Peng Dehuai’s Letter

On July 14, 1959, at the Lushan Conference, Marshal Peng Dehuai wrote a letter to Mao Zedong about the problems of the Great Leap Forward. On July 16, Mao had it printed for all participants under the title “Comrade Peng Dehuai’s Statement of Opinion,” with the note “printed for comrades’ reference.”

Peng protested that it was a personal letter to Mao. “How did it become a ‘statement of opinion’? Why is it to be discussed?” He asked to take the private letter back. In August, a plenum condemned the “anti-Party clique headed by Comrade Peng Dehuai,” and a campaign against “right deviation” began.

The Anti-Rightist Campaign

In 1957, the Party invited criticism under the slogan “let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” When the criticism came, a People’s Daily editorial answered: “Some say this was a plot. We say it was an open scheme (yangmou), because we told the enemy in advance. Only when poisonous weeds come out of the soil can they be easily hoed.”

By the Party’s own later count, about 550,000 people were labeled “rightists.” Figures cited from declassified central archives are far higher. The democratic parties, which had been told that “those who speak are not guilty,” no longer dared to speak in political life.

Indirect Admonition

In a story from the Strategies of the Warring States, Zou Ji asks his wife, his concubine and a guest whether he is more handsome than Lord Xu of the northern city. All say yes. When he sees Lord Xu, he knows they were wrong. His wife favored him, his concubine feared him, and the guest wanted something from him.

Zou Ji then tells King Wei of Qi that the king, surrounded by palace women, ministers and common people, is deceived far more than he is. He urges the king to open the way for criticism. The story is collected in the anthology Guwen Guanzhi as “Zou Ji Admonishes the King of Qi Indirectly to Accept Advice.”

Soft Nails

软钉子 A soft nail. A refusal or criticism made in a gentle, roundabout way.

旁敲侧击 To knock at the side and strike from the flank. To make a point indirectly, without stating it.

指桑骂槐 To point at the mulberry and curse the locust tree. To seem to blame one person while really blaming another.

The Four Bigs

Article 45 of the 1978 Constitution gave citizens the right to use “speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters.” These “four bigs” (si da) had grown out of the rectification and Anti-Rightist campaigns of 1957 and flourished in the Cultural Revolution.

On August 30, 1980, the National People’s Congress amended the Constitution and removed them.

Harmony Is Most Precious

礼之用，和为贵: “In the practice of the rites, harmony is most precious.” The line is in the first book of the Analects. It is often quoted as Confucius, but the speaker is his disciple Youzi.

The passage continues with a limit: “To know harmony and seek harmony, without regulating it by the rites, will not work either.”

Li Wenliang’s Message

On December 30, 2019, Li Wenliang, an eye doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital, wrote in a WeChat group of his medical school classmates that seven cases of SARS had been confirmed from the Huanan seafood market. He wanted to warn colleagues to protect themselves.

On January 3, 2020, a local police station gave him a warning and a reprimand for “publishing untrue statements on the internet.” Li died of COVID-19 on February 7, at the age of 33. On March 19, an investigation team of the National Supervisory Commission recommended that the reprimand be withdrawn.

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