consequences for the mission of socialist state-building (Schoenhals, 1992: 3; Ji, 2004: 48, 49, 51, 74). It was a vocabulary suited to the operation of a bureaucratic system through which the party’s policies could be reliably transmitted—a system that relied, as Mao himself had later said, on the occlusion of “veiled and roundabout expressions, which are hard for the people to understand” (Mao, 1965: 92).

The second mode Mao employed as he called for an opening to criticism and debate, however, stands in contrast to the “scientific” mode outlined above. In long metaphorical passages found throughout Mao’s speeches, he traded the formulae of Marxist-Leninism for the imagery of classical literature. Mao drew on the classics for the titular metaphor of the movement itself, the “blooming of a hundred flowers” 百花齐放, and, having established this central image in 1956, he then proceeded to decorate it with other thematically or tropically related classical metaphors. It was through the metaphors of “fragrant flowers” 香花, “poisonous weeds” 毒草, and “ox-headed snake-monsters” 牛鬼蛇神, all of which appeared in Mao’s rhetoric for the first time in 1957, that Mao argued for the opening to potentially dangerous views. It was through metaphors of weather that Mao indicated the manner and severity with which he believed the Rectification and Anti-Rightist campaigns should be carried out. “Light breezes and fine rains” 和风细雨 became “violent storms” 急风暴雨 as the Rectification intensified and then hardened into the Anti-Rightist campaign (Shen, 2008: 462). However, no matter what the weather, party faithful had to feel secure. Building on his own imagery of a storm, Mao created heroic and romantic figures, casting the CCP as a “great tree,” unshakable in any strength of “typhoon,” while the “flimsy grass” of those ungrounded in Marxism was exposed and swept away.

Studies by Perry Link and David Apter and Tony Saich have touched on the political capital of Mao’s literary bent. Link devotes a section of his An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics to the political utility of metaphor, arguing that Mao and other CCP leaders found figurative rather than explicit language useful both for the margin it left for plausible deniability and for its tendency to hint at a higher theoretical plain (Link, 2013: 255). How such language circulated among the leadership or beyond into public discourse, however, remains to be examined. We are left to assume the same process of top-down enforcement as described above. On the surface, Apter and Saich, in their Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic, seem to be tackling exactly this question; however, despite their argument for seeing Mao as a master storyteller whose choice of language, rhetorical skills, and weaving of narrative were central to the creation of his power, they provide few examples of Mao’s storytelling, his unique language, or how such language was conveyed beyond the spheres of the politically connected elite (Apter and Saich, 1994).

This article seeks to fill this gap in the research by describing the networks of literary circulation that ran parallel to—sometimes in accord, sometimes at odds with—political networks. To this end, I analyze the circulation throughout public discourse of a trope ubiquitous in Mao’s rhetoric of the campaign—the “blooming of a hundred flowers.” I trace its uptake and elaboration through prose and poetry, the literary response to this proliferation by one intellectual, the anthropologist Fei Xiaotong, and the ensuing battle lines drawn. This circulation and contestation of imagery through literary exchange and debate reveal the patterns of imitation and repetition that sat alongside proscription and prescription as methods for conveying Mao and the party’s ideology. Unlike the bureaucratic control of language, however, flows of literary and linguistic influence described in the following pages allowed for eddies that fed back into, and pushed back against, the major current. This should trouble Li Tuo’s assertion of a hegemony or dictatorship of the Mao wenti adopted by all intellectuals even as they ostensibly remonstrated with the party (Li, 1993). Yes, intellectuals adopted Maoist language, but they also adapted this discourse. I argue that a contributing factor to Fei being cast as a Rightist was his ability to exert influence on the cultural realm through his literary prowess and thus disturb the party’s hegemony over the language of the People’s Republic.

In this tracing of literary exchange and struggle in what has thus far been described as a political or ideological campaign, I attempt to add to, rather than overturn, previous scholarship. Fei Xiaotong could be, and has been, written about at length for the contributions he made to anthropology in China, for his campaigning for a reinstatement of sociology to its previous status in the People’s Republic, and for his own downfall in the Anti-Rightist campaign. ³ More could be written on his rapid return from toilet cleaner to the academic world following his rehabilitation in 1979. This article engages with Fei’s key essay of the period, its elaboration on a central trope of the ongoing Hundred Flowers campaign, and the impact this had on the brief but dramatic outpouring of expression in the later stages of the campaign and prior to the Anti-Rightist attacks. In pointing to this struggle, I do not argue that Fei intentionally engaged in a literary skirmish with Mao. Rather, the brio with which Fei adopted and adapted Mao’s literary metaphor caught the attention of intellectuals across China, resulting in cycles of poaching and riffing that themselves challenged Mao’s trope of flowers blooming in an abundant springtime.

First Circulation: From Party Policy to Public Press

Building through late 1956 and ramping up as Mao began his renewed push for open debate in early 1957, party publications, especially newspapers targeting intellectuals, began to be filled with imagery drawn from Mao’s campaign and from his talks. Unsurprisingly, given its place as titular metaphor and slogan of the policy launched in 1956, “a hundred flowers blooming” was by late 1956 appearing across newspapers such as the Renmin ribao 人民日报 and the literati-focused Guangming ribao 光明日报. ⁴ Throughout late 1956 and into spring 1957, these newspapers and others were awash with headlines such as “A Hundred Flowers Bloom and a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend through the Brushes of Traditional Painters” 国画家笔下的‘百花齐放, 百家争鸣’ (Guangming ribao, November 24, 1956), and “Special Handicrafts Should Also Bloom [Like] a Hundred Flowers” 特种手工艺也要百花齐放 (Renmin ribao, January 22, 1957). Shanghai’s Wenhuibao 文汇报, relaunched in October 1956 under the editorship of the non-party journalist Xu Zhucheng 徐铸成 (1907–1991) and with both geographical as well as some bureaucratic distance from the party, was no less willing to echo the imagery of the campaign with articles such as “A Hundred Flowers Bloom: An Endless Dazzle” 百花齐放: 美不胜收 (Wenhuibao, January 23, 1957).

The uptake of imagery drawn from the Chairman’s rhetoric is striking as we look back with nearly sixty years’ hindsight telescoping the vectors of change. However, observers at the time themselves noted that Mao’s imagery was having a profound impact on public language. Xue Shan 薛汕 (1915–1999), a poet and scholar of Chinese culture, noted in early March 1957 that:

The literary publications of January 1957 are all full of a new atmosphere. Some, in conformance with the new policy of a hundred flowers blooming, have even changed their names to flowers, like Guizhou’s Shanhua 山花, Gansu’s Longhua 陇花, and Nanjing’s Yuhua 雨花. Even Luoyang’s Mudan 牡丹, though it doesn’t include the character for flower 花, is in reality a flower. (Guangming ribao, March 2, 1957)

While Xue Shan seems to be lampooning the ubiquity of floral imagery in the titles of literary periodicals, he was nonetheless drawn to use the metaphor to argue his own point. After commenting on the excessive praise and coverage given to the Beijing-based Ai Qing 艾青 in the ostensibly local Fujian poetry journal Garden 园地, Xue then returned to the same metaphor to close his article: “Let us all, from all of our own soils, together absorb the great sunshine, and let a magnificent variety of different flowers bloom!” (Guangming ribao, March 2, 1957). Xue’s words here mark an important development during the first few months of 1957. From the use of “a hundred flowers bloom” as a catch-phrase referring to the current policy, the image of flowers blooming was gradually abstracted for use as a metaphorical foundation for arguments made throughout the press.

Poetry

Expanding on the propagation of Mao’s tropology into essays and articles in the press, in late 1956 key imagery from the campaign began to appear in poetic form. Drawing on imagery of the natural world as Chinese poets had been doing since the first correlative poetry of the Book of Odes, Mao’s figurative slogans were soon incorporated into poems celebrating both the Rectification campaign and the glory of the rising People’s Republic of China under socialism and Chairman Mao. Zou Difan 邹荻帆 (1917–1995), for example, who would go on to write paeans to the glory of the Great Leap (Batt and Zitner, 2016: 317), was in 1957 already exhibiting an ability to weave disparate imagery drawn from Mao’s speeches into one poetic scene. One of Zou’s stanzas reads:

Moscow, Beijing!

You are our lighthouse, our nucleus!

The sunshine of Marxist-Leninism lights up the whole earth,

Like a hydroelectric power plant built in every person’s heart.

The east wind caresses here, a hundred flowers bloom.

The throats of thinkers contend like the chimneys of industrialization.

(Renmin ribao, January 22, 1957)

Other poems leant so heavily on Mao’s imagery that they left little room for much else. Forestry expert Liang Xi 梁希 (1883–1958) wrote an ode to the PRC under Mao, employing all the key imagery of Mao’s speech. One stanza reads:

The spring flower thrives in light breezes and fine rain,

Fragrant flowers and poisonous weeds contend in beauty;

Across mountains and rivers, people anticipate,

That all leaders and scholars will be able and virtuous.

(Wenhuibao, May 7, 1957)

No doubt Mao, who had moved into the cultural realm with the publication of his poetry in early 1957, would have been very happy to have been canonized so rapidly, as well as have his achievements placed within the context of the very longest durée of Chinese history and culture.

Blending of Poetry and Prose

As Mao’s imagery spread through both news reports and poetry, it became increasingly difficult to draw a line between the two. Political essays drew heavily on botanical imagery, while those ostensibly about gardening suddenly carried political heft. This blending of poetry and prose is especially visible in the Wenhuibao. One daily column on page three, “Intellectual Stroll” 思想漫步, offered short allegorical stories providing metaphorical food for thought. The February 15, 1957, column offered a one-sentence vignette entitled simply “Seed” 种子: “If the youth of today are infatuated with individualism and forget the collective, they’ll be like little seeds put in a box, separated from the soil that makes them grow” (Wenhuibao, February 15, 1957).

Longer articles on page three of the same issue were no less rooted in Arcadian metaphor; they simply had more room to develop an image. Zhou Shoujuan 周瘦鹃 (1895–1968), well known for both his writing and his gardening, drew Mao’s slogan into a piece ostensibly about his botanical practices. He opened with a rumination on spring, calling it the “time of a hundred flowers blooming” and noted the varieties that tended to bloom first and act as the “frontline troops of the hundred flowers.” Continuing with a long discussion of the various blooming times of plum blossoms, Zhou finally closed with a moral tale on donating his blossoms to local parks:

Some people think I’m foolish—laboring and cultivating for a whole year but not enjoying the fruits myself. I say, solitary pleasures can’t compare to the happiness of many. In this new society, everyone should think like this, how can I be any different? (Wenhuibao, February 15, 1957)

Was Zhou calling on intellectuals to participate in the Hundred Flowers by sharing their own intellectual plum blossoms with the masses? We cannot know definitively, but we can note that Zhou’s use of Mao’s slogan to open his article would have immediately suggested a political reading of this ostensibly botanical text.

Zhou’s article is also representative of a further development apparent in early 1957. From February, articles began to appear that advanced on the Chairman’s central metaphor. The “blooming of a hundred flowers” in so many artistic and literary fields naturally suggested a broader “springtime”—a new season of creativity and a flourishing of the arts and sciences. Particularly in the period following Chinese New Year, and as the pages of newspapers filled with reports of the change in season, the editorial and arts pages announced the simultaneous figurative springtime of the various fields of the arts and sciences. Under headlines such as “Springtime of the Sciences” 科学界的春天, a weather report was blended with heady propaganda (Wenhuibao, March 10, 1957), and articles such as “The Spring Colors of the Cantonese Opera Stage” 粤剧舞台的春色 linked the campaign with the season, writing of spring as the “season of a hundred flowers blooming” (Renmin ribao, February 11, 1957).

As with the hundred flowers image, it was not long before poets responded to this new motif, abstracting the imagery of springtime into poems that trumpeted the new season’s growth. It was nothing new, of course, for poets to employ the imagery of springtime. However, Mao’s appropriation of this mode in the ongoing political campaign meant that any such poetry could not help but touch on the political. Film director and critic Wu Yinxun’s 吴荫循 (b. 1933) “Melting Snow” 融雪, for example, sung of small buds of grass, sprouting up through the last winter snow.

The sky is as clear as blue jade,

The sunlight bright, so bright.

From the earth arises a steam,

Little buds of grass stretch their heads out from the remaining snow.

The wet road is lively,

Travelers smile as they cross the mud.

The warm wind brushes their face and heartens them,

She also welcomes the warmth of the sun.

(Wenhuibao, February 8, 1957)

Wu’s poem was one among many in the first months of 1957 that elaborated on the floral tropology of Mao’s rhetoric. Acting independently, at once responding to and reinforcing the theme of springtime now building in the public realm, writers like Wu, as well as Zou Difan and Zhou Shoujuan, all elaborated upon, and made incremental adjustments to, the growing trope. The cumulative effect of this independent action was an incremental heightening in pitch of the communal paean to spring, a chorus brought about not by the bureaucratic enforcement of a normative language as described by Schoenhals and Ji, but by the active adoption and elaboration of Mao’s imagery by individual writers both inside and outside the party’s sphere of institutional control.

A Unitary Public Press Hides Heterodox Reactions to the Campaign

While the individual efforts of Wu, Zou, Zhou, and others combined to create a singularly optimistic “climate” of literary and intellectual springtime, we can see from more private records of the time that there existed a full range of heterogeneous reactions to the changes signaled by Mao and the party. The novelist Shen Congwen 沈从文 (1902–1988), influential as a writer but outside the party’s literary apparatus since his purge in 1949, ⁵ was less than overcome with enthusiasm for the campaign, as revealed in a letter to his wife in April:

Here the newspapers are all full of the airing of views 鸣. Two days ago it was the authors (Ba Jin 巴 so on), yesterday it was the theatrical world (Cao Yu 曹禺, Xiong Foxi 熊佛西, Li Jianwu 李健吾, Shi Tuo 师陀)—a great wall of complaint. It’s as if the failure to write anything good was all due to restrictions enforced from above, otherwise so many great flowers would bloom! (April 30, 1957, in Shen, 1998: 285)

Also revealed are heterodox motivations for writing publicly during the campaigns. The writer Xiao Jun 萧军 (1907–1988), who had risen to fame in the 1930s with his anti-Japanese Village in August 八月的乡村 and then fallen foul of the party as he focused his sardonic tone on CCP leaders from the Yan’an years on, was as cynical as Shen Congwen, but with an apparent urge to be included in the “blooming.” In late 1956, Xiao recorded his mistrust of the campaign in his diary:

The more one finds oneself tossed about by wind and rain and meeting failure of all kinds, the more one should remain rational, clear, resolute, and unruffled, otherwise one will truly be defeated. Whoever can persevere to the end will be the victor. I’m preparing some earlier translations of twenty or thirty little historical stories and will send them to People’s Daily and Beijing Daily. Let’s see if they print them or not, then I’ll know what’s real and what’s fake in this “hundred flowers blooming, hundred schools contending,” and know also their true attitude towards me. (Diary entry for June 11, 1956, in Xiao, 2014: 550)

This cantankerous reaction to the campaign—a mixture of resentment at being excluded from the public literary realm and an urge to be published—is repeated throughout Xiao Jun’s diary for the early months of 1957.

There were, of course, also ardent supporters of the campaign. As Shen Zhihua has described the situation, already heartened by Zhou Enlai’s pronouncements at a conference on the question of intellectuals in early 1956, many felt jubilant that the Chairman himself was speaking out on the importance of treating teachers, engineers, artists, and writers with respect, listening to their concerns, and allowing for free expression of any criticism (Shen, 2008: 483). Perhaps most famously, after hearing Mao speak, the translator Fu Lei 傅雷 (1908–1966) wrote to his son of his impression that Mao was one of them, his thinking flowing “freely just like ours, like the old intellectuals” (Fu, 1982: 115–16). The diary of the young writer Xu Chengmiao 徐成淼 (b. 1939) reflects a similar thirst for public recognition through publication to that of Xiao Jun, but Xu, at eighteen years of age, exhibits none of Xiao’s cynicism. The budding author felt nothing but affirmation on hearing a recording of Mao’s February 27 speech: “Quite often lately the government and the party’s Hundred Flowers Blooming and Hundred Schools of Thought Contending policy has lifted my mood and made me cheerful, because it proves that all I’ve gone through has been for the best. This policy means that both my own personality and my favorite literature have a chance to survive” (Diary entry for April 30, 1957, in Xu, 2004: 131). ⁶

In the cases of both Xu Chengmiao and Xiao Jun, we discern a drive to have their works reach a larger audience. Indeed, the memoirs and diaries of many writers of the time exhibit such a hunger for publication. In Xiao Jun’s case, the drive would have been even stronger. As the twice-purged writer Wang Ruowang 王若望 (1918–2001) described it, “by Chinese custom, for a writer to get published is equivalent to taking out an advertisement that he is no longer an enemy of the people” (Wang, 1992: 8–9). Such motivations do not figure in the work of scholars such as Eddy U, who attribute intellectuals’ willingness to speak out in 1957 to a client-patron relationship between such intellectuals and the party (U, 2012). They belie also the model of politically opposed forces in early work on the campaign by Goldman and MacFarquhar (Goldman, 1967; MacFarquhar, 1960). Clearly, the psychological state of the Chinese writer in 1957 cannot be exhaustively explained by his or her relationship (either in conflict or in complicity) with the totalitarian state. That relationship, while of great importance, mingled also with the complex and manifold motivations shared by writers outside of the socialist Chinese literary system, including a quest for literary fame, the attention of classmates, and the salving of wounded egos.

For such intellectuals, eager to be involved but eager also to protect themselves and their families, there was also the problem of mode. The Marxist-Leninist formulaic discourse propagated by the party left little room for the expression of negative emotions of individuals. Emotionality certainly played a part in the hyperbole of Party-Speak, but it was the collective emotions of either the oppressed classes of peasants and workers or the renmin 人民 (people) as a whole. ⁷ Equally certainly, intellectuals’ own tribulations, either before or after Liberation, were inadmissible through this class-centric and formulaic language. In the classical lexicon and grammar of Chinese literature and poetry, restored to political discourse by Mao, there was more room for lyricism. However, the occupation of this literary mode by jubilant supporters of the current campaign and their cries of a great flourishing spring meant that any discordant views would immediately stand out.

Fei Xiaotong’s “Early Spring”: A Minor Fall in the Major Lift

On March 24, 1957, however, into a public discourse rejoicing over spring, an essay by noted anthropologist Fei Xiaotong was published in Renmin ribao that would dramatically alter the tropical landscape and the connection between literary and political worlds. In his essay, entitled simply “The Early Spring Weather of Intellectuals” 知识份子的早春天气, Fei traced a careful line (Fei, 1957). To intellectuals, Fei wrote, Zhou Enlai’s speech of January 1956, which suggested a rapprochement between the party and intellectuals, heralded a new “season.” Following this speech, “the breezes of the hundred schools contending began to blow and the more active element of the intellectuals began to awake.” It was heartening, said Fei, to see improvements in the treatment of intellectuals, including the return of some privileges, and more important, to see that the work of those who had been previously stifled was beginning to reappear in publications.

Fei’s assessment of the situation in which China’s intellectuals found themselves also contained a carefully worded assessment of weaknesses in the CCP’s policies toward education and research. Fei argued that attacks on dogmatism had left teachers without a standard canon to teach, while a lack of academic leadership had resulted in many of his colleagues being left without the organizational support or mentorship they required to carry out research. Turning to the Hundred Flowers initiative, while supporting the policy and the concomitant opening of discussion, Fei made the point that distinguishing between idealism and materialism was not a simple task. The more intellectuals thought on this topic, he suggested, the more complicated their emotions became. He then closed the essay by suggesting four reasons for intellectuals’ hesitancy to become involved in politics and to speak out during the Hundred Flowers campaign: first, the belief that there are experts in the political field to whom the task can be left; second, a lack of confidence to wade into the national arena; third, even with the confidence, a lack of knowledge of the political realm; and fourth, a habit of not studying anything unless it was demanded.

While Fei wrote frankly about the challenges facing intellectuals, he was certainly conservative enough to avoid appearing confrontational. Indeed, most of his analysis speaks more to understanding the current emotional state of intellectuals than to laying blame at the feet of the party. What was exceptional, however, and what would become the most influential aspect of Fei’s essay, was the central metaphor around which he wove his comments. Given the difficult times intellectuals had been through, Fei said, the Hundred Flowers campaign was seen by many as an “Early Spring”—a time when a cold snap could quickly put paid to any flower that bloomed prematurely: “For ordinary old intellectuals, at present it still feels like early spring weather. Their vitality is just starting to crop up, but they’re also still a little shy—they lack pluck and harbor more than a few misgivings. Early spring weather, unavoidably suddenly warm and then suddenly cold, is the most difficult season in which to rest” (Fei, 1957). This “early spring,” Fei added, was a time of mixed emotions. Intellectuals were at once falling in love with socialism but also carrying a sadness at being left behind in the new society.

In the closing section, Fei returned again to the metaphor with a quote from the poem “Early Spring, Light Rain” 初春小雨 by Han Yu 韩愈 (768–824), a poet whom Mao happened to take as a personal favorite. “From a distance one sees the color of the grass, up close it is lost” 草色遥看近却无. This, said Fei, is the natural scene of early springtime. Finally, Fei ended his essay by returning to the metaphor again, suggesting that coming to fully understand how intellectuals can be brought out into the political arena and become political actors would have to wait for the warmer season when flowers truly bloom 春暖花开时节 (Fei, 1957).

Fei’s essay was notable for its eloquent explication of the hesitancy of intellectuals and for the insight it offered into their complex emotional world. This group that had been traditionally esteemed, recently curtailed and even purged, was now attempting to come to terms with what appeared to be a dramatic improvement in intellectuals’ collective social status and ability to contribute to the new People’s Republic. Fei’s essay also, however, expanded the vocabulary available for those wishing to write publicly at the time. The imagery Fei drew on tethered the jubilant cries of springtime to a lyrical vocabulary capable of expressing a full range of emotions. Fei’s description of early spring as “suddenly warm, suddenly cold” 乍暖乍寒 and the hardest season “in which to rest” 最难将息, for example, was drawn from the poem “A Slow Tune” 声声慢 by Li Qingzhao 李清照 (1084–1151), a work that spoke of the anxiety felt in a fruitless search for someone or something. Fei’s closing with the line from “Early Spring, Light Rain” spoke also of the elusiveness of what one seeks—of wanting to believe in something but finding out that it is in fact illusory. It left open a positive interpretation too; Han Yu’s poem calls this “early spring” the “best time of the year, as the mist of willow blossoms fill the capital.”

Responding to the Chill

The resonance of Fei’s words with intellectuals is evidenced by the swift uptake of his key image of “early spring.” Two days after it appeared, the Wenhuibao ran a short piece on Fei’s essay: “Early spring weather—flashes of clear weather, flashes of rain; flashes of warmth, flashes of cold—it is the season that makes it most difficult to rest. Fei Xiaotong [thus] enunciated the twisting and turning inner feelings of some intellectuals.” This was all drawn directly from Fei’s essay, but the piece went on:

The season in which it’s most difficult to recuperate: on the one hand, vital like a new branch just now sprouting; on the other hand, apprehensive, hesitant, and wary as if waiting for the remaining snow to melt away. These feelings intermingle to become a symphony of contradictions.

It should be said that this early spring symphony is a prelude, announcing the arrival of full spring. (Wenhuibao, March 26, 1957)

This anonymous short article marks the first response to Fei’s essay in the press. It is worth noting that the response is all in metaphor and deals almost exclusively with the figurative aspects of Fei’s article. Further, there is no questioning of any of Fei’s arguments nor of his central metaphor. Rather, by shifting the focus from early spring as a coda to winter, to early spring as a prelude to late spring or even summer, the short allegory neatly restores the hyperbole of Mao’s rhetoric by harmonizing Fei’s metaphor with the chorus of excitement at the warming of the season.

Other early responses to Fei Xiaotong’s imagery were more combative, but also remained on theme. On March 29, “Welcome Spring, Spring Has Truly Arrived” 欢迎春天: 春天真的来了 appeared on page three of the Wenhuibao. In the story, party member and children’s author Jin Jin 金近 (1915–1989) developed an allegory in which magpies flitted about, searching for signs that spring had arrived. Against the bumbling search of the magpies, Jin juxtaposed the clear arrival of the spring season of which laborers and farmers are already fully aware. It is only those who stay wrapped up in their quilts, said Jin, who are oblivious to the change in season and the life flourishing outside their stuffy rooms (Wenhuibao, March 29, 1957). Again, Jin Jin’s allegory sought to restore the image of a flourishing springtime brought about by the blooming of a hundred flowers and to place the locus of any “spring chill” squarely in the individual qualities of particular intellectuals.

Despite, or perhaps with the aid of, opposition by those such as Jin Jin, within weeks Fei’s metaphor had become so compelling that it came to serve as the fulcrum for discussion on the Hundred Flowers campaign in literary and intellectual circles across China. In late March and early April, the so-called democratic parties, such as the CDL (China Democratic League), held meetings to discuss Mao’s two key speeches of the campaign—his February 27 “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” and his March 12 speech to close the national conference on propaganda work. Seriously undermining the principles of both “faith Maoism” and “bureaucratic Maoism,” ⁸ however, discussion quickly shifted to the words of another man. At many of these meetings, Fei’s article was raised and endorsed as “truly representing” the emotional state of intellectuals and “feeling the pulse” of this group. As the participants presented their views, each returned to the metaphor of early spring. One said:

An atmosphere of free debate has not yet taken shape. Both tangible and intangible barriers to widespread democracy and the contending of a hundred schools are piled atop one another. On the other hand, the central leadership has launched the policy of relaxation 放, so the season of spring warmth and blooming flowers must certainly arrive. Therefore, the metaphor of “early spring” has been used to describe the actual current situation. [Naturally] in early spring, intellectuals will feel the chill. (Guangming ribao, April 9, 1957)

Debate surrounded not whether the image of early spring was appropriate, but on the best way to apply it to the mood of intellectuals. As a Guangming ribao journalist covering the meetings recorded:

No one opposed the metaphor of early spring weather. However, whether all intellectuals felt the “spring chill” was the subject of much debate. One attendee said, “The spring chill will often pounce on you; if you’re not careful you’ll get sick.” Another was more optimistic: “Early spring weather, your four limbs unfurl and stretch, the beauty of springtime overflows.” (Guangming ribao, April 9, 1957)

One professor, who had been through a grueling time in the Thought Reform campaign of 1951–1952 was also optimistic about the new “season:”

In the early stages of Thought Reform, you had to accept “reform”; there was no way to avoid suffering—it was the bitter cold of winter. Since the end of this period, I have never once felt the chill of winter. Although it’s now only early spring, in my heart I carry the joy of this early spring. (Guangming ribao, April 9, 1957)

The same professor continued to develop the metaphor:

Although in early spring the dawn can be frigid, in cultivating plants the hardworking gardener will soon break a sweat. Strolling and pondering [on the other hand], one naturally pines for the early arrival of spring’s warmth and the blooming of flowers—this kind of person will of course feel the chill of spring. (Guangming ribao, April 9, 1957)

Although this unnamed professor was clearly a member of the CDL and might have been expected to side with Fei, his words parallel those found in Jin Jin’s allegory. Placing a person in this metaphorical scene of nature—either a hardworking gardener or a strolling cogitator—he suggests that any “chill” is not to be found in the environment, but in the subjective perception of individuals and as the result of their own inactivity.

These two types of responses to Fei’s metaphor—an agreement that the weather was not yet right for widespread “blooming” and an opposing suggestion that any “chill” was the fault of the intellectuals themselves—would crystallize as the battle line in a literary struggle fought throughout April, May, and into June. Writers tussled to outdo one another in attempts to recast the image and determine the season. On April 18, Pan Wenbin 潘文彬 (ca. 1927–1966), a Guangming ribao reporter, described his visit with the vice-chancellor of Peking University in “Response to Spring” 春天的感应. Pan’s report opened with a long reverie on the parallel spring times (meteorological, intellectual) pervading China and on the influence of Fei’s essay. He went on to rebuff any idea of a “spring chill,” describing Mao’s talks as the sunshine that lit up the world, before invoking Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770) to settle the matter and return responsibility for any chill to intellectuals themselves: “The good rain knows its season” 好雨知时节 (Guangming ribao, April 18, 1957).

One might have expected a more explicitly political analysis from Jian Bozan 翦伯赞 (1898–1968). However, when the Marxist historian added his authority to the debate, he too remained in theme, endorsing Fei’s metaphor (an endorsement later to be retracted) and calling for further blooming.

It goes without saying that to parallel this situation with “early spring” implies that up until now we have not yet seen a scene of thousands of purples and reds, great birdsong and fragrant flowers. What we have seen are only the buds of a few flowers, and what we’ve heard from the birds is only a prelude. (Renmin ribao, April 20, 1957)

Jian, best known as a historian, also wrote and exchanged poetry with party intellectuals such as Deng Tuo 邓拓and Guo Moruo 郭沫若. As was the case with Deng, Jian had previously kept his literary life private. It was Mao and Fei’s drawing of literary imagery into political debate that allowed those such as Jian Bozan and Pan Wenbin to do the same.

Across geographical, social, class, and party lines, Fei’s metaphor rapidly became the conduit for expressing oneself. Others weighing in on either side of this metaphorically grounded debate included writers and journalists such as Peng Zigang 彭子冈, literary editors such as Shi Tianhe 石天河, poets and literary scholars such as Lin Geng 林庚, and literature students such as Zheng Jienong 郑介农. Fei’s academic and social circle, including his old teacher Pan Guangdan 潘光旦 as well as other democratic party members such as Li Yi 李毅 and Huang Yaomian 黄药眠, also contributed to the rapidly growing trope. Others, such as the singer Zhang Quan 张权, did not actively support the metaphor but simply used it as a way to couch critiques of the state of intellectuals across China. Party leaders such as Guo Moruo and Zhang Chunqiao 张春桥, establishment intellectuals, and those under Mao’s protection, such as Yao Xueyin 姚雪垠, also variously endorsed or added to the growing popularity of the trope. As Pan Wenbin bemoaned, no one paid any attention to the beauty of the natural springtime, “because everyone is stirred up by another season—an intellectual season—and by one essay” (Guangming ribao, April 18, 1957).

Declaring the arrival of full spring did not necessarily entail taking a nonconfrontational stance on the campaign. In Tao Dayong’s 陶大镛 (1918–2010) April 27 “The Spring Chill Has Vanished, the Gardener Rushes to Raise Sprouts” 早春寒意消, 园丁快育苗, the Beijing Normal University professor at once rebuffed Fei’s “early spring” and called for more freedom for intellectuals. With the warming season, wrote Tao, it was time to throw open the gates of the garden and let all the gardeners (note the plural) in to raise sprouts and spread fertilizer (Renmin ribao, April 27, 1957). On May 23 an article by Chongqing’s Heng Fu 珩父 (dates unknown) similarly showed that accepting Mao and the party as the sunshine, or as the North or East wind, still allowed room for criticism. Heng’s article “The East Wind Spreads News of Spring, The People Consider Blooming and Contending” 东风传春讯, 人心思放鸣 argued that despite the warm winds of Mao’s talks blowing south to Shanghai, they had left places such as Chengdu with only the sound of thunder and no rain. Inverting the metaphor, Heng suggested that the great sun of the party acted like the hot air above the desert—evaporating any rain before it could moisten the earth below and nourish plants and flowers (Wenhuibao, May 23, 1957). In the case of both Tao and Heng, the opening of the discourse by Fei created a lexical foundation for such metaphorical criticism.

Conversely, the invocation of poetry from the classical canon could also be used to rebutt Fei and those who claimed to feel a “spring chill.” Fei had tapped the literary canon to suggest cool weather, and Ni Hesheng 倪鹤笙 (1913–1981), a Guangming ribao reporter, used the same means to return warmth to the season. Ni pushed back against Fei’s use of Li Qingzhao and Han Yu with his own invocations of Du Mu 杜牧 (803–852), “The streaming waters know no care, the grass claims spring for itself”; Qiu Chi 丘迟 (464–508), “the grass in the south grows long, flocks of orioles fly everywhere”; and Li Bai 李白 (701–762), “excited, and vexed by the reticence [of others].” Ni then closed with a line from the poet Wu Rong 吴融 (854–?), completing what appears to be an attempt to outdo Fei at invoking the classical canon: “It is already the season of spring warmth and blooming flowers, the apricot tree has already stretched over the garden wall.”

Private Climates: Fei’s Metaphor Reaches Unofficial Discourse

The discussion outlined above took place in the newspapers under the influence, if not direct control, of the party. Chu Anping and Xu Zhucheng, the non-party editors of the Guangming ribao and Wenhuibao, respectively, were independent to a degree, but they ran editorial teams that had been largely vetted. Xu Zhucheng, who had been chosen to edit the Wenhuibao upon its resurrection in October 1956, despite not being a party member, revered Mao at the time, comparing him in his memoirs to Mount Tai (Xu, 1987: 55). Looking beyond official channels of communication, however, shows us that the influence of Fei’s choice of words permeated into private communication and informal discourse. Indeed, as we move from the party, or semi-party, press to informal discourse, we find the most overt adoption of Fei’s “early spring” as a key image of protest.

In diaries and letters, the metaphor was both repeated and developed. Xiao Jun, who, as noted earlier, wrote of his frustration at falling outside the circle of those being published in the “blooming and contending,” turned to his diary instead. On April 9, 1957, Xiao penned a poem titled with Li Qingzhao’s line, “sudden warmth, but still cold,” and prefaced by a comment on the season: “Suddenly warm but still cold, this year’s spring arrival is not settled; it used to arrive at Tomb Sweeping day in March, but the news of peach and plum blossoms is not yet here” (Diary entry for April 7, 1957, in Xiao, 2014: 563). And on April 25, an anonymous letter to the office of Chairman Mao echoed Fei’s use of the same line, expressing disappointment with the state of affairs in Nanjing:

There is a saying that is popular both inside and outside the party: “Release the tiger and then beat it to death.” Thus, suddenly warm but still cold 乍暖还寒—though Nanjing has entered the late spring of March that should present the blooming of flowers and trees growing lively, the cold still penetrates. This cold locks up the earth tightly. (Neibu cankao, May 16, 1957)

This letter was never made public, but appeared under the headline “The Intellectual Springtime of Nanjing Has Not Yet Arrived” 南京人思想上的春天还未到来, in the intraparty circular Neibu cankao 内部参考, drawing the attention of all senior officials to both the discontent in various localities and the poetic language in which such dissent was couched.

The trope also became central in big character posters at universities around the country, such as those that appeared at the Minzu University of China 中央民族學院 on May 23. Posted by a group known as the “Honey Society,” one poster began: “Though spring has arrived at our school, people still feel a nip in the air. The leader of our school is like a woman with bound feet, hesitating to advance. Thus we feel the need to speak out” (Material Regarding the Small Clique, 1957). And in the Democracy Wall movement that sprang up at Peking University on May 19, the “early spring” image began to be woven into the poetry posted on big character posters. On May 29, the poets Shen Zeyi 沈泽宜 (1933–2014) and Zhang Yuanxun 张元勋 (1933–2013), who had inflamed the May 19^th movement with their poem “This Is the Time” 是时候了, leaned on Fei’s metaphor in their “A Person’s Song” 人之歌 with lines such as:

You would not turn white into black, and forget your conscientiousness.

Nor assert that there is no chill in spring,

Nor claim that the taste of goldthread root is as sweet as candy.

(Collection of Extra- and Intra-School Rightist Remarks, 1957: 119) ⁹

Also at Peking University, the journal Spring Thunder 春雷, which printed political and ideological limericks 打油诗 during the May 19th movement, drew its name and inspiration from Fei’s essay (interview with editor of Spring Thunder, February 2017).

Finally, by June 5, Fei’s choice of imagery had followed the same path as Mao’s and become a central motif in poetry that had made its way back into the party-led press. The Guangdong writer Chen Baishu’s 陈白曙 (1912–1986) “Spring Chill,” for example, criticized the party for urging flowers to bloom despite “hoarfrost still hanging on the bud” (Wenhuibao, June 5, 1957). Thus at the very peak of the “blooming and contending,” it was Fei’s choice of metaphor, drawing on the classical repertoire more successfully than Mao had, which became central in critiques of the party and in the playing out of the Hundred Flowers campaign. Whether we can discuss this back and forth within metaphor as representing a “public sphere” in the Habermassian sense is questionable—it fails, or would require some elegant rhetoric of our own, to meet several of Habermas’s key criteria, including rationality of discourse, a united common cause, and conference in unrestricted fashion (Habermas, 1989: 27). But there is evidence of a “discursive space,” as proposed by Hauser, in which publics (plural), be they repressed or distorted, formed rhetorical public spheres (again plural) that were based on discourse, rational or otherwise (Hauser, 1999: 61). Such interaction, Hauser proposed, can take the form of institutional actors as well as “street rhetoric,” with spheres formed around the issues that were being deliberated. In the Hauserian context, whether divisions were over constitutionality or the arrival of springtime is immaterial.

Justifying the Chill: Fei Attempts Auto-Exegesis

In late May, very likely aware of the danger he was facing, Fei Xiaotong published a follow-up article, “Before and After ‘Early Spring’” ‘早春’ 前后, in which he attempted to explain his use of the metaphor. First, Fei explained that while attempting to read the “weather” of the early months of 1957, he had delayed sending out his essay for publication. With a draft completed by mid-February, Fei had then consulted with friends as to whether it was fit for public consumption. One told him that he had heard of a speech by Mao in which the Chairman had condemned the writer Wang Meng 王蒙; another, contradicting the first, said he had heard it “passed down” that a time of “release” 放 was upon them. Fei wrote, and rewrote, and then edited his essay until the end of February, finally sending it out on the morning of February 27—the same day Mao gave his “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” speech. Fei did not attend Mao’s talk, and in “Before and After ‘Early Spring’” claims he did not know Mao was going to speak at the Supreme State Conference. He only heard about the talk from Pan Guangdan, who excitedly came looking for him after hearing Mao’s words. The result, Fei claimed in his essay, was that his “Early Spring” metaphor was correct when he wrote it, but out of date by the time it hit the Renmin ribao several weeks later. By then, said Fei, it was already full spring. As Joseph Esherick has noted, the technique of defending a piece of writing by suggesting it predated key policy announcements, or more importantly, signals from Mao, was commonly employed in the ensuing Anti-Rightist campaign (Esherick, 2011: 257–58).

Second, Fei delved deeply into the metaphor itself to explain his choice of words. He had arrived at the “early spring” metaphor, he said, after consultation with colleagues. Initially, at a talk for the China Democratic League on the situation facing intellectuals, he had used the phrase “spring chill” 春寒. But, feeling that the negative tone of the “chill” downplayed intellectuals’ enthusiasm, had replaced it with “early spring”: “The feeling of springtime was the main point, to add a word conveying a chill twisted its meaning. So I thought of ‘Early Spring.’ ‘Early’ is a positive word. When juxtaposed against the dusk or nighttime of thinking that had gone before, it spoke of a turn for the better” (Guangming ribao, May 31, 1957). Elaborating further, Fei wrote that yes, he had drawn on Li Qingzhao’s poem, but that he had also deliberately acted to soften the tone of the line:

Some people felt a chill when reading my essay; they thought that it blew a cold wind. But if you read it closely, you can see that I thought carefully about the question of temperature. For example, at first I wanted to use a direct quote from Li Qingzhao—”Flashes of warmth, still cold” 乍暖还寒—but after a while I thought: [the feeling of] this line is fundamentally cold, the warmth is weak. So I didn’t quote directly, but instead I changed the line to “flashes of warmth, flashes of cold” and in altering one word raised the status of the warmth. At the time, I kept reciting the line, “the garden filled with spring cannot be restrained.” I recited and recited it and finally decided the line was not needed. (Guangming ribao, May 31, 1957)

Finally, Fei closed again within the metaphor, saying that there was still a place in the new China for the quiet study and reflection of which intellectuals were so fond. To “let the tension settle a little, to read a little more, is the way to heap soil around the plants and spread fertilizer. In order to make the plants bloom, it won’t do to neglect these foundational things” (Guangming ribao, May 31, 1957).

This backpedaling by Fei, while revealing both the depth to which Fei had thought about the metaphor and his realization of the seriousness of his linguistic infraction, was finally ineffectual in saving the anthropologist. The image of early spring, launched two months earlier, was by now the metaphorical building block for scores of articles, both those that took issue with the party or Mao and those that supported the central authorities. It had spilled onto big character posters in the student movement at universities and had entered the public vocabulary as a widely understood slight against the “springtime” imposed from above. Perhaps most perilously for Fei Xiaotong, by coloring the image of springtime with cooler tones, he was able to challenge not the material conditions of intellectuals in the People’s Republic, but the mood. In the ensuing Anti-Rightist campaign, Fei was labeled a Rightist in part for his writing of the two meteorologically themed essays (Song, 2015a: 2.42). Case files of the Anti-Rightist campaign make it clear that the metaphor itself, and its inherent ambiguity, nettled the party even after Fei had fallen on his sword by confessing his “crimes.” In his confession, CDL member Fan Guang 樊光 (1886–1962) claimed that he had asked Fei to explain what he had meant by the final words of his first “Early Spring” essay. According to Fan, Fei answered again in a metaphor: “That itself is a question for after the warmth of spring and the blooming of flowers” (Song, 2015b: 4.32).

Beyond Fei Xiaotong, his essay became a litmus test for whether, or to what degree, one was a Rightist. Adopting or playing on his early spring trope in any way other than to blatantly deride Fei’s position became evidence of Rightist tendencies in the struggle sessions and mock trials that ensued. In many cases, even when Rightists had openly attacked the party or Mao, their endorsement of Fei’s essay still exacerbated any charges against them and resulted in an increase in their punishment. ¹⁰ The reporter Ge Yang 戈扬 (1916–2009), for instance, was accused of supporting Fei’s idea of a “spring chill,” and writing her own essay on the theme, entitled “Spring Breeze and the Rest” 春风及其他 (Song, 2015a: 2.129–40). At the top of the list of He Su’s 贺苏 (1915–?) crimes was that he expressed interest in Fei’s essay, saying that it spoke of the true feelings of intellectuals. The downfall of He, a party member, makes clear that it was not only non-party intellectuals and journalists who were toppled by intimating approval of Fei’s essay and metaphor (Song 2015a: 2.213). Indeed, Li Geng 李庚 (1916–1997) was labeled a Rightist for announcing that he was going to write an article entitled “The Early Spring of Party Intellectuals” 党内知识分子的早春天气 (Song 2015a: 3.105). The resonance intellectuals felt with Fei’s choice of words, which at first had quickened the proliferation of his ideas throughout the various debates undergirding the Hundred Flowers and Rectification campaigns, finally aided the party in identifying, prosecuting, and convicting Rightists.

Conclusion

What does the appearance and proliferation of Fei’s “early spring” in response to Mao’s own metaphor tell us about the relationship between language and politics in the Rectification and Anti-Rightist campaigns of 1956–1957? First, we note that the propagation of Mao’s literary imagery relied on patterns of literary circulation as well as the mechanisms of party propaganda. Certainly, some of the party papers were already primed to adopt Mao’s language, but as we move to local literary gazettes, to individual authors, and to poetry, it is harder to explain the circulation of Mao’s literary imagery through a model of bureaucratic authoritarianism. Instead, we observe a combination of bureaucratic discipline and what new historicists would call the “social energies” of particular texts, both of which acted in constant tension with the diverse, and often prosaic, motivations of Chinese writers. This conclusion is confirmed by the successful challenge to Mao’s imagery mounted by Fei’s “early spring” trope, which made its way from Renmin ribao and Wenhuibao to discussion meetings of democratic parties and finally into poetry and student movements at universities. Fei’s metaphor was not uncontested, as the party’s faithful leapt to defend the warmth of the season. But as Fei had with Mao’s metaphor, they did so within the trope itself, and by riffing on Fei’s metaphor, they reinforced its place as a pivotal image even as they attacked it.

Nor do the patterns of communication and circulation of imagery outlined above suggest battle lines drawn over ideological or political differences. Fei Xiaotong expressed views very close to those of the party, and indeed went out of his way to praise advances in the treatment of intellectuals. Those who agreed with his “early spring” metaphor were, for the most part, elaborating the emotional state of intellectuals, not challenging party policy. It was the effectiveness of Fei’s imagery, the rapidity with which it spread through many modes of discourse, and finally its appropriation by movements such as those at Peking University that threatened the party and were contributing factors in the attack on Fei. This threat did not take the form of an explicit political or ideological challenge to the party and Mao, but rather challenged their position as the sole font for cultural production and linguistic innovation.

How, then, to relate this phenomenon of literary play with political consequences to the broader Mao era? Timothy Cheek and others have noted the divergent schools of faith Maoism and bureaucratic Maoism present in the party during the 1950s and 1960s. Bureaucratic Maoism attempted to rationalize the words and image of Mao Zedong into a codified language suitable for bureaucratic authority but left Mao himself constrained by the same system. This may explain why, in 1956 and 1957, we can see Mao attempting to free himself through a shift to language that bypassed this system. His ramping up of literary rhetoric is an example of this, but we can also note his decision to publish his classical poetry for the first time in 1957 and his prodding of others such as the military, and later political, leader Chen Yi 陈毅 and the author Yuan Shuipai 袁水拍 to write in verse. This liberty from Party-Speak, however, also opened the way for those such as Fei Xiaotong to access the same dicta and to compete with the party faithful within this literary playing field. It was the party mechanism, led largely by Deng Xiaoping and the Central Secretariat (Chung, 2011), that finally defeated Fei and his metaphor, but not before both had shown Mao and the party that they were able to be challenged in this mode. This playing out of a literary struggle made clear to Mao and to faith Maoists such as Lin Biao that any populist movement in the future would need to proceed only after the neutering of intellectuals such as Fei who could challenge Mao in the literary mode. Indeed, such a neutering took place in the successive waves of the Anti-Rightist campaign and was enlarged and deepened to a grand scale at the opening of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.