Letting a Hundred Flowers Bloom and Letting a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend

Also known as the "two hundred" policy adopted by the CPC, as an important guiding principle for the prosperity and development of socialist science, culture, literary and art. On April 28, 1956, at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Mao Zedong clearly put forward this policy for the first time. He said, "I think our policy should be to let a hundred flowers blossom on artistic issues and a hundred schools of thought contend on academic issues.'' Ever since then, this has been a basic policy for promoting progress in the arts and sciences and making the socialist culture flourish in our country.

On May 2, Mao Zedong officially declared in the meeting of the Supreme State Conference, "let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend" should be the guiding principle for the Party to develop science and to prosper literature and art. On May 26, 1956, Lu Dingyi, the Director of the Publicity  Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, made a speech entitled "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom and a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend", which systematically expounded the policy put forward by the Central Committee of the Party.

He pointed out that "hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending" advocated by the CPC Central Committee means that we stand for freedom of independent thinking, of debate, of creative work; freedom to criticise and freedom to express, maintain and reserve one’s opinions on questions of art, literature or scientific research, it means we stand free academic debate based on science. At the same time, workers in the fields of cultural, literary and art and science should study Marxism-Leninism and take the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism as the guidance in our various undertakings, including scientific and cultural undertakings. In his speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” on February 27, 1957, and in his speech on March 12 at the National Conference of the CPC on publicity, Mao Zedong further and systematically expounded the policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend".

Mao Zedong explicitly declared that "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend" is a long-term as well as a fundamental policy; it is not just a temporary policy. The proposal and establishment of the "double hundred" policy has drawn on the experience of academic and cultural development in China's pre-modern history, summed up the experience and lessons of the scientific and cultural work under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, as well as the experience and lessons drawn from the experiences of leading scientific and cultural work by certain foreign parties.

The policy mainly aimed to mobilize all positive factors so that intellectuals could better serve the people, new China and socialist construction. Once it was put forward, it immediately aroused strong repercussions within the intellectual circles, and promoted the vigorous development of the academic and cultural undertakings.

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC, Deng Xiaoping stressed: in the new historical period, we will always persist in the policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom, weeding through the old to bring forth the new, making the past serve the present and making foreign things serve China, advocate the free development of different forms and styles in artistic creation, and in literature and art theory we will advocate the free debating of different views and content among a variety of schools. The policy of "letting hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend" reflects the objective law of the development of socialist science and culture and is a significant guiding principle that we should uphold for a long time to come.

Together with the Party's policy that literature and art works should serve the people and socialism, as well as other important policies in the spheres of science and culture, the policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and letting a hundred schools of thought contend is a fundamental guarantee for the prosperity and progress of socialist scientific and cultural undertakings.